Chapter Nineteen #2
“Could be building stuff.”
“With additional invited guests?”
“City officials love buildings.”
Tessa watched a family hurry toward the gate across from hers.
“Would you tell me if you knew?”
Rick sounded offended. “Eventually.”
“Rick.”
“Yes. I’d tell you.”
She believed him.
Probably.
“See you tomorrow,” he said.
“Unfortunately.”
“You volunteered, didn’t you?”
“How do you know?”
“Because you’re you.”
He hung up.
Tessa placed the phone in her lap.
The call should have eased her concern. Instead, it only widened the possibilities.
A message from Matvei appeared.
Matvei: Toronto?
Tessa answered.
Tessa: Yes. Three-hour layover.
Matvei: Bad airport.
Tessa: It is an airport.
Matvei: Extra bad airport.
She smiled.
Then typed:
Tessa: Convoy has a major press conference tomorrow. Ownership. No topic announced.
The reply came after a minute.
Matvei: I know nothing.
Tessa: That was going to be my next question.
Matvei: Reporter.
Tessa: Source.
The typing indicator appeared, then disappeared.
Matvei: At rink, yes.
The distinction reached her even through the screen.
Tessa looked around the crowded gate before replying.
Tessa: I volunteered to cover it.
Matvei: You are off.
Tessa: You sound like my boss.
Matvei: She is right.
Tessa considered telling him about the Viktor theory.
She decided against it.
Matvei had enough experience with speculation becoming fact through repetition. There was no reason to place an unconfirmed retirement concern in his head before anyone knew whether Viktor was involved.
Tessa: I’ll sleep after the press conference.
Matvei: You say many things.
Her chest tightened at the familiar phrase.
Tessa: I’ll text when I land.
Matvei: Careful.
Tessa smiled again.
Then she put the phone away before she could forget that the center of tomorrow’s story had nothing to do with him.
By the time Tessa reached her apartment in Halifax, she had been awake for nearly twenty-two hours.
Her suitcase remained near the front door.
She removed only what she needed for the morning: recorder, laptop, notebook and a clean change of clothes that did not smell like an airplane. The rest could wait until her official vacation resumed.
She showered, set three alarms and climbed into bed.
The room felt too quiet.
For eleven days, there had always been another sound beyond the wall. Hotel doors closing. Elevators moving. Snowplows passing beneath the window. The muted life of another country continuing while she worked.
Now there was only the heating system and the occasional movement of pipes inside the building.
Tessa checked her phone.
Matvei had sent one message after she landed.
Matvei: Home?
She replied.
Tessa: Home.
His answer came quickly.
Matvei: Good. Sleep.
She stared at it.
Tessa: Bossy.
Matvei: You like.
Tessa smiled and placed the phone facedown.
She thought about his watch sitting inside the front pocket of her carry-on.
Then she slept.
Atlantic Centre looked exactly as Tessa had left it.
The same security staff stood near the media entrance.
The same arena smell met her when the doors opened, ice and coffee layered beneath the industrial warmth of the concourse.
Christmas decorations still hung near the public entrances, though several employees had begun removing garland from the railings.
Tessa arrived before ten.
She expected the press conference to be held in the media room.
Instead, signage directed reporters toward a temporary stage constructed near center ice. Black flooring covered part of the rink surface. Rows of chairs faced a podium bearing the Convoy logo, with a large screen positioned behind it.
City officials occupied the front row.
Several members of the Batemann family sat near the aisle. Jeff Batemann stood beside the stage speaking with the mayor, silver hair neatly combed and one hand tucked into the pocket of a dark suit.
Tessa scanned the room.
No Viktor.
Relief came first.
Then uncertainty returned.
A covered object stood near the edge of the stage, tall enough to be another display screen or a sign. Several women Tessa did not recognize sat together near the front, dressed in business attire and wearing credentials without Convoy branding.
One of them looked familiar.
Tessa searched her memory.
League office.
She had seen the woman during an interview about women’s professional hockey expansion several months earlier, though Tessa could not immediately remember the name.
Her attention sharpened.
Rick approached carrying coffee.
“You look terrible.”
“Thank you.”
“Vacation treating you well?”
“It starts again after this.”
He nodded toward the unfamiliar group.
