*
Cherry trees always smell of cherry trees.
*
They do that in hockey towns.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First of all, thank you to all the people who helped me with the most difficult parts of this story, but who for various reasons asked not to be mentioned here by name. I owe you a huge amount.
A particularly deep bow is also directed toward all the hockey players, managers, referees, and parents who have let me attend games and training sessions and ask strange questions.
Special thanks to my friend and fellow author Niklas Natt och Dag, my publisher Sofia Brattselius Thunfors, my editor Vanja Vinter, and my agent Tor Johansson. Apart from my family the four of you have been the most important people in the completion of this book. Thank you for sticking up for me right to the end.
I would also like to express my immense gratitude to the following individuals, without whose help this would have been nothing more than an idea and a pile of paper: Tobias Stark, historian and ice-hockey researcher at the Institute for Sports Science at Linnaeus University. Isabel Boltenstern and Jonathan Lindquist, inexhaustible sources of knowledge and entertaining bastards who were tough but fair critics, even when it hurt an author’s fragile ego. Erika Holst, John Lind, Johan Forsberg, Andreas Haara, Ulf Engman, and Fredrik Glader, hockey experts who were incredibly generous with their time when my ideas were hopelessly vague. Anders Dalenius, for informative conversations about dogs and guns. Sofia B. Karlsson, for wide-ranging chat and wise answers about sport and life. Robert Pettersson, for a lonnng and patient email exchange. Attila Terek, for specialist knowledge of chemistry. Isac and Rasmus at Monkeysports in S?dert?lje, for letting me wander about the store for a whole day, and teaching me about hockey equipment. Lina “Lynx” Eklund and Pancrase Gym, for letting me come on fact-finding visits and hear you talk about your love of sport. Johan Zillén, for never being shy of giving your opinion. Also: all the legal experts in a wide range of areas who helped out along the way with details and terminology, as well as everyone else who in various ways read and thought and suggested when I sent you parts of the manuscript. There are too many of you to list here, but I hope you know that I know.
I’m grateful to the hardworking staff of my American publisher, Atria Books, particularly Atria’s publisher Judith Curr, my editor Peter Borland, my publicist Ariele Fredman, as well as Suzanne Donahue, Kimberly Goldstein, Michael Selleck, Sonja Singleton, Albert Tang, Jim Thiel, Hillary Tisman, and Daniella Wexler. And thanks to Simon & Schuster Canada publisher Kevin Hanson and editor Brendan May.
But, most of all: my children. Thank you for waiting while I wrote this. NOW we can play Minecraft.