Tag: research

What the Broadcast Doesn’t Show

On By Bella BruceIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

I know what the score was. I can tell you who scored, which period, how many shots on goal, and the exact moment the commentator’s voice went up an octave because something had happened on the left wing that I was, frankly, still trying to locate.

What I can’t tell you is what it smells like.

That’s the problem with watching hockey from the bottom of the world. I’ve watched an embarrassing number of games this year. Live, when the time difference allows (which means breakfast games, which means hockey with Vegemite toast, which is a sentence no Canadian should ever have to read). Replays when it doesn’t. Highlights on my phone in the queue at the post office. I’ve studied seating maps until I could find my way to Section 112 in my sleep. I’ve read about arena histories and watched fan videos and gone down a rabbit hole about Zamboni drivers that I’m not proud of and will not be discussing further.

Desk research is a wonderful thing. It gives me the bones. The rules, the rhythms, the vocabulary, the names on the backs of the jerseys. It means when I write a goalie tracking a puck through traffic, I know what traffic means. It means I don’t embarrass myself (as often).

But a broadcast is a story someone else has already chosen to tell. The camera follows the puck, because the puck is the point. And when the puck stops, the broadcast goes somewhere else entirely. To an ad. To a panel of men in very good suits. To a replay of the thing I was already watching.

And that’s exactly where my curiosity starts.

What happens in a TV timeout, when the players skate to the bench and the people at home get a car commercial? What’s going on in the building during those two minutes? Is there music? Is somebody on the big screen being dared to dance? Is there a kiss cam, and has anyone ever been caught on it with the wrong person? (Asking for a book.)

And intermission. Eighteen minutes, give or take, when the ice is being resurfaced and the TV audience is being told what they just saw. Where do twenty thousand people go? What’s the queue like for the bathroom, and is it as tragic as I suspect? What does the concourse sound like when it’s full? What are people eating? Who’s selling what? Is there a man with a cowbell, and if so, does he have a name?

These are the things I want to notice. Not the stats. The rest of it.

Because here’s the thing I’ve learned, writing a whole series about hockey players while being, technically, a woman who has never seen a hockey game: atmosphere does half the work in a scene. A first kiss in an empty arena after practice is a completely different scene from a first kiss in a packed concourse with someone’s nachos about to hit the floor. The noise changes it. The cold changes it. The smell of popcorn and ice and wet wool changes it. Readers might not consciously notice any of that, but they feel it, and they believe the scene because of it.

So that’s the plan. Notebook in my pocket. (Millie has already told me I’ll lose it by the second game. Jo has already told me she’ll be the one who finds it, under a seat, covered in something sticky. My sister knows me.)

But I also want to be honest with myself before I go, because I know my own habits. There is a difference between collecting details and forcing every single one of them into a book.

Collecting is the fun part. Collecting is standing on a concourse with your mouth open, writing down “cold air comes off the ice in a wave when the doors open” and “man in a vintage jersey crying, unclear why.” Collecting is greedy and joyful and wonderful.

Forcing is what happens when I get home and decide that because I paid for the flight, every single one of those details is going into the next manuscript, whether the scene needs it or not. Nobody wants a love scene interrupted by an informative paragraph about the arena’s concession pricing. (Okay. Maybe one person. But I don’t write for him.)

The trick, I think, is to collect everything and use only what earns its place. One right detail, the one that makes a reader go “oh, I’m there.” Not twelve. So I’ll gather a mountain, and then I’ll choose a handful.

Which brings me to you. I’d love your help before I go.

What’s one setting detail from a book you’ve read, any book, any genre, that made the whole story suddenly feel real to you? A smell, a sound, a bit of weather, the way a particular room was lit. The detail that made you stop and think, the author has actually been there.

Tell me in the comments. I’ll take your answers to Canada with me, tucked in the notebook I am definitely not going to lose.

