Chapter Eleven #4
“Lower-body injury,” he said. “He’s still being evaluated. I’m not giving you anything beyond that tonight.”
“Is there any chance he can participate in the tournament?” Rick asked.
McDonough’s expression tightened.
“I just said he’s being evaluated.”
“Did the initial examination give you any reason for optimism?”
“No.”
The room became still.
McDonough rested both hands against the podium.
“Look, I know what you’re asking,” he said, the Boston accent thickening as emotion entered his voice. “And I know what this tournament means to him. But I’m not standing here guessing about a guy’s health twenty minutes after the game. He’s our captain. First thing is making sure he’s all right.”
The softness was visible only because McDonough seemed angry at anyone who might notice it.
He left without taking another question.
The locker room opened several minutes later.
Viktor’s stall was empty.
Joona sat nearby, already dressed but making no effort to leave. Matvei remained in his base layer, slowly pulling tape from one wrist.
Reporters gathered around Joona first.
“How difficult was it to see Viktor go down so close to the tournament?”
Joona’s eyes moved toward the empty stall.
“Bad.”
“Did you speak to him?”
“Little.”
“What did he say?”
Joona’s expression closed in a way Tessa had never seen.
“That is for him.”
The reporter attempted another question.
Tessa stepped away.
She did not need Joona to translate someone else’s private disappointment into a usable quote.
Matvei answered questions about the game, then Viktor. His voice remained flat, but anger sat close beneath it.
“He is captain,” Matvei said. “He plays every game hard. This happens.”
“Did he say anything to you about Sweden?” Linda asked.
“No.”
“Do you think he’ll try to go if there’s any chance?”
Matvei looked toward her.
“Yes.”
The certainty hurt more than speculation would have.
Tessa waited until the scrum ended.
Matvei looked exhausted when she approached, though the game had required less from him than several others that month. His shoulders remained tight, and the tape had been stripped from one wrist in a tangled pile near his feet.
She turned on the recorder.
“What did Viktor’s selection mean to him?”
Matvei glanced toward the empty stall.
“Everything.”
“Did he talk about it much?”
“No. That is how you know.”
Tessa lowered her pen.
Matvei looked at her.
“When something is small, Viktor talks forever,” he said. “When important, he says nothing.”
It sounded like something she had already begun to understand about Matvei too.
She did not say that.
“Thank you,” Tessa said.
He nodded.
As she switched off the recorder, he asked, “You leave when?”
“For Helsinki?”
“Yes.”
“The twenty-second.”
“We leave twenty-first.”
The players would travel from Halifax to Montreal, then take a charter organized by the Russian federation. Finland and Sweden had arranged similar transportation for their NHL players.
Tessa tucked the recorder into her pocket. “I’ll see you there.”
Matvei’s eyes held hers for a moment.
“Yes,” he said.
The word carried an awareness that neither of them acknowledged.
Then he looked toward Viktor’s empty stall.
Whatever had existed in the moment disappeared beneath something heavier.
The team confirmed the injury the next morning.
Viktor had suffered a sprain in his right knee. Surgery would not be required, but he would miss at least four weeks.
Sweden replaced him before noon.
Tessa wrote the news from Atlantic Centre while Viktor met with the medical staff downstairs.
The story was simple in structure and difficult in every other way.
She included the timetable, the play and McDonough’s comments.
She added context about Viktor’s selection and what the tournament had meant to him.
She did not attempt to reach him.
An hour after the story went online, Viktor entered the media workroom.
Tessa looked up from her laptop.
He wore a brace beneath loose black pants and used crutches, moving carefully through the doorway while one of the communications staff held it open. Conversations stopped around the room.
Viktor smiled.
“You all look like somebody died.”
Nobody answered.
He made his way toward the front and lowered himself into a chair.
“I’m fine,” he said. “Or I will be.”
The questions began gently.
How did the knee feel? When had he realized the injury was serious? What had the doctors told him about the recovery?
Viktor answered each one without visible frustration.
Only when Tessa asked about Sweden did the smile finally disappear.
“What was it like getting that call?”
Viktor looked down at the brace.
“Worse than the injury.”
No one moved.
He took a breath.
“I knew last night. Before they even did the scans, I knew I wasn’t going. Maybe that sounds dramatic, but you know your body. I couldn’t walk. I wasn’t going to play international hockey in ten days.”
“Did you consider trying anyway?”
“Of course.”
A faint smile returned, this one directed at himself.
“Mike threatened to lock my passport in his office.”
From the back of the room, McDonough’s voice carried through the open door.
“Still might.”
The tension broke briefly.