Chapter Sixteen #2
The interview lasted fifteen minutes.
Sergei spoke bluntly about Matvei’s previous season. His body had healed before his trust in it returned. He moved as though every play were urgent, treating patience as a risk instead of a strength. In Russia, Sergei had stripped the game down until Matvei stopped performing for imaginary critics.
“He sees goal before shot,” Sergei said. “Not puck. Goal. He thinks what people say if puck goes in. So he moves for mistake not yet happen.”
Tessa wrote quickly.
“What changed?” she asked.
“He becomes angry with me.”
Matvei folded his arms.
“You say bad things.”
“I say true things.”
“That is a reporter line,” Tessa said.
Sergei laughed.
Matvei did not, though his mouth shifted.
Sergei continued. “He remembers goalie is not headline. Not number. Goalie is next puck.”
It became the center of Tessa’s feature.
When the interview ended, Sergei excused himself for a meeting. Tessa switched off the recorder and remained near Matvei.
“Thank you.”
“I did nothing.”
“You introduced us.”
“He wanted talk.”
“That must be unusual in your relationship.”
Matvei looked toward her recorder.
“He says too much.”
“He said good things.”
“Some.”
Tessa placed the device back inside her bag.
The concourse around them remained active. Tournament staff carried boxes through one set of doors, and reporters moved toward Canada’s practice at the other end. They were alone only in the sense that nobody stood close enough to hear.
“Are you still angry?” she asked.
Matvei’s expression tightened.
The question was personal. The arena was not the place, exactly as she had told him two days earlier.
But the uncertainty had become exhausting.
“No.”
“You seem angry.”
“You act like I am dangerous.”
Tessa looked down.
“I don’t think you’re dangerous.”
“Situation.”
“Yes.”
“Same for me.”
She remembered.
“I’m trying to figure it out.”
“You figure without me.”
“I thought you needed space.”
“I walk away because you do not know.”
“That sounded like you needed space.”
“I needed answer.”
“I didn’t have one.”
“You have now?”
Tessa looked at him.
“No.”
Matvei nodded once.
The same acknowledgment he had given in the corridor.
It hurt less this time, perhaps because he did not leave immediately.
“We both have semifinals to cover,” she said, attempting humor and failing because only one of them actually covered anything.
“You have.”
“You have to play one.”
“Yes.”
A silence settled.
Then Matvei said, “You write Sergei story.”
“I will.”
“You write truth?”
Tessa’s chest tightened at the familiar phrasing.
“Yes.”
He looked at her for another second.
“I know.”
Then he walked toward Russia’s rooms.
Tessa remained in the concourse.
The words should have felt like resolution.
They did not fix anything between them.
But they repaired something beneath it.
Finland eliminated Canada in the first semifinal.
The game was tied through two periods before Joona forced a turnover along the wall and created the winning goal. He did not receive credit for the finish, but the play began with him.
Canada pushed for the tying goal through the final six minutes. Finland’s goaltender stopped everything, including a shot through traffic with twelve seconds remaining.
The horn produced the loudest sound Tessa had heard all week.
Finland was going to the championship.
Joona disappeared beneath his teammates near the bench. His family stood together in the seats, his mother crying openly while his father held both arms above his head.
Tessa wrote the first version of the story before the players reached the mixed zone.
Joona arrived still breathing hard, hair damp and cheeks red from the game.
“One more,” he said before anyone asked.
The sentence became her lead.
Russia played Czechia that evening.
Matvei stopped thirty shots in a 4-1 win.
The result created exactly what the tournament organizers would have chosen if allowed to script the event themselves.
Finland against Russia.
A rematch of the opener.
Joona against Matvei.
The hometown team against the tournament’s only undefeated country.
New Year’s Day.
Tessa filed three stories before returning to the hotel.
She saw Matvei after the semifinal, but they did not speak outside the formal availability. His answers carried the controlled satisfaction of someone who had accomplished only the step required to reach the game that mattered.
“Finland already beat you once this tournament,” a reporter said.
Matvei looked toward him.
“No.”
“You lost the second period in the opener.”
“That is not game.”
The reporter smiled. “Joona scored on you.”
“Yes. Then Russia wins.”
“What do you expect from him in the rematch?”
“Luck.”
Tessa looked down before anyone saw her smile.
Matvei noticed anyway.
His eyes stayed on her for the next question.
New Year’s Eve passed almost without distinction.
