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.”