The noisy buggers in the big cities will never be able to understand that. What it feels like to nurture a truly talented player on a really small hockey team. Like seeing a cherry tree in bloom in a frozen garden. You can wait years, a whole lifetime, maybe several, and it would still be a miracle if you experienced it just once. Twice ought to have been impossible. Anywhere but here.
The first time was Peter Andersson. That’s more than forty years ago now. Sune, who had only just been appointed A-team coach at the time, caught sight of him during skating classes. A scrawny little kid with hand-me-down gloves, a drunk for a father, and bruises everyone saw but nobody asked about. Hockey noticed him when no one else did. Changed his life with colossal force. One day that little kid grew up and raised a bankruptcy-threatened club that everyone had written off to the second-best in the country, and then he raised himself up to the NHL, the impossible path from the forest to the stars. Before fate snatched it all away from him.
It was Sune who called Peter in Canada after the funeral and told him that Beartown needed a general manager. That there was still a club and a town here that needed rescuing. And Peter needed something to rescue. That was how the Andersson family came to move home.
The second time was about ten years ago. Sune and Peter broke away from the search party in the forest because Sune realized they were looking for a hockey player while everyone else thought they were looking for an ordinary boy. They found Kevin out on the lake at dawn, his cheeks touched by frostbite, the look of the bear in his eyes. It was Peter who carried the seven-year-old back home. Sune walked alongside in silence, inhaling deeply through his nostrils. In the depths of winter the town smelled of cherry blossom again.
When a taciturn twenty-two-year-old A-team player that year gave up the fight against recurring injuries and a lack of talent, it was Sune who stopped him in the parking lot. He was the one who saw the makings of a brilliant coach when everyone else saw a failed player. The twenty-two-year-old was called David, and he stood awkwardly in front of Sune and whispered, “I’m no good as a coach,” but Sune gave him a whistle and said: “Anyone who thinks they’re a good coach never is.” David’s first team was a gang of seven-year-olds, and one of the players was Kevin. David told them to win. And they won. And didn’t stop.
Kevin is seventeen now, David is coach of the junior team, and next season they’ll both be on the A-team. Together with Peter, they make up the holy trinity of the future: hands on the ice, heart on the bench, brain in the office. And now Sune’s discoveries will be his downfall. Peter is going to fire him, David will take his job, and Kevin will prove to everyone that it was the right decision.
An old man saw the future. And now it’s overtaken him. He opens the door to the rink, lets its sounds tumble toward him.
Why does he care about hockey? Because his life will be silent without it.
* * *
Why? No one’s ever asked Amat that. Hockey hurts. It demands inhuman sacrifices, physically and mentally and emotionally. It breaks feet and tears ligaments and forces him to get out of bed before dawn. It eats all his time, swallows all his energy. So why? Because when he was little he once heard that “there are no former hockey players,” and he knows exactly what that means. That was back in skating class, when Amat was five years old. The A-team coach came down onto the ice to talk to the children. Sune was a fat old man even then, but he looked Amat right in the eye when he said: “Some of you were born with talent, some weren’t. Some of you are lucky and got everything for free, some of you got nothing. But remember, when you’re out on the ice you’re all equals. And there’s one thing you need to know: desire always beats luck.”
It’s easy for a child to fall in love with something if they’re told that they can be best at it, as long as they want it enough. And no one wanted it more than Amat. Hockey became a way into society for him and his mother. He’s planning to turn it into more than that—he’s planning to make it the way out as well.
Every part of his body hurts, every cell is pleading with him to lie down and rest. But he swings around, blinks the sweat away, clutches his stick more tightly, and drives his skates across the ice. As fast as he can, as hard as he can. Again. Again. Again.
* * *
Everything reaches an age when it no longer surprises us. That applies even to hockey. Most days you’d think there aren’t any original ideas left, that everything has already been thought, said, and written by a whole range of coaches, each one more confident than the last. The other sort of day is more rare—the unusual occasions when the ice still manages to reveal things that are beyond description. Things that surprise.
The caretaker is heading toward the stands to put some new screws in an old railing. He sees Sune open the main door and is surprised, because Sune is never here this early.
“You’re up bright and early today,” the caretaker chuckles.
“You have to work hardest just before the final whistle,” Sune smiles wearily.
The caretaker nods sadly. As already noted, Sune’s dismissal is the worst-kept secret in town. The old man is on his way up through the stands, heading for his office, when he stops. The caretaker raises an eyebrow. Sune nods toward the boy out on the ice. He squints, his eyes aren’t what they were.
“Who’s that?”
“Amat. One of the fifteen-year-olds on the boys’ team.”
“What’s he doing here so early in the morning?”
“He’s here every morning.”
The boy has put his gloves, hat, and jacket down as markers between the lines. He skates as fast as he can until he reaches them, then changes direction without appearing to lose any speed at all, then stops abruptly and explodes. The puck never leaves his stick. Back and forth. Five times. Ten times. Without any loss of intensity. Then the shots. The puck in exactly the same place in the net at the end of each approach. Again. Again.