Tessa spent it inside the arena.
Finland and Russia practiced at opposite ends of the day, followed by formal championship availabilities attended by more reporters than any previous session. National television crews filled the first rows. International outlets that had ignored the round robin arrived for the final.
Joona answered questions for nearly forty minutes.
Matvei did the same.
Neither appeared overwhelmed by the attention.
Joona had grown into it over the tournament. He laughed when asked about facing Matvei again and insisted the first goal had not been lucky. Matvei, when told about the answer, said Joona’s memory was unreliable.
The exchange traveled across social media within minutes.
Tessa used none of it as the primary angle.
Her championship preview focused on what the matchup meant beyond two teammates facing one another.
Finland had built its game around speed, discipline and the energy of the home crowd.
Russia had gradually controlled more of the tournament with each game, relying on depth, defensive structure and Matvei’s stability in net.
Joona and Matvei gave the story its human center.
Not a gimmick.
Not a manufactured rivalry.
Two players who spent the NHL season supporting each other, now standing between the other’s country and a championship.
Tessa returned to her hotel before midnight.
Fireworks began somewhere near the harbor as the new year arrived. Light flashed across the curtains, followed several seconds later by distant sound.
She stood at the window.
Across the street, several Russian players had gathered outside their hotel entrance to watch. Matvei was not among them.
Tessa wondered whether he was asleep.
She hoped he was.
Then she hated that hoping for him had become instinctive.
Her phone showed a message from Nina.
Happy New Year. Please tell me you are doing something besides staring at hockey notes.
Tessa looked toward the open notebook on the desk.
Tessa: I looked at fireworks for almost a full minute.
Nina: Growth!
Tessa hesitated, then typed:
Tessa: I kissed him.
She stared at the words.
Before she could reconsider, she sent them.
The phone rang immediately.
Tessa silenced it.
Another message appeared.
Nina: YOU CANNOT TEXT THAT AND DISAPPEAR.
Tessa placed the phone facedown.
The championship began in less than fifteen hours.
She needed sleep.
For once, she got some.
The final began at three on New Year’s Day.
The arena was full before warmups.
Finnish flags covered the lower bowl. Fans sang through stoppages, the sound gathering from one section and spreading until the building seemed to breathe with them.
Russian supporters occupied a smaller block behind Matvei’s crease for the first and third periods, loud enough to make themselves heard despite the imbalance.
Tessa reached the press box two hours early.
She prepared the shells of three stories.
A Finland win.
A Russia win.
A separate Joona or Matvei feature depending on the result.
The documents remained mostly empty because imagining the ending felt dangerous.
During warmups, Joona skated toward the Russian end and shot a puck from center ice. It slid harmlessly past Matvei’s crease.
Matvei turned and sent it back with his stick.
Joona caught it against his skate, lifted his head and said something across the distance.
Matvei shook his glove.
Tessa watched them.
By the time the puck dropped, the friendliness had disappeared.
The game began with caution neither team had shown in the opener.
Finland controlled the pace but generated little inside. Russia protected the middle and forced shots from angles Matvei handled cleanly. At the opposite end, Finland’s goaltender stopped a breakaway less than four minutes into the game, bringing the crowd to its feet.
The first period ended scoreless.
Tessa rewrote the beginning of her game story three times.
Russia scored first early in the second.
A Finnish turnover near the blue line produced a quick counterattack. The initial shot hit the goaltender’s pad, and a Russian winger reached the rebound before the defense could recover.
The Russian section erupted.
The rest of the arena went quiet for less than a second before the Finnish chants began again.
Joona tied the game seven minutes later.
He entered the zone along the right side, cut toward the middle and used a Russian defenseman as a screen. The shot passed above Matvei’s blocker before he found the release.
Joona raised one arm and continued toward the corner.
The sound inside the arena became overwhelming.
Matvei remained in his crease for a moment, staring toward where the puck had entered.
Joona skated past him during the celebration.
Neither spoke.
Tessa entered the goal into her notes.
She did not write that it was lucky.
Russia regained the lead before the second intermission. A power-play shot changed direction in front, leaving Finland’s goaltender moving toward the original path while the puck slipped behind him.
The third period began with Russia leading 2-1.
Matvei stopped everything Finland sent toward him.
A point shot through two screens.
A rebound near the left post.
A Joona one-timer from the circle, nearly identical to the one that beat him on Christmas Eve.