This is a small story about big questions: What is a family? What is a hockey team? What is a community? And what are we ready to sacrifice in order to protect them?

Two years have passed since the events that no-one wants to think about. Everyone has tried to move on, but there’s something about this part of the woods that never really lets you. We are a town with sorrow in our heart and violence in the air, we love fairytales with happy endings, but deep down we probably knew this never was one. It begins with a storm, this time, and ends in fire. Someone who’s been gone a long time is coming home. Someone is laid to rest. Someone falls in love, someone dreams of the NHL, and someone dreams of revenge. Someone sleeps back-to-back with their best friend, someone tries to fix their marriage, and someone tries to save their children. Someone hates, someone fights, someone grabs a gun and walks towards the ice rink. All that we fought for won’t make it, all those we love won’t grow old.

So what is a family? A hockey team? A community? They are the sums of our choices. What are we willing to sacrifice in order to protect them?

Everything. Just that.

This is the final installment in Fredrik Backman’s beloved trilogy about Beartown. The Winners is a powerful, violent, and deeply loving end to the story of the small hockey town and its people.