Epilogue #2
The visiting team tied the game before intermission.
Halifax restored the lead in the second on a power-play goal from the point. The Tides allowed another equalizer early in the third.
The building remained loud.
The novelty of the first home game had not made the hockey secondary. Fans groaned at failed clears, shouted for penalties and rose before dangerous rushes reached the net. The reactions sounded informed rather than politely supportive.
Tessa had wondered whether the audience would understand immediately that attending required more than appreciating what the night represented.
They did.
The game entered overtime tied 2-2.
Mara ended it.
She won a battle near the defensive blue line, carried the puck through center and kept it rather than passing toward the open wing. The visiting defense backed toward the crease.
Mara shot beneath the blocker.
The puck entered.
The captain continued directly toward the glass.
Her teammates chased her into the corner.
Tessa stood only long enough to see the celebration clearly, then sat.
The lead changed.
The first home game in Halifax Tides history ended with the first captain delivering the franchise’s first overtime winner.
Too many firsts.
Tessa deleted the sentence.
She tried again.
Mara Ellison gave Halifax the ending its first home game demanded.
Better.
She continued.
The postgame dressing room opened after the Tides completed a longer celebration than Claire likely wanted to admit had been planned. Players entered wearing dark shirts with the wave crest, music playing loudly enough that reporters needed to stand close to hear.
Tessa spoke with Mara first.
“What did you see on the winning rush?”
“Space.”
“Did you consider moving the puck?”
“I did. Then I remembered I’m allowed to be selfish once a season.”
The room laughed.
Tessa asked what it meant for the captain to score the winner in the first home game.
Mara looked around the dressing room.
“We’ve talked a lot about firsts. Probably too much. At some point, we have to stop being the new team and become a team.”
“What did tonight do for that?”
“It gave us something that belongs to us.”
Tessa wrote it carefully.
Lindholm sat several stalls away holding the first-goal puck, wrapped in tape with the date written across it.
The winger said she planned to give it to her parents.
Morin described trying not to look around during the opening video because she believed she might cry before warmups.
Claire stood in the hallway afterward, answering questions about attendance and the building.
The game had sold out.
Every available seat.
Tessa asked what Claire would remember.
“The sound after the first goal,” she said.
Not the speeches.
Not the ticket number.
The sound.
Tessa had everything she needed.
She returned upstairs.
The press box emptied around her while she wrote.
The main story focused on the game and the way Halifax received the team as something more permanent than an event. The sidebar belonged to Lindholm’s goal and the puck she carried from the room.
Tessa included the attendance.
She included Mara’s quote.
At some point, we have to stop being the new team and become a team.
She did not overstate what one game proved.
A sellout did not guarantee the next one. An overtime win did not establish the Tides as contenders. The league would still face travel problems, uneven resources and the challenge of maintaining public attention after the first season stopped being new.
Those stories would come.
Tessa would be there.
Her phone vibrated once.
She ignored it until the final paragraph.
The main story ended with the captain’s goal and the crowd remaining on its feet after the players left the ice, unwilling to treat the first home win as something finished when the horn sounded.
Tessa checked every quote and name.
Then she filed.
The sidebar took another twenty minutes.
When the confirmation appeared, she looked toward the phone.
Three messages waited.
Matvei: Finish?
Seven minutes later:
Matvei: Tessa.
Then:
Matvei: You take too long.
She smiled.
Tessa: I was working.
The typing indicator appeared immediately.
Matvei: Always.
Tessa: Where are you?
Matvei: Outside.
Tessa looked toward the darkened bowl.
Most fans had left. Arena workers collected cups and programs from the seats. The Tides logo remained at center ice beneath full lights, no longer waiting for its first game.
Her notebook lay beside the placard.
Tessa turned to the final page she had used that night.
First home goal.
First home win.
First overtime winner.
First sellout.
She had once believed a beat became important through the history it inherited. The Convoy had taught her the value of understanding everything that came before.
The Tides taught her another form of responsibility.
Someone needed to notice the beginning before everyone agreed it mattered.
Tessa closed the notebook.
She packed the laptop and recorder, then looked once toward the banner above the ice.
The Stanley Cup had given her proof.