Bella x

I’m Taking My Hockey Notebook to Canada

On By Bella BruceIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Day one of the countdown, and you’re all coming with me

I’ve mentioned it a few times now, usually in passing, usually while panicking about fleecy trousers. But it’s November, the countdown has officially started, and I’ve decided it’s not really my trip anymore. It’s ours. So pull up a chair, grab a coffee, and let me tell you where we’re going.

On the twenty-ninth of November, I’m leaving Tasmania for Canada. I’m taking my hockey notebook.

* * *

For anyone just wandering in, hello. I’m Bella Bruce. I write hockey romance, mostly set in a sprawling, slightly chaotic fictional league called the PHL, full of found family, big feelings, and men who are far too large to fit comfortably through doorways. I live in rural Tasmania, at the bottom of the world, which is a very long way from any professional hockey arena.

And here’s the confession that tends to surprise people. I have never been to a live hockey game. I have never seen the inside of an ice hockey arena. I have never, in my entire life, seen snow.

I know. I write about it constantly. My characters skate on it, fall on it, and kiss in it. Everything I know about hockey, I’ve learned from a screen, at strange hours, in my pyjamas, yelling at referees who can’t hear me from half a world away. My fandom (Washington Capitals, in case the jersey in every photo hasn’t tipped you off) and my writing have been tangled together for years. This trip is where they finally meet in real life.

So yes, it’s a holiday. But it’s also research. I’ll have a notebook. I’ll be taking notes. That makes it tax-deductible in spirit, if not in law.

* * *

I’m not going alone. There are three of us, and you’ll be hearing a lot about all of them.

There’s me, obviously. The one with the notebook, the compression socks, and an unreasonable amount of excitement.

There’s Millie, my writing partner of twenty-five years. She’s forty-something, lives in the Pacific Northwest, and has been plotting impossible stories with me across oceans and time zones for a quarter of a century. We’ve written whole worlds together without ever being in the same place for long enough. This trip, we get to make stories face to face, out loud, probably far too loudly, in the back of a car.

And there’s Jo. My sister. My long-suffering sister. The woman who has heard every plot problem, every 2am “what if,” and every sentence that begins with “okay, but hear me out.” She’s agreed to come along anyway, which tells you everything you need to know about her patience, and possibly her judgment.

Three women, one hire car, and a frankly irresponsible amount of hockey.

* * *

Here’s the plan.

We fly out of Tasmania on the twenty-ninth, leave Australia from Sydney on the thirtieth, hop through Auckland, and thanks to the magic of the International Date Line, land in Vancouver on the same day we left Australia. I’ve been assured this is normal. It still feels like cheating.

From Vancouver, we head inland to Edmonton, which I’m reliably informed will be the coldest point of the trip. I’ve been watching the weather. It’s been snowing. It’s not even winter yet. On the third of December we’ll be in the stands watching the Caps take on the Oilers.

Then it’s a four-hour drive south to Calgary, to see the Caps play the Flames at the Saddledome, in what’s set to be its very last season. I’m quietly honoured to get to see the old girl before she goes.

And finally, it’s a long day’s drive back across the mountains to Vancouver, to watch the Caps play the Canucks on the seventh, before we fly home and I spend the next month trying to explain to the cats where I’ve been.

Three cities, three games, and one very special farewell. Because as you all know, this is also my Ovi farewell tour. I’ve wanted to see him play in person for as long as I’ve loved this team, and I’m so grateful I’ll get the chance before he hangs them up.

* * *

Now, here’s where you come in.

I’ve got a month, one blank notebook, and a long list of things I want to know. But I want your help. What should I be researching for you?

What do you want to know about the arenas, the fans, the food, the noise, the cold? What would you want me to notice that I might miss? What questions have you always had about hockey that a girl from Tasmania could find out for you?

Leave them in the comments. I’ll be writing every day this month, and every good question goes in the notebook.

Twenty-eight days to go.

— Bella

P.S. I can’t read this title without hearing it to the tune of “They’re Taking the Hobbits to Isengard.” I’m sorry. Now you can’t either.

The Ovi Farewell Tour (Or: How a Research Trip Grew a Heart)

On By Bella BruceIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Let me start with a confession. When we first started planning this trip, I was very, very sensible about it.

