Chapter Eleven #3
Reporters attempted to ask about the evening’s game, but attention kept moving toward the phones held by team staff and players.
Joona answered questions about his recent scoring chances with admirable patience. His gaze still flicked toward the communications staffer near the door every few seconds.
The tenth forward appeared.
Not Joona.
The eleventh.
Another veteran center.
Joona folded the towel in his hands, then unfolded it again.
Tessa considered leaving. Whatever happened, the moment would feel more private without several reporters watching him react.
But the communications staff had asked them to remain.
If Joona made the team, he would be available immediately.
If he did not, they would give him time before deciding whether he wanted to speak.
Matvei walked across the room and lowered himself onto the empty stall beside Joona.
He said something too quiet for Tessa to hear.
Joona shook his head.
Matvei answered.
The twelfth forward was announced.
Joona Salonen.
The room erupted before Joona’s phone finished vibrating.
Viktor reached him first, pulling him to his feet and wrapping both arms around him. Cole struck his back. Several players shouted something about Helsinki while Joona attempted to cover his face with one hand.
Matvei remained beside the stall.
He waited until the others moved enough to reach Joona, then placed both hands against the younger winger’s shoulders and said something close to his ear.
Joona nodded.
His eyes were wet when he stepped back.
The emotion transformed the room. Players who had spent the morning joking got quieter, understanding what the selection meant before Joona explained it to anyone else.
He called his family from the hallway.
When he returned, his face was red, though whether from crying or trying not to remained impossible to tell.
The reporters gathered again.
Joona sat beneath his stall, smiling before the first question.
“What did your parents say?” Tessa asked when her turn came.
“My mother cry again.”
“And your father?”
“He ask if I am power play.”
The room laughed, recalling the answer from roster-cut day.
Joona laughed too.
Then his expression softened.
“They have tickets already,” he said. “My parents, sister, grandparents. My friends try get tickets. Everybody.”
“What do you imagine it’ll feel like to skate out for Finland in that building?”
Joona looked down at his hands.
“I don’t know English word.”
Nobody rushed to fill it.
He looked toward Matvei.
Matvei shook his head. “No word.”
Joona nodded.
“No word,” he repeated.
Tessa did not ask him to find one.
She used the answer exactly as it was.
Viktor made Sweden’s roster the following week.
His announcement carried less suspense, though no less meaning.
Sweden included him among the first group of veterans named, identifying him as one of the team’s alternate captains.
The Convoy played at home that night, and the arena recognized him during a television timeout.
Viktor stood at the bench and raised his stick while Swedish flags appeared across the video board.
At thirty-four, he understood how to accept attention without appearing consumed by it.
Only after the game did Tessa see what the selection meant.
She found him alone in the hallway outside the locker room, speaking Swedish into his phone with his back against the wall. His voice broke once. He stopped, pressed his fingers against his eyes and laughed quietly at whatever the person on the other end said.
Tessa kept walking.
When Viktor returned to the room several minutes later, he wore the same easy smile he offered everyone.
She interviewed him about the selection as though she had seen nothing.
By the first week of December, all three players had their places in Helsinki.
The tournament became part of nearly every day.
National team equipment began arriving in boxes near the locker room.
Joona compared Finland’s preliminary schedule with his family’s plans.
Viktor joked that Sweden’s uniforms looked better than everyone else’s.
Matvei complained that Russia’s first practice had been scheduled too early after the flight, though the irritation sounded more anticipatory than genuine.
Tessa’s assignment became official.
Elaine forwarded a flight itinerary that sent her from Halifax to Montreal, then landing Helsinki on December 23rd. She would remain through the championship game on New Year’s Day. The Tribune booked her into a hotel downtown, several blocks from the arena.
She spent evenings requesting credentials, studying rosters and attempting to understand a tournament format that seemed to change each time the league released another document.
The round robin would determine semifinal seeding, but a convoluted tiebreaking procedure included goal differential, head-to-head results and total regulation wins.
Elaine wanted daily notebooks focused on the Convoy players, plus game stories and features whenever the schedule allowed.
Tessa began building a spreadsheet.
Joona’s family story.
Matvei’s old goalie coach, if he traveled from Russia.
