Chapter Thirty-Two #2
Tessa gathered her notebook and followed the other reporters downstairs.
The hallway outside the dressing room looked nothing like it had during the season.
League employees moved between rooms carrying cables, signs and equipment. Television crews occupied nearly every open section of wall. Champagne arrived in large plastic bins. A communications employee attempted to explain the media-access procedure while nobody remained quiet enough to hear him.
Tessa checked the recorder battery twice.
Her game story had a lead but no ending.
The Joona sidebar remained mostly notes.
She needed Matvei, Joona, Viktor and McDonough. Carver too, if she could reach him before the champagne rendered every answer unusable.
The dressing room opened.
Noise rushed into the hallway.
Music played loud enough to shake the doors. Players shouted over one another, still wearing parts of their equipment beneath championship shirts and hats. Bottles waited unopened near the center logo while television cameras moved into position.
The Cup had not reached the room yet.
That gave reporters several minutes.
Tessa went to Joona first.
Nearly everyone did.
He sat beneath his stall with the playoff MVP trophy on the floor between his skates. The championship cap rested backward on his head. His hair remained damp and flattened near his ears.
His eyes looked red.
Whether from tears, exhaustion or both, Tessa could not tell.
Reporters formed two rows around him.
Joona stared at the trophy.
“What does this mean to you?” someone asked.
Joona looked up.
“I do not know.”
It was the first time all season Tessa heard him admit that.
“When did you begin to believe you could have this kind of postseason?”
Joona shook his head.
“Never this.”
“You led the playoffs in goals. You scored twice tonight. You had the overtime winner in Game 5. At what point did you feel like you were capable of carrying that kind of responsibility?”
Joona looked toward Viktor’s stall.
The captain stood several feet away with his son still in his arms. His daughter wore Viktor’s championship hat and attempted to adjust it without dropping it over her eyes.
“I did not carry,” Joona said. “Everybody. Carver gives me puck. Viktor tells me where go. Belly stops everything.”
“Not everything,” Matvei called from across the room.
Joona smiled for the first time since sitting down.
“Almost.”
Tessa waited for the other questions.
The goals.
The award.
The emotion of seeing his parents.
Then she raised her recorder.
“You came into training camp without a guaranteed roster spot,” she said. “Do you remember what you thought success would look like when you arrived in Halifax?”
Joona looked toward her.
The question pulled him backward through the season.
“Make team,” he said.
“Only that?”
“First, yes.”
“When did the goal change?”
Joona considered it.
“Every time.”
“What do you mean?”
“You make team, then you want play. You play, then want score. Then playoffs. Then win series.”
He looked down at the trophy.
“Always next.”
Tessa wrote quickly.
“Was there ever a point when the moment felt too large?”
“Tonight?”
“Tonight or anywhere in the playoffs.”
Joona smiled slightly.
“Warmup tonight.”
“What happened?”
“I look around.”
The room quieted enough for people near him to listen more carefully.
“Everybody is standing. Loud. I think maybe I should not look.”
A few reporters laughed.
“What did you do?”
“I look at Belly.”
Joona turned toward Matvei.
“He does same thing always. Post, post, crossbar. So I think okay. Same rink.”
Matvei’s expression softened.
Tessa felt the answer settle into the shape of the story.
“What did you think after the first goal?” she asked.
“That we need another.”
“And after the second?”
“That we need three.”
“You did not get three.”
“Enough.”
The room laughed again.
Tessa smiled.
“Did you know you had a chance to win playoff MVP?”
Joona’s expression became more serious.
“No.”
“Really?”
“No. I know I score. But Belly…” He gestured across the room. “He saves season many times.”
Matvei looked away as though the attention annoyed him.
Joona continued.
“Viktor comes back and scores Boston. Carver scores Ottawa. Everybody.”
“What did Matvei say when your name was announced?”
Joona grinned.
“He says lucky.”
The room erupted.
Joona laughed.
Tessa clicked off the recorder only after the questions began repeating.
She had the sidebar.
A player who entered camp trying to win a job had left the final game carrying two trophies. More important, Joona had described the season the way it had actually happened. Each achievement created the next possibility before he had time to understand the previous one.
Always next.
Until there was nothing left to win.
Tessa moved toward Viktor.
His children had gone with their mother to the family area outside the dressing room. Viktor remained in full uniform except for the helmet, his championship shirt pulled over the top of his shoulder pads.
The Cup entered the room before she reached him.
Everything stopped.
Players shouted as the handlers placed it on the center logo. Bottles opened immediately. Champagne struck the Cup, the ceiling and anyone standing close enough to be included.
