Sometimes it seemed like a different lifetime that Leif Blomgren had been living in Elvabyen, looking forward to going to college on a hockey scholarship in the fall, going to metal concerts almost every weekend and missing his parents in Greysolon. It was hard to believe he was the same person who had reported to the Blue Cygnets' training camp for the World Junior Hockey Championships, the same person who had been so surprised to get the letter from his coach asking him to try out. Sometimes he still woke expecting to be playing school boy hockey, like the past year had all been just a dream.
But if it had been a dream, or a fantasy, then there were definitely parts where he would have liked to wake up. The gruesome deaths of the Patistani players still haunted him, as did the heavy weight of fear in Coach Schved's eyes as she'd watched the news and translated the Guayabalian to them and the quiet pride with which Gregory had congratulated his enemy crushers. Leif had heard dozens of heavy metal singers claim to be "Satan's spawn" or "the true face of evil", but there was no doubt in his mind that he saw the real thing whenever Gregory was on-screen.
There had also been triumphs, though, things he would have been disappointed to wake up from. He remembered the feeling when the buzzer had sounded in the final game against Sicoutimont, how he'd felt almost numb as he'd hustled to the bench, how it had taken a minute to sink in, and the surge of elation that had overtaken him when it finally did. The Blue Swans had lined up in their jerseys at the airport to greet them, standing beneath a banner that read "Verdensmestere"-"World Champions." Now Leif had a jersey identical to theirs, except for the small Patistani flag that he insisted on wearing on his left breast.
Then there was his whirlwind ride to the major juniors in Quebec. When he'd met the scout in San Jose Guayabal, he'd thought it was just a cursory, touch-base kind of thing in case any of them did something really spectacular to earn a spot in the juniors. Then the call had come that he was projected as a first-round pick, and he'd wondered whether it was a scam, something to lure out his money in hopes of playing professional hockey. He'd gone, though, taken the twenty-four-hours-plus flight to Esquarium to sit in a convention center in Montreal (or was it Quebec City?) and shake the hand of the coach that picked him. He hadn't even been paying attention when his name was called first overall; it hadn't even occurred to him that going first was a possibility. He'd taken a picture with the coach of the Kenora Thunderwolves, and it still hadn't sunk in.
