Chapter Four #2
He didn't like seeing other people explain him.
Pat's comments about enjoying hockey again felt too close to something private, and Viktor's observation about the weight of the previous season made him sound fragile.
Neither man had said anything untrue, but truth in a newspaper had always made Matvei uneasy.
Once something belonged to the public, it stopped belonging entirely to him.
Still, the story was fair.
He disliked how much that bothered him.
It would have been easier if she had written something cruel. He knew what to do with cruelty. He could dismiss it, store it beside all the other headlines and use it the next time someone accused him of being difficult. Fairness left him with nowhere comfortable to put his anger.
Pat dropped onto the chair beside him and began sorting through notes on his tablet.
“You read it,” the coach said.
Matvei folded the paper again.
“Some.”
“Thought it was good.”
“You gave her too much.”
Pat glanced sideways. “I told her you worked hard this summer.”
“You told her I needed to enjoy hockey.”
“You did.”
“That is not for newspaper.”
“Then maybe you should've answered her yourself.”
Matvei looked at him.
Pat held up both hands. “I'm just saying.”
“You are saying too much again.”
The coach laughed and returned to his tablet. “She got the hockey right. That's more than you can say about plenty of stories written last year.”
That was true, which only irritated Matvei more.
He changed into his practice gear and tried to ignore the newspaper beside him.
Players arrived in waves, bringing noise with them.
Someone turned on music. Two of the younger forwards argued about something he couldn’t make out.
Viktor walked through the room collecting money for a football pool Matvei had no intention of joining.
The paper remained on his stall until the equipment staff came through looking for loose towels and empty cups.
Matvei picked it up before anyone could throw it away.
He folded it into quarters and placed it inside the top compartment of his bag.
He didn't know why.
One fair story did not mean anything. It was training camp.
There had been no losses yet, no bad goals and no reason for anyone to sharpen a knife.
Of course she could write something optimistic now.
That was what September was for. Everyone arrived refreshed, every injured player was healthy and every disappointing season had supposedly been left behind.
Wait until he allowed four goals.
Wait until he cost them a game in the third period or let a bad rebound turn into an overtime loss. Wait until the fans demanded someone to blame and her editor wanted a column that would travel farther online than a story about improved footwork.
Then she would become like the others.
Maybe not immediately. Maybe she would choose softer words at first. But eventually the questions would change, the patience would disappear and she would learn that there was more reward in tearing someone down than explaining him honestly.
Matvei tied his skates tighter than necessary and stood.
The article had changed nothing.
Practice began with rush drills.
Matvei preferred them to the technical work Pat had planned for later. Rushes left less time to think. The puck moved from one end of the ice to the other, forcing him to read the play, set his feet and react before doubt could interfere.
The first shot hit him high in the chest. He controlled the rebound and pushed it toward the corner. The next player came down the left side and tried to beat him above the glove. Matvei caught it cleanly.
“Too easy,” he called after the forward.
The forward circled back toward center ice. “It's September, Belly. I'm saving the good stuff.”
“You do not have good stuff.”
A few players laughed. The forward raised his stick in response, then scored on the next repetition with a quick shot beneath Matvei's blocker.
He skated past the crease wearing a grin.
Matvei said nothing.
Pat tapped the glass with his stick. “Maybe don't wake them up.”
“He got lucky.”
“Of course.”
Practice moved into low-zone work. Pat wanted Matvei holding his edges longer rather than dropping early, particularly when the puck moved behind the net.
It had been one of the problems the year before.
His knee hadn't felt stable enough to trust it, so he had cheated toward the post and opened space before the play developed.
He had watched those goals all summer.
There had been twenty-seven of them that he considered directly connected to the injury, though Pat insisted the number was lower.
Matvei had saved the clips on his tablet anyway.
He knew which ones had come through screens, which rebounds he'd failed to control and which plays had beaten him because he'd been thinking about the possibility of pain before he moved.
The knee felt different now.
Stronger.
He repeated the drill until Pat was satisfied, then asked to run it twice more.
By the final repetition, sweat had soaked through the collar of his practice jersey and his legs burned. He welcomed both sensations. They were proof that his body was working rather than resisting him.
When the whistle ended practice, most of the team drifted toward center ice for stretching. Matvei stayed in his crease, scraping loose snow away from the posts while Pat gathered pucks.
“You want extra?” the coach asked.
Matvei nodded.
Pat positioned himself below the goal line and sent a pass into the slot, where one of the assistant coaches redirected it quickly toward the net. Matvei pushed across, sealed the ice and stopped the first shot, but the rebound slipped several feet into the middle.
“Again.”
The second attempt was cleaner. The third caught the outside of his pad and bounced away from danger.
They repeated the sequence from the opposite side until Matvei's recoveries felt automatic. Only then did he straighten, remove his mask and take the water bottle Pat offered him.
Above the far end of the rink, several reporters remained seated in the press area. Most were speaking to one another or looking down at their laptops.
The new reporter was watching the ice.