Tessa stepped back against the wall and shielded her notebook inside her jacket.
Joona poured champagne directly over Carver’s head. McCrae drank from the Cup until Viktor pulled it away. Cole attempted to put his championship hat on the trophy and lost it inside the bowl.
Matvei stood near Pat while champagne ran through his hair.
He looked happy.
Not polished.
Not controlled.
Happy.
Tessa watched for only a few seconds before checking the recorder again.
Work.
Viktor became available near the hallway after changing out of most of his equipment. The championship shirt clung wetly to his shoulders.
Tessa joined the group.
“Have you had a chance to process any of it?” Rick asked.
“No.”
Viktor laughed tiredly.
“I think my son poured apple juice into the Cup, so that’s where we are.”
“After everything with the knee, did you allow yourself to imagine lifting it?”
Viktor looked back toward the room.
“You imagine it when you’re a kid. You imagine it when you’re healthy. When you’re doing rehab alone in January, you try not to imagine too much.”
“Why?”
“Because it can make the distance feel longer.”
Tessa wrote the line.
“What was the moment like when you handed it to Matvei?” she asked.
Viktor smiled.
“He told me no.”
“Why?”
“He thought it should go to somebody older.”
“You are the oldest.”
“Exactly.”
The group laughed.
Viktor continued.
“Belly came here at nineteen. He grew up in this organization. He’s been through everything with this team. Good years, bad years, injuries. Last season was hard on him, and he came back.”
His voice thickened slightly.
“He deserved the first pass.”
“Did you know all along that he would be the player you gave it to?”
“Yes.”
The certainty reminded Tessa of Matvei.
“How would you describe what he gave the team during the playoffs?”
Viktor looked toward the dressing room again.
“A chance every night.”
The simple answer belonged in the main story.
Tessa asked about Joona.
Viktor’s expression warmed.
“He’s still going to be unbearable.”
“Was he already?”
“Yes. Now he has a trophy proving he’s allowed.”
“What did he mean to this run?”
“Energy. Fearlessness. Sometimes not knowing enough to be afraid helps.”
Tessa wrote that too.
She found McDonough next.
The coach had changed into a dry championship shirt but remained soaked from the chest upward. Champagne dripped from the ends of his graying hair.
His Boston accent sounded thicker through exhaustion.
“What does this group mean to you?” a television reporter asked.
McDonough rubbed one hand over his face.
“Everything.”
“Was there a point in the season when you believed this was possible?”
“I believed we were good enough. That ain’t the same as knowing you’re gonna do it.”
“What changed?”
“We stopped looking for reasons things might go wrong.”
The answer caught Tessa’s attention.
McDonough continued.
“We had Viktor go down. Belly had a tough stretch. We had kids in roles they hadn’t played before. Nobody waited for somebody else to fix it. That’s a team.”
Tessa asked about Matvei’s final save.
McDonough shook his head.
“I don’t know how he got there.”
“What was your view from the bench?”
“Open net.”
The honesty made several reporters laugh.
“I saw the puck go across, and I thought that was it. Then Belly did whatever the hell that was.”
“Did it surprise you?”
McDonough looked offended.
“At this point? No.”
He smiled after saying it.
Tessa moved toward Matvei last.
The largest crowds had thinned. National television had already taken him for multiple live interviews. He stood near his stall wearing the wet championship shirt, black hockey pants and no shoes. Champagne darkened his hair.
The Cup sat on the floor beside him.
His mother and sister had returned to the family area, leaving him alone for the moment except for Pat several feet away.
Tessa approached with two other reporters.
Matvei saw her.
For one second, the room narrowed.
Then his gaze moved toward the recorder.
Work.
“How did you make the final save?” Rick asked.
Matvei looked toward the floor.
“I do not know.”
“You dove across the crease. Was that instinct?”
“Yes.”
“Could you see the shot?”
“Yes.”
“What part of you stopped it?”
“Blocker. Arm. Maybe both.”
“Did you know immediately that you had it?”
“No.”
Matvei looked toward the Cup.
“I look behind.”
“What did you see?”
“Nothing.”
His mouth shifted.
“Good.”
The reporters laughed.
Tessa waited until the technical questions ended.
“On the first day of training camp,” she said, “I asked what your biggest focus had been during the summer.”
Matvei’s eyes returned to hers.
The memory moved between them.
Her first day.
His empty stall after walking away.
Less than a minute of recorded audio and one answer she had refused to use because it would have made him sound arrogant or simplistic.
Winning.
“You said one word,” Tessa continued. “Winning. Do you remember that?”
“Yes.”