“You know them?”
“One might be from the women’s league.”
Rick looked again.
“Now that would be something.”
The possibility entered Tessa so suddenly that she became afraid to trust it.
Women’s professional hockey had expanded rapidly in recent years, adding markets with strong television audiences, established youth programs and ownership groups willing to provide legitimate infrastructure.
Halifax had appeared occasionally in speculative lists.
The city supported hockey, Atlantic Centre already existed and regional interest extended across the Maritimes.
But speculation was not an announcement.
Tessa opened her notebook.
The press conference began at eleven.
Jeff Batemann stepped behind the podium. The conversation inside the arena quieted as camera lights came on and reporters lifted phones to record.
“Good morning,” he said. “Thank you for joining us.”
He began with Halifax.
The city’s relationship with hockey. The generations of families who entered Atlantic Centre wearing Convoy colors.
The youth programs throughout Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick.
The responsibility the Batemann family felt as stewards of one of the region’s most visible sports organizations.
Then Batemann looked toward the city officials seated near the front.
“For four decades, the Convoy have been proud to represent Halifax at the highest level of men’s professional hockey,” he said. “Today, we are expanding our investment in the sport and our belief in what professional hockey can become in this region.”
The screen behind him changed.
The Convoy logo disappeared.
In its place appeared the blue-and-silver mark of the professional women’s hockey league.
The reaction moved through the room before Batemann continued. Reporters shifted. Camera operators adjusted their framing. Someone near the back whispered a sharp, surprised expletive.
Tessa stopped writing for half a second.
Batemann smiled.
“Halifax has been awarded an expansion franchise in the Professional Women’s Hockey League, beginning play next season.”
Applause filled the arena.
Not the restrained, polite version that followed most press conferences. City officials stood. Members of the Batemann family turned toward one another, smiling. The women seated near the front rose as the league commissioner joined Batemann onstage.
The covered display was revealed.
It showed no team name or logo.
Only:
HALIFAXCOMING NEXT SEASON
Tessa felt something inside her lift.
The dread over Viktor vanished so completely it seemed to belong to another day.
She began writing again.
Expansion franchise.
Next season.
Batemann family ownership.
Atlantic Centre home games.
Independent hockey operations.
Temporary offices opening within weeks.
Team name and branding to be announced later.
The commissioner spoke about Halifax’s bid, the strength of the regional market and the ownership group’s commitment to building a franchise rather than merely operating one.
Tessa listened with the part of her mind trained to identify gaps.
Where would the team practice?
Would it have a dedicated dressing room?
How would arena scheduling work with the Convoy?
Would ownership share business staff while maintaining separate hockey decision-making?
When would the general manager be hired?
How would the expansion draft work?
The questions arrived faster than she could write them down.
Her excitement was not new.
That surprised her less than it should have.
Tessa had watched Olympic women’s hockey before she understood the difference between professional and amateur sports.
Her mother treated the Canada games as appointments, preparing snacks and allowing Tessa and Andrew to stay awake far beyond bedtime if the tournament was held in another time zone.
The men’s tournament had stars they recognized from television.
The women’s tournament felt different.
Every four years, the same players returned carrying the weight of an entire version of hockey that disappeared from most sports pages between Olympics.
Tessa remembered sitting cross-legged on the living-room floor in Prince Edward Island, watching women wear Canada jerseys and understanding for the first time that hockey did not belong only to the men her father watched on Saturday nights.
She had never become much of a player herself. Youth hockey required money, early mornings and an interest in being cold that Tessa possessed only as a spectator. But she learned the names. Followed the national team.
During her second year of university, she interned with the campus newspaper and covered the women’s hockey team because nobody else wanted the assignment.
The men’s team drew larger crowds and more experienced student reporters. Women’s games were treated as training opportunities for interns, the kind of assignment editors gave someone who still needed to prove she could write a clean game story.
Tessa loved it.
The players spoke with an openness she had not expected, partly because so few reporters regularly attended.
She wrote about a senior captain returning from a shoulder injury, a rookie goaltender balancing hockey with an engineering program and a playoff series played in front of several hundred people that felt as urgent as anything she had covered since.
Those stories were some of the first carrying her name that felt like more than practice.