“Every morning? Is he being punished by someone for something, then?” Sune mutters.
The caretaker chuckles.
“He just loves hockey. You remember how that feels, old man?”
Sune doesn’t answer, grunts as he looks at his watch, and heads up through the stands. He’s almost reached the top row when he stops again. He tries to take another step but his heart won’t let him.
He’s seen Amat in skating class; he sees all these boys there, but it wasn’t as obvious then. Hockey is a sport that rewards repetition. The same exercises, the same movements, until a player’s responses become instinctive, branded into his marrow. The puck doesn’t just glide, it bounces as well, so acceleration is more important than maximum speed, hand-eye coordination more important than strength. The ice judges you by your ability to change direction and thought quicker than anyone else—that’s what separates the best players from the rest.
There are vanishingly few of them, those days when the game can still surprise us. When it does happen, it comes without warning; we just have to trust that we’ll recognize it. So when the echo of the skates cutting into the ice bounds up the banks of seating, Sune stops and pauses for a moment before casting one final glance over his shoulder again. He sees the fifteen-year-old turn, holding his stick lightly in his hand, then set off again at blistering speed, and Sune will remember this as one of the true blessings in his life: seeing the impossible happen in Beartown for a third time.
The caretaker looks up from the screws in the railing and sees the old coach sink onto one of the seats on the top row. At first he seems to be seriously ill. Then the caretaker realizes that it’s because he’s never seen the old man laugh before.
Sune is breathing through his nose with tears in his eyes, and the whole rink smells of cherry blossom.
* * *
Why does anyone care about hockey?
* * *
Because it tells stories.
6
Amat leaves the rink with every scrap of fabric on his body transparent with sweat. From the top row of the stands,
Sune watches him go. The boy is lucky, he didn’t notice the A-team coach sitting there; if he had, his nerves would have sent him diving headfirst onto the ice.
Sune remains seated after Amat’s gone. He’s been old for a long time, but is really feeling it today. There are two things that are particularly good at reminding us how old we are: children and sports. In hockey you’re an experienced player at twenty-five, a veteran at thirty, and pensioned off at thirty-five. Sune is twice that. And with age he has become shorter and broader, he’s got more face to wash and less hair to comb, and finds himself getting annoyed by narrow chairs and poor-quality zippers.
But when the door closes behind Amat, the old man can still smell cherry blossom in his nostrils. Fifteen years old. Bloody hell, what a future. Sune is ashamed of the fact that he’s only just noticed him; the boy has clearly developed in an explosive fashion recently while everyone else has had their eyes on the junior team, but a few years ago Sune would never have missed a talent like that. He can’t blame it all on his old eyes; he’s got an old heart as well.
He knows he won’t be here long enough to get the chance to coach the boy, but he hopes no one ruins his talent by cutting him down. Or by letting him grow too quickly. But he knows there’s no point wishing for anything like that, because when all the others realize how good this boy is they’ll want to start squeezing results out of him immediately. The club needs that; the town demands that. Sune has had this argument with the board time and time again over the years, and he always loses.
It would take days to recount the long version of why Sune is being fired from Beartown Ice Hockey Club. But the short version is only two words long: “Kevin Erdahl.” The sponsors, the board, and the club’s president have all demanded that Sune let the seventeen-year-old wunderkind play in the A-team, and Sune has refused. In his world it takes more than hormones to turn boys into men. Senior hockey requires maturity just as much as it does talent, and he’s seen more players crushed by opportunities proffered too early than too late. But no one’s listening anymore.
The people of Beartown are proud of being bad losers. Sune knows that he himself bears much of the blame for that. He’s the one who imprinted the words “club comes first” into every player and coach since his first day here. The good of the club must always come first, never anyone’s ego. They’re using that against him now. He could have saved his job by letting Kevin play in the A-team, and he wishes he was certain he’s done the right thing. But he genuinely doesn’t know any longer. Maybe the board and the sponsors are right—maybe he’s just a stubborn old goat who’s lost his grip.
* * *
David is at home, lying on his kitchen floor. He’s thirty-two years old and his red hair is so unruly it looks like it’s trying to escape from his head. He got teased about it when he was little; the other kids pretended to burn themselves on him in class. That was where he learned to fight. He didn’t have any friends, which was why he was able to devote all his time to hockey. He never bothered to acquire any other interests, which is how he’s managed to become the best.
Sweat is dripping on the floor as he frantically performs push-ups under the kitchen table. His computer is on top of it; he’s been watching videos of old matches and training sessions all night. Being junior team coach for Beartown Ice Hockey makes him a simple man to understand and an impossible man to live with. When his girlfriend gets annoyed with him, she usually tells him he’s the sort of man “who could take offense in an empty room.” That could be true—his face looks like he’s walking into a headwind. He’s always been told that he’s too serious; that’s why hockey suits him so well. No one on a hockey team thinks it’s possible to take hockey too seriously.