Viktor’s leadership role.
Joona against Matvei in the round robin.
Canada against the U.S..
The possibilities seemed endless.
So did the workload.
Nina came over one evening with takeout and found Tessa sitting on the floor amid open luggage, winter clothing and three power adapters she had ordered without knowing which one would actually work.
“You’re leaving in two weeks,” Nina said.
“I know.”
“Then why does it look like you’re evacuating?”
“I need to know what fits.”
“You have six sweaters.”
“I’m going to Finland.”
“Do they not have heating?”
Tessa held up two nearly identical black turtlenecks. “Which one looks more professional?”
Nina stared.
“They’re the same shirt.”
“They are not.”
“They are spiritually the same shirt.”
Tessa folded both and placed them into the suitcase.
Nina lowered herself onto the couch. “So you’re spending Christmas in Helsinki with the cute goalie.”
“And roughly two hundred other hockey players, reporters, coaches and staff.”
“You knew exactly which goalie I meant.”
“You’ve only called one of them cute.”
“I’ve never seen the other one.”
Tessa closed the suitcase halfway, met resistance from a sweater and opened it again.
“Nothing is happening.”
“I did not say anything was happening.”
“You were about to.”
“I was going to ask whether you two are still fighting.”
Tessa stopped rearranging the clothes.
“We’re not fighting.”
“That sounded convincing.”
“We had one argument.”
“About the mean headline.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And nothing. We talked about it. He was angry. I was angry. We both still have jobs.”
Nina accepted the takeout container Tessa handed her.
“Are things normal again?”
Tessa thought of Calgary. Matvei’s answer about a national team representing where a person came from. The slight return of humor when she told him it was good. The way he had looked at her before the next reporter approached and the distance returned.
“Different normal,” she said.
Nina nodded as though the answer confirmed something.
Tessa opened her own container before her friend could ask anything else.
The Convoy played Quebec City in their final game before the international break.
The Atlantic Centre felt festive in a way hockey arenas rarely managed without becoming excessive. Holiday music played during warmups. Fans wore red and green versions of team sweaters. Children pressed against the glass holding signs wishing Joona, Viktor and Matvei luck in Helsinki.
The three players were recognized before puck drop.
A video montage showed highlights from their international careers.
Joona appeared in Finland’s junior uniform, younger and thinner but recognizable in the way he attacked open ice.
Viktor lifted a trophy with Sweden years earlier.
Matvei stood beneath a Russian flag with a medal around his neck, his expression as guarded at twenty as it was now.
The crowd rose for them.
Tessa watched from the press box while the players acknowledged the ovation.
Joona smiled openly.
Viktor raised his stick.
Matvei gave one brief wave with his blocker before returning to the crease.
Halifax controlled most of the first period. Joona scored on the power play, his tenth goal of the season, and Viktor assisted on another. Matvei stopped all nine shots he faced.
The game appeared to be carrying them cleanly toward the break.
Then Viktor went into the boards.
The hit came midway through the second period near the Quebec City bench.
Viktor reached for a loose puck as a defenseman closed from behind and to the side.
The contact itself was legal, more forceful than malicious.
Viktor’s right skate caught awkwardly near the base of the boards as the rest of his body continued forward.
He fell immediately.
Tessa stopped typing.
Viktor rolled onto his side and reached for his right knee.
The arena went quiet.
Matvei left his crease and skated as far as the red line before the official directed him back. Joona stood several feet from Viktor, both hands resting on the top of his stick while the trainer stepped onto the ice.
Viktor attempted to rise.
He could not put weight on the leg.
Two teammates supported him toward the tunnel.
The crowd stood, but the applause carried none of the joy from the pregame ceremony.
Tessa looked toward Sweden’s flag still displayed on one corner of the video board.
The tournament no longer mattered in that moment.
It returned to everyone’s mind almost immediately afterward.
Halifax finished the game with a 4-2 win. Matvei allowed two goals in the third but stopped thirty-one shots overall. Joona played the rest of the night with an urgency that bordered on recklessness, finishing every check and shooting whenever the puck came near him.
Viktor did not return.
McDonough entered the media room first after the game.
He looked older than he had that morning.