She had reached the place she spent her career pursuing. She had covered the highest level of men’s hockey, survived its longest season and written the largest story the sport could offer.
Nothing about leaving the Convoy beat erased that.
The championship run remained hers.
But proof could only describe what she had already done.
The Tides offered something the Cup could not.
A future.
Not Frank’s.
Not Matvei’s.
Not a career preserved because it had once belonged to someone else.
Her own.
Tessa lifted the bag onto her shoulder and left the placard behind.
It would be waiting at the next game.
Matvei stood outside the main entrance beneath the arena lights.
Not beneath the narrow overhang where he had waited in Helsinki.
Not near a private garage or side door.
Directly in front of Atlantic Centre, hands inside the pockets of his dark coat while the remaining fans moved around him.
Several noticed.
One asked for a photograph.
Matvei took it.
He looked toward the doors again.
Tessa stepped outside.
The cold air reached her first. Halifax had entered fall, carrying enough wind from the harbor to turn every breath visible beneath the lights.
Matvei watched her cross the plaza.
“You take too long,” he said when she reached him.
“I told you. I was working.”
“Game ends long ago.”
“Stories continue after games.”
“Bad system.”
Tessa smiled.
“You liked it?”
“Yes.”
“The game or being a spectator?”
“Game.”
Matvei looked toward the arena.
“Good crowd.”
“Sellout.”
“I know.”
“Lindholm’s goal was good.”
“Lucky.”
Tessa laughed. She looked around the plaza.
No media remained nearby. A few fans passed and glanced toward them. Nobody seemed surprised to see her there.
She did not check for cameras.
She did not calculate which entrance Matvei had used or how far apart they needed to walk before reaching his truck.
He held out one hand.
Tessa took it.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Dinner.”
“It is almost midnight.”
“You do not eat.”
“I had press-box food.”
“No.”
“That argument is becoming repetitive.”
“Because true.”
They began walking toward the street.
Matvei carried her bag without asking. Tessa allowed him.
Behind them, the Atlantic Centre screens continued showing the final score and Mara’s overtime goal. The wave crest filled the plaza in navy and silver.
“You wait long?” Tessa asked.
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Forty minutes.”
“That is not long.”
“In cold.”
“You could have gone home.”
“No.”
The answer echoed across years and cities.
Helsinki.
Halifax.
The first wait had happened beneath winter shadows, both of them afraid of what it meant to be seen together.
This time, Matvei stood beneath every light.
Tessa moved closer to him as they crossed the street.
“You have practice tomorrow,” she said.
“Yes.”
“You should be sleeping.”
“You work tomorrow.”
“Yes.”
“Bad.”
“It is the first season. Everything happens quickly.”
Matvei looked toward her.
“You like.”
“I do.”
“More than Cup?”
The question might once have required a careful answer.
Tessa thought about Game 7. Frank’s seat. Matvei stretched across the crease while the city waited to breathe. She thought about the Cup entering the building and the story that proved she belonged at the highest level she had always imagined.
Then she thought about the notebook inside her bag.
All those blank pages.
“Different,” she said.
Matvei nodded.
He understood that answer now.
They reached the truck.
Matvei opened her door.
Tessa looked toward him.
“Date?”
“Yes.”
“This is not a date. You are taking me to find food after midnight.”
“Date.”
“You complain about how long I work.”
“Yes.”
“You will probably make me eat oatmeal.”
“Restaurant.”
“Nothing good is open.”
“I find.”
Tessa smiled and stepped closer.
She kissed him beneath the streetlight.
Matvei touched her cheek when she pulled back.
“I love you,” he said.
“I love you too.”
She climbed into the truck.
Matvei closed the door and walked around the front without hiding his face.
Tessa watched him through the windshield.
The first home game was finished.
The story had been filed.
Tomorrow would bring another practice, another question and another entry in the notebook before anyone knew whether it would become history.
Matvei entered the driver’s side and placed her bag between them.
“You ready?” he asked.
Tessa looked once toward Atlantic Centre.
The Cup banner hung inside.
The Tides logo glowed outside.
Proof behind her.
Possibility ahead.
“Yes,” she said.
Then she went with him.