Chapter Sixteen #4
When the English reporters moved closer, he acknowledged the result plainly.
“Finland makes one more play.”
“Did you think you had the overtime shot?” someone asked.
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“Touches glove. Not enough.”
“How difficult is it to come this close?”
Matvei looked toward the reporter.
“How you think?”
The answer ended that question.
Tessa stayed near the back.
She did not need to ask anything. The Joona story remained her priority, and enough reporters had already covered Matvei’s perspective.
Then his eyes found her.
The look lasted less than a second.
Tessa stepped forward.
“Joona said you told him the winning goal was lucky,” she said.
Something changed around Matvei’s mouth.
“It was.”
“Did you say anything else to him?”
“Yes.”
He waited.
Tessa understood that he would not offer the private words.
“What did his tournament show you?” she asked instead.
Matvei looked toward the Finland side of the arena.
“That he belongs.”
The answer carried no hesitation.
“At this level?”
“At every level.”
Tessa wrote it down.
“Were you able to appreciate what the moment meant for him, even with the loss?”
Matvei’s expression tightened.
“Not yet.”
The honesty hurt.
“Maybe later,” he added.
Tessa nodded.
“Thank you.”
She moved away.
Matvei followed her with his eyes before the next reporter began.
Tessa returned to the media room and wrote.
The championship story became longer than Elaine requested. Tessa did not care. Every section seemed necessary.
Joona’s childhood in Helsinki.
His uncertain English at training camp.
The relief of his first NHL goal.
His mother’s lucky jersey.
The power-play goal against Matvei in the opener.
The overtime finish in the rematch.
She wrote about the way he looked toward the official before celebrating his first NHL goal months earlier, unsure whether the puck had truly entered. In Helsinki, he waited for the red light again before allowing himself to believe the biggest goal of his life was real.
Matvei appeared near the end.
Not as an obstacle defeated, but as the teammate who helped Joona find confidence in Halifax and the goaltender forced to watch him complete the story for someone else.
Tessa used his quote.
He belongs at every level.
She stopped typing after inserting it.
The sentence said more about Matvei than he probably intended.
Even in his own disappointment, he had made room for Joona’s success.
Tessa finished the story at eight-forty-three.
Elaine replied before nine.
This is excellent. Need a Russia sidebar when you can.
Tessa stared at the message.
When she could.
She had already filed a game story, the Joona feature and several updates. Her shoulders ached from hunching over the laptop. She had eaten half a sandwich between periods and nothing afterward.
Still, she opened another document.
The Russia sidebar would not require long. Five hundred words on the silver medal, Matvei’s performance and what came next.
Tessa worked through it in thirty-five minutes. The media room emptied.
Tessa packed more slowly after the door closed. The adrenaline that had carried her through overtime and two stories began receding, leaving exhaustion beneath it.
She thought about Matvei.
He had lost a championship less than three hours earlier. Russia would hold a team event at the hotel, perhaps a final dinner or meeting before players separated for flights. He would be surrounded by teammates, coaches and the old coach who had helped rebuild his game.
He would not be thinking about her.
That was probably better.
Tessa put on the coat he hated, wrapped the scarf around her neck and followed the empty corridor toward the media exit.
The arena had become quiet.
Confetti remained caught beneath seats and along the edges of the concourse. Volunteers pushed carts loaded with signs and discarded programs. Somewhere inside the building, Finnish players continued celebrating.
Cold air entered before she stepped outside.
Matvei stood beneath the overhang.
For a moment, Tessa believed exhaustion had created him.
He wore a dark coat and black hat, both hands inside his pockets. The silver medal was gone. Snow had begun collecting lightly across his shoulders.
No team bus waited.
No Russian players stood nearby.
Only Matvei.
Tessa stopped.
He looked toward the laptop bag, then her face.
“You finish?”
The question echoed Christmas Day.
“Yes.”
“You miss bus.”
“Yes.”
Matvei nodded toward the street.
“I walk.”
Tessa’s pulse changed.
He had waited after losing the championship. After she spent the night writing about Joona’s winning goal. After several days of silence and an argument neither of them had solved.
“You were waiting for me,” she said.
“Yes.”
No excuse.
No attempt to make the decision sound accidental.
Tessa looked toward the road leading back to the hotels.
Snow moved through the glow of the streetlights. The path was familiar now, every turn attached to a different version of them.
Matvei stepped from beneath the overhang.
“Come.”
This time, Tessa did not hesitate.
She followed him into the cold.