It was a research trip. Capital R. I write hockey romance, and I’ve written a lot of it — whole teams, whole families, whole universes of men who skate fast and feel things deeply — and almost all of it has been built from my couch in Tasmania, watching games at ungodly hours with a blanket, a cup of tea and the cats judging me. I know the rules. I know the rhythms. I know what a good line change looks like. But I have never actually sat in an arena and felt one.

I wanted to know what the cold coming off the ice smells like. How loud it gets when the home team scores, and how quiet it gets when the visitors do. What the concourse sounds like between periods. Whether you can hear the skates from the stands. The little things. The things that make a reader go, oh, she’s been there.

So: research. Very professional. Tax-deductible-adjacent.

And, fine, there was one other thing on the list. A bucket list thing. His name is Tom Wilson.

Tom Wilson is my hockey hero, and I will not be taking questions. On the ice he is a big, aggressive mountain of Canadian man, the kind of player who makes opposing forwards quietly reconsider their life choices. Off the ice he’s the softie who reads Harry Potter by wand light. If I wrote him into a book, my editor would tell me he was too much. Nobody would believe it. That’s exactly why I love him, and he’s the reason I wanted to be in the building. That was the original plan. Watch Willy play. Maybe cry a little. Go home happy.

Then there’s the supporting cast, because I am a Caps girl down to my bones and I have favourites. Pierre-Luc Dubois, my other favourite forward. Logan Thompson in goal. The Outlaw. Josie. And the Pro brothers, Big Pro and Little Pro, Aliaksei and Ilya Protas, who are the only men on earth who can make Tom Wilson look small. I’ve seen it happen. It’s unsettling. It’s like watching a mountain stand next to two bigger mountains and suddenly look like a hill. A whole roster of men I’ve yelled at, cheered for and adopted from the other side of the world at three in the morning, and I was going to get to see every one of them in person.

And Ovi? Ovi was the bonus. The cherry on top. Getting to say I’d been in the same building as Alex Ovechkin, a fixture of my hockey life for so long that it felt a bit like planning to go and meet a weather system.

So we built the trip around the Capitals. Three games, three Canadian cities, one long, slightly unhinged road trip in December. Edmonton first. Then the drive down to Calgary to see them at the Saddledome, in its very last season, which felt like history all on its own. Then the big haul back west to Vancouver for the last game before we fly home. I bought thermals. I bought more thermals. I have been informed, by people who live in actual snow, that I still have not bought enough thermals.

And then Ovi announced his retirement.

I’m not going to pretend I took it with grace. There may have been a noise. Possibly a word I don’t put in my books. Because just like that, the bonus became the whole thing. I still love Willy. He’s still my guy. But the trip I’d been calling research has turned into something else entirely. It’s not the research trip anymore. It’s the Ovi Farewell Tour. Three chances to watch one of the greatest goal scorers the game has ever known, in what is now his final season, and I get to be in the building for three of them. I didn’t plan that. Nobody plans that. The timing just landed in my lap like a puck off a lucky bounce.

Here’s the thing, though. From the outside, this probably looks like a fan going on a holiday to watch some hockey. And it is that. I’m not going to dress it up. I am going to scream. I am going to buy merch I do not need. I am going to spend three entire games trying very hard not to cry every time number eight touches the puck, and I am going to fail. Probably during warm-ups. Possibly before we even find our seats.

But it’s so much more than it looks.

It’s the first time I’ll be standing in the world I’ve spent years writing. Every rink I’ve ever built on the page, every locker room, every press box and bench and tunnel — I’ve imagined all of them. Now I get to check my work. I get to find out what I got right and, more importantly, what I got wrong, and what I never even knew to wonder about. My Pioneers and my McKenzies and all their messy found families are going to be better for it. I can already feel the books shifting.

