He says it as if insecurity is the problem. As if it isn’t THE PROBLEM that’s the problem. He pours Peter some coffee; a different sort of man might have thrown the cup at the wall, but Peter has no violence in him. He never even fought on the ice when he was a player. These men used to sneer at him for that behind his back, but they really can’t be bothered to do it out of sight anymore.
They know that Peter’s weakness is loyalty, that he feels he owes his town. Hockey here has given him everything, and it’s good at reminding him about that. A poster in the changing room at the rink says, “A great deal is expected of anyone who’s been given a lot.”
Another councillor, who prides himself on being the sort of man who “tells it like it is,” says, “Beartown has no junior team, and not much of an A-team! You’ve already lost all your best players and almost all your sponsors to Hed. We have to think of the taxpayers!”
One year ago the same councillor was asked a critical question by the local paper about the council’s plans to finance an expensive new arena. He answered without a trace of hesitation, “You know what Beartown’s taxpayers want? They want to watch hockey!” They’re so easy to blame, no matter what your opinion might be: taxpayers.
The same money will end up in the same pockets, the pockets are just moving town to Hed. Peter wants to protest but can’t bring himself to. There’s always been graft involved in council funding of sports, not just as straightforward “grants” but also tucked away as “loans” and “subsidies.” Like when the council “rented” the parking spaces outside the rink, even though the council already owned the land. Or when the council paid to “rent the ice rink for the use of the general public” for all the members of the “general public” who were desperate to skate between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. every Wednesday. At one point, one of the hockey club’s board members was simultaneously on the board of the council’s property company and got the company to buy expensive “sponsorship packages” for hockey games that were never played. Peter knew all about it. The former management of the hockey club was always corrupt. Peter had argued about it at first but eventually had to accept that those were just “the rules of the game.” In a small town, sports doesn’t survive without the support of the regional council. He can’t start shouting about corruption now, because the politicians know exactly how much he knows.
* * *
They’re going to liquidate his club. They just want to make sure he’s going to keep his mouth shut.
* * *
The red hats of the well-built eighteen-year-olds carry the emblem of a charging bull. They’re taking up more and more space on the beach, stretching the boundaries to see if anyone dare try to stop them. Leo’s hatred for them knows no limits.
When Kevin left town, the story changed, but his old friends quickly adapted to new truths. All they needed was a new leader. And William Lyt, a forward on the first line and Kevin’s former neighbor, put himself up and gave them the version of history they were longing for. He’d heard his parents repeat it at the kitchen table for several months: “We’re the victims here, we had victory in the final stolen from us. We would have won if Kevin had played! But Peter Andersson insisted on bringing politics into it! And then he tried to blame US for the fact that that psychopath raped that girl, even though we haven’t done a damn thing! And you know why? Because Peter Andersson has always hated us. Everyone listens to him just because he was once a pro in the NHL, as if that makes him so morally superior. But do you think Kevin would have been prevented from playing in the final if it hadn’t been Peter’s daughter? If any of our sisters had been raped, do you think Peter would have called the cops to pick Kevin up the same day as the final? Peter’s a hypocrite! Kevin’s just an excuse, Peter never wanted boys from the Heights in Beartown Hockey, and you know why? Because some of us happened to be born into families with money, and that doesn’t suit the myth of Peter Andersson as the great savior!”
William’s parents’ words echo from his lips. Every season his mom, Maggan Lyt, gets annoyed that the club promotes kids from the poor parts of town as figureheads but when it’s time for the bills to be paid it’s always the parents from the Heights who are expected to open their wallets. “When are people going to get tired of paying for Peter Andersson’s social experiments?” she complained to anyone who would listen back in the spring, when news spread that the club was starting a hockey school for four-and five-year-old girls.
“They want a girls’ club!” William bellows on the beach.
The words work because they’re easy to understand. Everyone in his team has felt under attack and misunderstood since the rape. So it’s a relief to hear that Peter Andersson hates them, because the easiest reason to hate him back is the conviction that he started it.
* * *
Peter looks around the table. He’s expected to “take it like a man,” but he’s no longer sure what the politicians see him as: the boy who was raised by Beartown Ice Hockey Club? Who became team captain and led a dying backwoods team all the way to become second best in the country twenty years ago? Or the NHL professional he later became? Before he was persuaded to come back home and become general manager of the club once it had tumbled through the leagues, where, against all odds, he built up one of the best junior teams in the country and made the little club big again. Is he any of those men?
Or is he just a dad now? Because it was his daughter who was raped. He was the one who went with her to the police that morning back in March. He was the one who stood in the parking lot outside the rink and watched as the police pulled the junior team’s star player off the bus just before they set off for the biggest game of their lives. He knows what all the men in here think, what men everywhere are thinking: “If it had been my daughter, I’d have killed the man who did that to her.” And not a night goes by without Peter wishing he was that sort of man. That he possessed that violence. But instead he accepts the cup of coffee. Because masculinity is hard at any age.
One of the politicians begins to explain, and his tone veers between sympathetic and patronizing: “You need to be a team player now, Peter. We have to act in the best interests of everyone in the district. A good reputation is vital to our hopes of attracting the World Skiing Championships. We’re going to build a new arena in Hed and establish the hockey school there . . .”
Peter doesn’t need to hear the rest; he’s heard this vision of the future, he was there when it was written. First the rink and hockey school, then the shopping center and better links to the highway. A conference hotel and a ski competition that gets shown on television. And then who knows? Maybe an airport? Sports are only sports until someone who doesn’t give a damn about sports has something to gain from them; then sports suddenly become economics. The hockey club was going to rescue the entire council district, and that remains the case. Just not Peter’s hockey club.