Chapter Eleven #5
Viktor looked toward the hallway, then back at the reporters.
“I wanted it,” he said. “I won’t pretend I didn’t. It was probably my last one. But I’m captain here too. My responsibility is to get healthy and help this team.”
Tessa wrote down the answer.
She did not ask him whether that made the loss easier.
It clearly did not.
The Convoy left Atlantic Centre for the break two days later.
Players carried equipment bags, wrapped gifts and enough luggage to divide the room between those going home and those traveling to Helsinki.
Joona wore a Finland jacket for the first time, the crest bright against his chest. Matvei carried Russia’s team-issued bag over one shoulder while speaking with Pat near the training room.
Viktor sat beneath his stall in regular clothes, the knee brace still visible. He had come to see the team off even though he had no reason to be at the rink.
Joona hugged him before leaving.
Matvei did the same, though his version looked more like an attempt to crush Viktor’s shoulders until the captain pushed him away.
“Win something,” Viktor told them.
“Not Finland,” Matvei said.
Joona looked offended. “You lose first game.”
“To Finland?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
Viktor leaned back against the stall. “I’ll be watching from my couch, so at least give me something entertaining.”
The exchange sounded normal.
That seemed to be the gift they were trying to give him.
Tessa remained near the doorway, collecting final quotes for a tournament preview. She spoke with Joona first, then Matvei.
He stood with the strap of the Russian bag across his chest, dressed in a dark coat that made him appear ready for weather no one else in Halifax wanted.
“Are you looking forward to the cold?” she asked before turning on the recorder.
“It is warmer than Winnipeg.”
“That’s your standard?”
“Good standard.”
Tessa smiled and activated the recorder.
“What’s the first thing you want to accomplish once Russia gets on the ice together?”
“Learn names.”
She looked at him.
Matvei’s expression remained serious.
“You know the players.”
“Some I only call bad things during games.”
Tessa laughed before she could stop herself.
Matvei smiled.
It lasted longer than the one in Calgary.
Then his eyes moved toward the recorder and the smile faded, though not completely.
“You use that?” he asked.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I’d like to be allowed into Russia’s media availability.”
He nodded. “Smart.”
Tessa asked several real questions about building chemistry quickly and adjusting to the international ice. Matvei answered thoughtfully, speaking more than he usually did with the other reporters gathered nearby.
When the interview ended, she switched off the recorder.
“Safe travels,” she said.
“You too.”
“I don’t leave until tomorrow.”
“I know.”
The answer stopped her.
He must have remembered the date from their conversation after the Quebec City game. It was a small detail, one she had offered without thinking and he had apparently retained.
Tessa adjusted her grip on the notebook.
“I’ll see you in Helsinki.”
Matvei nodded once.
“Helsinki.”
He turned toward Joona, who was waiting near the door, and the two of them left together.
Tessa watched until they disappeared into the hallway.
Then she returned upstairs to finish packing the work she would carry across the Atlantic.
Her desk was covered with printed schedules, roster sheets and notes. A map of Helsinki filled one side of her computer screen, marked with the tournament arena, media hotel and practice facilities. Her passport rested beside the keyboard.
She opened the tournament schedule.
Finland against Russia appeared on the second night.
Joona’s hometown.
Matvei’s national team.
Two players she had spent three months learning how to cover, now placed on opposite sides of a game carrying more history and emotion than either of them would willingly explain in a locker-room scrum.
Viktor’s name remained in several of her early notes, crossed out but still visible beneath the replacement Sweden had announced. Tessa stared at it for a moment before turning the page.
There would be other stories.
There were always other stories.
She closed her laptop and began gathering the papers into organized piles, though she knew most of them would become disordered before she reached the airport.
Outside the press-room windows, snow had begun falling over Halifax.
Not Winnipeg snow. Not Russian snow, according to Matvei’s impossible standards. Just a light dusting that softened the empty seats and disappeared when it touched the ice.
Tessa stood near the glass and watched it for a minute.
The season had moved quickly once it started. Training camp already felt farther away than three months. Matvei no longer seemed like a man she could define through old articles and one hostile interview, though she remained unsure what he had become instead.
A source.
A challenge.
Someone whose approval she did not need and whose disappointment had hurt more than it should.
In two days, she would meet them all in Helsinki.