David enters the rink and goes straight to his office, the smallest one at the end of the corridor. He closes the door, switches his computer on, and studies videos of tomorrow’s opponents. They’re a brilliant team, an imposing machine, and—player for player—only Kevin really matches up against them. It’s going to take an immense effort for the team to stand any chance at all, but David knows that they do at least have a chance, and that every single one of his players will work themselves to death out there on the ice if need be. That isn’t what’s making him feel sick. It’s what he’s missing from the team. Speed.
For several years the junior team’s first line has consisted of Kevin, Benji, and a third player called William Lyt. Kevin is a genius, and Benji a fighter. But William is slow. He’s big and strong, and not bad at passing, so David has managed to find tactical solutions to hide his shortcomings when they’ve been playing less impressive teams, but the team they’re about to face is good enough to shut Kevin down unless there’s someone else who’s quick enough to create space for him.
David rubs his temples. Looks at his reflection in the computer screen, his red hair and exhausted eyes. He gets up and goes out to the bathroom. And throws up again.
*
In a larger office two doors away, Sune is sitting at his computer. He’s watching the same clips as David, over and over again. Once upon a time the two men always looked at events out on the ice the same way, thought the same about everything. But as the years passed, David grew older and more ambitious while Sune became old and stubborn. When David claims that fights ought to be permitted out on the ice because “there’d be fewer injuries if the guys knew they’d get beaten up for bad play,” Sune retorts, “That’s like saying there’d be fewer road accidents if you banned car insurance, because people would take better care of their cars.” When David wants to “increase the load” on the juniors, Sune talks about “quality over quantity.” If David says “up,” Sune yells “down.” When some of the other sporting associations recently proposed that little league games should no longer keep a tally of goals and points, and not have league tables until the age of twelve, Sune thought it sounded “sensible,” while David denounced it as “communism.” David thinks Sune should let him do his job. Sune thinks David has misunderstood what his job actually is. The two men are stuck in their own trenches, buried too deep even to see each other anymore.
Sune leans back, rubs his eyes, and hears his chair creak under his weight as he lets out a sigh. He feels like explaining to David just how lonely the job of A-team coach can be, how numbingly heavy the responsibility gets. How you need to be ready to see the bigger picture, adapt, change. But David’s young, not ready to listen and understand. Sune closes his eyes and swears at himself. Because isn’t he just the same? One of the hardest things about getting old is admitting mistakes that it’s too late to put right. The worst thing about having power over other people’s lives is that you sometimes get things wrong.
Sune has always refused to move young players to older age groups. The old man believes in the principle that players should develop alongside their peers, that being given opportunities too early stifles talent. But as he sits alone in his office watching these videos, he has to admit that he sees the same thing as David right now. Something that hardly anyone else understands: without a bit of pace, the junior team is going to die a death tomorrow.
So even Sune finds himself wondering: what are principles worth, if you don’t win?
*
Beartown is just small enough for everyone to recognize almost everyone else, but just big enough to be full of people that no one really notices. Robbie Holts is a few years past forty. His beard has started to turn grey; he scratches it and pulls the collar of his old camouflage jacket tighter around his neck. When the wind blows off the lake at this time of year, it feels like your face is being torn by ghosts. He’s walking along the other side of the street, pretending to have important things to do, convincing himself that no one who sees him will realize that he’s waiting for the pub, the Bearskin, to open.
He can see the roof of the rink from here. Like everyone else, the junior team’s game tomorrow is all he’s talked about every waking hour since they won the quarterfinal. It’s just that he no longer has many people to talk to anymore, not since the factory got rid of him along with nine other guys. There’s a good chance no one was interested in what he was saying before either, but that’s only dawned on him recently.
He looks at the time. Another hour before the Bearskin opens. He pretends it’s no big deal. Keeps his hands in his pockets when he goes into the supermarket so no one will see them shaking. He fills his basket with things he doesn’t need and can’t afford, and puts the low-strength beer—the only sort the supermarket is allowed to sell—in last, to make it look like an impulse buy. “This? Oh, it might be useful to have a few beers at home, just in case.” He asks if he can use the bathroom in the little hardware store. Downs the beers. Goes out and chats to the sales assistant and buys a few very specific screws that he makes very clear he needs for an item of furniture that doesn’t exist. He goes back out onto the street, sees the roof of the rink again. Once upon a time he, Robbie Holts, was king there. Once upon a time he showed more promise than Kevin Erdahl does now. Once upon a time he was better than Peter Andersson.
*
Peter turns the car around in the parking lot, pulls out onto the road, drums his fingers on the wheel. Now that the children have gone he becomes aware of his pulse again. It’s only a junior team game. Only a game. A game. He keeps repeating the mantra but his nerves are eating him up. His lungs seem to be drawing in oxygen through his eye sockets. Hockey is a simple sport: when your desire to win is stronger than your fear of losing, you have a chance. No one wins when they’re frightened.
He hopes the juniors are too young to feel fear tomorrow, too naive to understand how much is at stake. Because a hockey crowd knows no nuances, only heaven or hell. Seen from the stands, you’re either a genius or utterly worthless, never anything in between. An offside is never a matter for doubt; every check is either perfectly clean or deserves a lifetime ban. When Peter was twenty and team captain and arrived back in Beartown after almost winning the final of the top league in the country, he was met by his dad’s voice from the kitchen: “Almost? For Christ’s sake, you can’t almost get on a boat. You’re either on the boat or in the water. And when all the other buggers are in the water as well, no one gives a shit that you were the last one to end up there.”