The match tomorrow is the most important in David’s life, as well as the juniors’. A more philosophically inclined coach might tell them that those could be their last sixty minutes on the ice as children, because most of them will be turning eighteen this year, then they’ll be grown men and seniors. But David isn’t philosophical, so he’ll just say his usual single word to them: “Win.”
He doesn’t have the best players in the country, far from it. But they’re the most disciplined, and have received the best tactical training. They’ve been playing together all their lives. And they’ve got Kevin.
They rarely play beautifully. David believes in detailed strategy and a solid defense, but above all he believes in results. Even when the board and parents keep going on about “letting the players lose” and trying to play “more enjoyable hockey.” David doesn’t even know what “enjoyable hockey” is, he only knows one sort of hockey that isn’t enjoyable—the one where the opposing team scores more points. He’s never let anyone else influence him; he’s never given a place on the team to the son of a marketing manager at one of the big sponsors like he’s been told to. He’s uncompromising; he knows that’s not going to make him any friends, but he doesn’t care. Do you want to be liked? It’s easy: just get yourself to the top of the podium. So David does whatever it takes to get up there. That’s why he doesn’t see his team the same way everyone else does, because even if Kevin is the best player he isn’t always the most important.
The computer on the kitchen table is showing a game from earlier in the season, when an opposing player sets off after Kevin with the obvious intention of tackling him from behind, but the next moment is himself lying flat on the ice. Another Beartown player, number sixteen, is standing over him, already missing his gloves and helmet. A torrent of punches rains down on the opposing player.
Kevin might be the star, but Benjamin Ovich is the heart of the team. Because Benji is like David: he’s prepared to do whatever it takes. So ever since he was small, the coach has drummed one single idea into him: “Don’t pay any attention to what people say, Benji. They’ll like us well enough when we start winning.”
* * *
He’s seventeen years old, and his mom wakes him early by saying his full name. She’s the only person who uses it. “Benjamin.” Everyone else calls him Benji. He stays in bed, in the smallest room in the last row house at the far end of Beartown, just before the start of the Hollows, until she comes in for the third or fourth time. When words from her homeland creep into her exhortations he gets up, because that’s when it gets serious. His mom and Benji’s three older sisters only slip into the old language when they want to express great anger or eternal love, and this country simply doesn’t have sufficiently flexible grammar to express which good-for-nothing part of the laziest useless donkey Benji might be, or how they love him as deeply as ten thousand wells full of gold. His mom can get both elements into the same sentence. It’s a remarkable language in that sense.
She watches him as he cycles off. She hates having to force him out of bed before the sun has risen, but she knows that if she goes to work without driving her son out of the house he wouldn’t leave it at all. She’s a single mother with three daughters, but it’s this seventeen-year-old boy who worries her more than anything. A boy who cares too little about the future and frets too much about the past: nothing could depress a mother more. Her little Benjamin, the fighter with whom it’s far too easy for the girls of Beartown to fall in love. The boy with the most handsome face, the saddest eyes, and the wildest heart they’ve ever seen. His mom knows, because she married a man who looked just the same, and nothing but trouble lies ahead for men like that.
* * *
David is making coffee in his kitchen. He always brews an extra pot each morning and fills a thermos—the coffee at the rink is so bad you ought to be able to charge someone for assault just for offering it to you. His computer is playing a match from last year, in which Kevin is being pursued by a furious defender until Benji appears at full speed out of nowhere and hits the defender on the back of his neck with his stick, sending him flying headfirst into the opposing team’s bench. Half the team storms onto the ice to get revenge on Benji, who is standing there waiting for them without his helmet, fists clenched. It ta
kes the referees ten minutes to get the fight under control. In the meantime Kevin has gone to sit down quietly on his own bench, unharmed and untroubled.
Some people try to make excuses for Benji’s temperament by blaming his tough childhood, the fact that his dad died when he was young. David never does that; he loves Benji’s temperament. Other people call him a “problem child,” but all the characteristics that make him a problem off the ice are what make him so special on it. If you send him into a brawl it doesn’t matter if serpents, trolls, and all the monsters of hell are in the way, Benji always comes out with the puck. If anyone gets anywhere near Kevin he’ll fight through concrete to place himself in the way, and that sort of thing can’t be taught. Everyone knows how good Kevin is—every youth-team coach on each of the top clubs in the country has tried to recruit him—and that also means that every team they play contains at least one psycho who wants to hurt him. So David doesn’t accept it when people say that Benji ends up “fighting” in every other match. He’s not fighting. He’s protecting the most important investment the town has ever seen.
But David has stopped using that particular word in front of his girlfriend: “investment.” Because, as she put it: “Is that really any way to talk about a seventeen-year-old?” David has learned not to try to explain it. Either you understand that aspect of hockey or you don’t.
* * *