Chapter Thirty-Two #4
“At first, I think winning means I stop the puck,” Belov said. “Maybe if I play good, then the team wins. It is not only me. Viktor comes back. Joona scores. Cole plays when I cannot. Everybody. This is winning.”
Tessa read the quote aloud.
It held.
The final paragraphs returned to the first interview.
She did not mention his distrust or the way he walked away.
Those belonged to another story.
Instead, she wrote that the answer had taken an entire season to explain.
The closing came more slowly.
Tessa deleted three versions before finding it.
Belov offered no elaboration that September morning. Nine months later, standing beside the Stanley Cup with champagne in his hair and his family waiting outside the dressing room, he no longer needed one.
Halifax had won.
She stopped typing.
The cursor blinked after the final period.
Tessa read the story from beginning to end.
She checked every score, save total and quote. She confirmed the spelling of the Seattle defenseman’s name and the official time of Joona’s second goal. She listened to Matvei’s answer again, ensuring the grammar remained his without making it appear careless.
Then she filed.
The confirmation appeared on the screen.
Elaine responded less than two minutes later.
Elaine: This is the one.
Tessa stared at the message.
She allowed herself five seconds.
Then opened the Joona sidebar.
The story began in September.
Not with Matvei this time.
With Joona entering training camp carrying more uncertainty than luggage. He had arrived from Finland with skill, speed and no guarantee that the Convoy would keep him beyond the final cuts.
Tessa pulled her camp notebook from the bottom of the bag.
The pages looked older than nine months.
She found the first references to Joona. His pace. His willingness to attack through the middle. Viktor saying the rookie possessed enough confidence to attempt plays other young players abandoned before they began.
Tessa used the contrast.
Joona Salonen entered Halifax Convoy training camp hoping to make the roster. He ended his first NHL season carrying the playoff MVP trophy in one hand and the Stanley Cup in the other.
She built the story around progression.
Make team.
Play.
Score.
Playoffs.
Win series.
Always next.
Tessa described the two Game 7 goals, but she did not reduce the award to the final night. She included the overtime winner in Game 5, his pass to Viktor against Boston and the constant offense that carried Halifax through the postseason.
She used Viktor’s line.
Sometimes not knowing enough to be afraid helped.
Then Joona’s warmup memory.
The crowd.
The size of the moment.
Looking toward Matvei and seeing the same routine.
Post.
Post.
Crossbar.
Same rink.
The detail connected the rookie’s fear to the goaltender’s control without allowing Matvei to overtake the story.
Tessa wrote until the celebration beneath her quieted.
The music eventually stopped.
Arena employees began moving through the stands collecting towels and abandoned cups. Outside, the crowd remained loud enough to reach the press level.
Her phone vibrated once.
Matvei.
Matvei: You finish?
Tessa looked toward the Joona story.
Three paragraphs remained.
Tessa: Almost.
The response appeared immediately.
Matvei: Always almost.
She smiled.
Tessa: Go celebrate.
Matvei: I did.
Then:
Matvei: I wait.
Tessa looked at the time.
Nearly four in the morning.
She did not ask where.
If he meant the dressing room, the team bus or his house, the answer would still be the same.
She returned to the story.
Joona’s final quote provided the ending.
He had arrived wanting one thing, achieved it and immediately found another.
Until Game 7.
Until the Cup.
Until there was no next game.
Tessa finished.
She checked the spelling, quotes and statistics with the same care she would have used after an ordinary game in November.
Then she filed.
The confirmation appeared.
Two stories.
The championship.
The hero.
Tessa leaned back.
For the first time since the horn, nothing required her hands.
The press box had emptied completely.
She looked through the glass toward the ice.
The Cup was gone. The players were gone. Only the painted Final logo and scattered evidence of celebration remained. Champagne-darkened towels near the bench. A glove somebody had forgotten beside the tunnel. Marks across the ice where players’ families had walked in shoes.
Tessa thought about the partners on the ice.
Viktor’s children.
Matvei’s mother holding his face.
The pang returned, but it no longer carried the same force.
She had wanted to stand beside him.
She still did.
But she had not been excluded from the night.
Her place had been here.
Inside Frank’s old seat, with the city waiting for her to explain what it had witnessed.
Tessa closed the laptop.
Her main story already sat at the top of the Tribune’s website beneath a photograph of Matvei stretched across the crease, blocker extended toward the shot that should have tied the game.
Below it appeared her byline.
Tessa Brantley.
She had not lifted the Cup.
She had written how Halifax won it.
That was enough.