It’s also a trip I’m taking with people who matter. My writing partner and I have been making stories together since around 1998 — we’ve been doing this longer than some of my characters have been alive — and for the first time we’ll be making them in the same country, in the same car, on the same long icy highways. I don’t expect we’ll get many words written. I do expect we’ll plot out loud for hours, argue about who gets hurt, and come home with more ideas than we can possibly use. And the most important part? Jo is coming too, which means someone will be sensible about dinner and someone will remember where we parked. She’s dealt with my obsession for so long I’m pretty sure that we now share obsessions, right down to Big Willy.

And it’s about time. Not in the ‘it’s about time I did this’ sense, although yes, also that. I mean time itself. How you can follow a player for years, through every season and every playoff heartbreak and every record, and think of him as permanent. And then one day there’s an announcement, and you realise you were watching an ending the whole time, you just didn’t know which chapter you were in.

I write happily-ever-afters for a living. I believe in them, deeply. But I also know that the best endings are the ones you get to witness. You get to be there. You get to say goodbye properly, instead of reading about it the next morning over toast.

So that’s what this is now. Part research trip. Part bucket list. Part pilgrimage. Part three friends and a hire car versus the Canadian winter. And part a very grateful fan getting to stand up, three times, and say thank you to a player who gave her years of joy from the other side of the world.

I’ll report back. With notes. With photos. With, almost certainly, more feelings than is strictly professional.

Research, remember. Very serious research.

Go Caps.

— Bella x

70 Days Out: The Research Trip Is Officially a Thing

On By Bella BruceIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Right, hockey people, it’s time for an update, because I have officially stopped pretending this trip is theoretical. It is 71 days away. There is a jersey. This is happening.

For anyone new here: I write hockey romance, which means every so often the research has to get a little more hands-on than a stats page and a highlight reel, and this December I am doing exactly that. Call it a research trip. Call it an excuse. I’m calling it both and I’m not sorry.

Here’s the run of it. We fly into Vancouver on November 30th. From there we’re driving up to Edmonton, across to Calgary, and back down to Vancouver, and along the way we’re catching three games — the Capitals against the Oilers in Edmonton, then the Capitals against the Flames in Calgary, then the Capitals against the Canucks back in Vancouver, in that order. Rink to rink, city to city, three very different arenas and hopefully three very good games. We fly home on December 8th.

Logistically, I feel disgustingly prepared. The jersey’s sourced. I’ve actually sorted clothing for the temperature swing between three different Canadian cities in December, which for anyone who knows how I pack is basically a miracle worth documenting. Layers upon layers upon layers, ready to go.

And because apparently I need a wishlist for absolutely everything, here’s the non-hockey one: the Rockies scenery is a given, since we’re driving straight through the middle of it, so that one barely counts. What I actually want is a moose, and I wouldn’t say no to a wolverine or a beaver if one wanted to make an appearance. What I do not want is a bear — that feels like a lot, intensity-wise, and I’m choosing to believe they’re all doing their best Yogi impression and sleeping the whole thing off somewhere I can’t see them. Mostly, though, I’m hoping for a squirrel or two. My spirit animal is a squirrel, which — if you know me, you already know exactly why that tracks.

On the writing side: there are eight books finished and waiting in the wings, but I’m not trying to push all of them out the door at once just to hit a deadline I set for myself. Three feels like the right number to have properly alive in the universe by the time we leave — real, out, findable — and the rest can follow at their own pace rather than mine panicking them into existence. I’m even toying with packing a couple of print copies to hand out at the arenas, if that’s a thing I’m allowed to do. Fingers crossed on that one.

Once we’re actually there, I’m hoping to update here every single day — rink notes, road notes, whatever nonsense happens in the car between Edmonton and Calgary. No promises on how coherent those updates will be after three games in a week, but I’ll do my best.

And look, if I come home with a game puck and an unreasonable amount of maple candy, I will consider this trip an unqualified success on every possible front.

I can also already see an abundance of waffles, maple syrup, poutine, and Nanaimo bars in my future. Not all on the same plate, obviously. I have some standards. Are there other Canadian Delicacies I should seek out? Beaver tails and Butter Tarts maybe?

70 days. Rink to rink. Let’s go.