David is standing in the players’ tunnel, watching the sponsors go up the steps toward the offices. He knows what they say about him, how they talk about his successes, but he also knows how quickly they’d turn against him next year if the A-team doesn’t reach the same heights. And, dear God, does anyone in this town have any idea how utterly improbable this junior team is? There are no Cinderella stories in hockey anymore; the big clubs strip the smaller ones of talent before the players have even reached their teens. And even in Beartown, where—miraculously—all the guys have stayed put, there’s only one player of truly elite caliber; the rest ought to be outplayed in a hundred games out of a hundred. But despite that, here they are. This team is like a swarm of hornets.

People keep asking what David’s “tactical secret” is. He can’t tell them, because they wouldn’t understand. The tactical secret is love. He became Kevin’s coach when he was a frightened little seven-year-old who would have been flattened by the older kids outside the rink if he hadn’t had Benji there to protect him. Even then, Benji was the most courageous little bastard David had ever seen, and Kevin the most talented. David taught them to skate backward as well as forward. He taught them that passes are just as important as shots, he made Benji play for entire practices without his stick, and forced Kevin to play for weeks with a stick that was curved wrong. But he also taught them that they only had each other, that the only person you can really trust in this world is the guy next to you on the ice, that the only people who will refuse to get on a bus before you come back to it are a team.

It was David who taught the boys how to tape their sticks and sharpen their skates, but he also taught them how to knot a tie and shave. Well, their chins, anyway. They taught themselves the rest. He starts to laugh every time he remembers how Bobo, the wayward, hyperactive little fatty, once turned around in the locker room when he was thirteen and asked Benji if they were supposed to shave their backsides at the same time as they shaved their testicles. “Do girls think it’s important that they match?” When David himself was a junior, that was part of the younger players’ initiation, forcibly shaving their pubic hair off—it used to be regarded as humiliating. He doesn’t know what the modern equivalent would be, but he suspects that today’s teenagers would only be scared by the prospect of being taped to a chair and having to let their pubes grow out again.

Hockey changes all the time, because the people playing it do. When David was a junior the coach used to demand total silence in the locker room, but David’s team has always been full of laughter. He’s always known that humor could bring people together, so when the guys were young and nervous he always used to tell jokes just before a game. Their favorite when they were small was: “How do you sink a submarine from Hed? You swim down and knock on the door. How do you sink it a second time? You swim down and knock on the door, because then they open it and say, ‘Oh no, we’re not falling for that again!’?” When the guys grew older, their favorite was: “How do you know you’re at a wedding in Hed? Because everyone’s sitting on the same side of the church.” Then they got old enough to tell their own jokes, and David used to leave the locker room more and more. Because sometimes the absence of the coach can also unite a team.

He looks at the time, counting the minutes until the start of the game. The sponsors in the stands will never understand his tactics, because they could never understand what the guys on the team are ready to sacrifice for each other. While the sponsors have been shouting at David to “let the team loose offensively,” David has patiently allocated very clear roles to his players, drilling them on where to pass the puck, on precise positioning, how to direct the play, angles, evaluation, and how to eliminate risk. He’s taught them how to disarm any advantage their opponents may have in terms of technique or speed, how to bring them down to their own level, how to frustrate and irritate, because that’s when they win, because they have something no one else has: Kevin. If he gets the chance he can score two goals, and as long as he has Benji beside him, he’ll always get at least one chance.

“Ignore the stands, ignore what people say,” David keeps repeating. His tactics demand subordination, humility, and trust, ten years of training and hard work, and if Beartown loses in every stat except the one indicating the number of goals scored, David will tell each and every one of the players in the locker room that they’ve done their job. And they trust him. They love him. When they were seven years old, when everyone else just laughed, he told them he would take them all the way here, and he’s kept his promise.

Before he turns to go back to the locker room, he sees Sune sitting alone at the top of the stands. Their eyes meet for a moment. No matter how much they have argued, David knows that the stubborn old bastard is the only person in this club who actually still understands the love underpinning what they do.

17

Some people say that everything in hockey is black and white. They’re crazy. Fatima and Kira are sitting in their seats when Kira suddenly excuses herself and stands up, makes her way to the steps, and stops a middle-aged man who Fatima knows is in middle management at the factory. Kira grabs at his red scarf irritably.

“Christer, for heaven’s sake, take that off!”

The man, who is obviously not used to being scolded, and certainly not by a woman, stares at her.

“Are you serious?”

“Are YOU serious?!” Kira exclaims, loud enough to make the other people on the steps turn toward them.

The man looks around with uncertainty flaring on his cheeks. Everyone is looking at him. He doesn’t know who it is, but behind him someone mutters: “For God’s sake, Christer, she’s right!” and then other voices soon join in. Christer slowly removes his scarf and puts it in his pocket. His wife leans toward Kira apologetically and whispers:

“I tried to tell him. But you know what men are like. Sometimes they just don’t understand hockey.”

Kira laughs and goes and sits down next to Fatima again.

“A red scarf. He must be mad! Sorry, what were we talking about?”

Nothing is black and white in Beartown. It’s red or green. And red is Hed’s color.

*