Chapter Thirty-Four #3
Next puck.
Always.
“Then horn. Everybody comes.”
He looked toward Cole, Viktor and Joona.
“I cannot see. I am on ice.”
The players laughed.
“When I stand, I look at crowd. I know.”
Matvei stopped.
Emotion changed his face.
Tessa held completely still.
“I know I am home.”
The arena erupted.
Matvei stepped away from the podium before anyone expected him to. Viktor reached him first and pulled him into an embrace. Cole followed. Joona wrapped both arms around Matvei from the opposite side until all three nearly forced him backward.
Tessa looked toward her notebook.
Her handwriting had become less controlled.
Home.
He had told reporters the same thing after Game 7.
Here, the word belonged to the city.
Privately, it belonged elsewhere too.
Matvei returned to his seat and looked toward the media section.
Tessa kept her eyes on the notebook.
Viktor would speak last.
The captain approached the microphone with his daughter holding one hand and his son holding the other. His wife followed several steps behind, smiling through tears before he had said anything.
The children stood beside the podium.
Viktor lifted his son onto one hip.
The boy held the miniature Cup against his father’s shoulder.
The crowd began chanting.
Viktor waited longer than Matvei had.
His daughter looked toward the stands as though the sound belonged to her.
“This is not going to be easy,” Viktor said.
His voice already sounded unsteady.
Tessa felt every reporter near her prepare for retirement.
Viktor looked toward his family.
Then the players.
“I’ve spent a lot of time this year thinking about endings.”
The building became silent.
Tessa’s pen hovered above the notebook.
“When the knee got worse in January, I didn’t know if I would play again. Not this season. Maybe at all.”
His wife touched the back of his arm.
“I thought about how long I had been here. What the game had given me. What it had taken.”
Viktor smiled slightly.
“And whether I was ready to be done.”
The crowd remained still enough that his son’s small voice reached the microphones when he asked something Tessa could not understand.
Viktor looked down at him.
“No, not yet.”
The audience reacted before Viktor continued.
His daughter started smiling.
Viktor looked toward his teammates.
“I told the guys before the playoffs that if this was it, I wanted it to end with us having no excuses left.”
He paused.
“They ruined that plan.”
Laughter broke through the tension.
Viktor’s eyes moved toward the Cup.
“I thought winning it might make the decision easier. I thought I would hold it, know I had done everything and be ready to walk away.”
Tessa stopped breathing.
Viktor smiled.
“I was wrong.”
The crowd erupted before he reached the announcement.
He raised one hand.
The noise continued.
Viktor laughed.
“My knee is going to hate this.”
The chant began again.
“Vik-tor.”
He looked toward McDonough.
The coach stood with both arms crossed, attempting and failing to hide his smile.
Viktor turned toward the crowd.
“I’m coming back for one more year.”
The building exploded.
His teammates left their seats.
Joona reached him first, nearly colliding with Viktor’s daughter before pulling up. Cole wrapped one arm around the captain. Matvei held Viktor’s son while the rest of the players surrounded him.
Viktor disappeared inside the group.
Tessa wrote the announcement even though the words would never leave her memory.
Viktor Sundberg will return for one final season.
The news changed the story.
The parade no longer represented only an ending.
The captain had given the city another beginning.
Tessa opened the Tribune’s publishing system on her phone and sent Elaine a message.
Tessa: Viktor returning for one more year. I’ll lead with it.
Elaine responded immediately.
Elaine: Move.
Tessa gathered her laptop and notebooks.
The rally continued with one final team photograph and a chorus of cheers, but the speech portion had ended. The quotes were collected. The deadline existed.
She moved through the media section toward the tunnel.
Matvei remained onstage surrounded by teammates and family.
Tessa did not look back.
Not because she did not want to.
Because she had a story.
The concourse outside the press-box elevator remained crowded with fans who had not yet begun leaving.
Tessa navigated through navy jerseys, crying children and adults still shouting pieces of Viktor’s announcement toward friends who had stood beside them and heard the same thing.
Her phone vibrated repeatedly.
Elaine wanted a clean quote.
The homepage editor wanted an estimated filing time.
A television producer wanted confirmation that Viktor had said one year rather than another year.
Tessa answered while walking.
The elevator arrived full.
She waited for the next.
By the time the doors opened again, the rally music had begun shaking the floor beneath her.
Tessa entered alone.
The ascent gave her less than a minute of quiet.
She opened the laptop before reaching the top.
The lead formed easily.
Viktor Sundberg spent the Halifax Convoy’s championship season wondering whether his right knee would allow him to play again. On Wednesday, with the Stanley Cup beside him and his two children standing at his feet, the captain announced he would return for one final year.
The doors opened.
Tessa stepped into the press-box corridor.
Most reporters had remained downstairs for player availability. The level looked almost empty, lights dimmed beyond the main work area and chairs left at uneven angles from the night of Game 7.
Tessa walked toward Frank’s old seat.
Her seat.
Someone was sitting in it.
She slowed.
The man faced the ice, one arm resting against the desk and a championship parade credential hanging from his neck. Gray showed at his temples beneath a dark cap. A familiar leather notebook lay open beside his hand.
Tessa stopped several feet away.
The man heard her.
He turned.
Frank Donnelly looked at her and smiled.
“Hey, kid.”