Fredrik Backman’s Beartown series is a love letter to the sport of ice hockey. In the fictional small town of Beartown, nestled deep in the northern Swedish forests, everyone is hockey-obsessed—just like in Hed, the eternal rival town next door. Using the sport as a backdrop, Backman paints an intensely emotional portrait of small-town identity and the unifying power of family and community. The Winners is the final installment of this trilogy.
What’s Left to Say About Beartown?
Truth be told, everything has already been said.
The first book delves into the fallout of a sexual assault. The star player thinks everything is his by right. A large part of the town agrees, since he’s their ticket to putting Beartown back on the map after decades of obscurity. But the Anderson family stands their ground—and in doing so, they split the town in two.
The second book, Us Against You, continues the story of the now-familiar characters but focuses primarily on the mass psychology of small-town sports. Specifically, the residents of the two neighboring towns go totally nuts over their rivalry and beef with each other. The tension rises. Then rises some more. And more. And more…until it boils over.
So, Who Are the Winners Here?
In The Winners, there are no real winners—just ordinary people. The central theme is, believe it or not, a blend of the first two books. Backman essentially replays the same (hockey)match yet again. The residents of Beartown and Hed, constantly teetering on the edge of conflict, need just the tiniest spark to ignite violence. And, of course, they get that spark sooner or later…
The other central storyline, subtly woven in and lingering in the background as hints and whispers, mirrors Maya Anderson’s earlier experiences—but with consequences that are even more tragic. Backman masterfully builds suspense, dropping vague clues, leading readers down false trails just like in the previous books. But it becomes increasingly clear that something very bad is going to happen. This looming sense of foreboding hangs over the entire story, keeping you on edge.
Everyone Who Matters—and Those Who Don’t
The third installment, The Winners, feels like an uninterrupted continuation of Us Against You. There’s nothing genuinely new in it—everything that happens still revolves around the hockey team, just as before. However, in The Winners, the story fragments even further into smaller pieces.
Several characters feel entirely superfluous, adding little of value to the narrative. Take seven-year-old Alicia, the town’s future hockey star, or Johnny and Hannah’s entire family from Hed, including Tess and good old Bobo. And let’s not forget Lev, the criminal with an immigrant background.
(Okay, Bobo deserved a little happiness after all this time, but come on—we haven’t forgotten what a jerk he used to be…)
A Small Town with a Big Heart
Even if you’re aware that the new story doesn’t bring much novelty and half the characters are unnecessary, it’s still hard to resist Backman’s charm.
The magic of this Swedish author lies in his ability to present completely ordinary events in such an emotionally charged way—without descending into cheap sentimentality—that it’s impossible not to be moved by the characters’ struggles. Sensitive readers will probably tear up every few pages.
Nothing monumental happens in The Winners. Old friends reunite. Some people leave town. Others come back. Marriages hit rocky patches. New loves blossom. Parents acknowledge their mistakes with their children. Those who messed up try to make amends. It’s all the kind of stuff that could happen to any of us on any given day.
But Backman infuses these mundane occurrences with such emotional weight that they seem far more significant than they really are. Most of the time, it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. (For instance, this isn’t the first time in the series that Backman meticulously builds up an apocalyptic-level showdown between the two towns’ sports communities, only to have it fizzle out with a few punches thrown before everyone heads to the pub for a beer.)
The story’s emotional impact is further enhanced by the first-person plural collective narrator, an omniscient voice embodying the community. If it leaned just a bit more into this role, Beartown could almost become Sweden’s version of Macondo.
And you find yourself thinking: My God, it would be amazing to live in such a charming little town!
Or that you’d get the hell out of there as fast as you could.
Social Awareness, Social Critique, and… Hockey
Although the struggles and dramas of the hockey team’s members, former members, their families, fans, sponsors, former employees and all their families (and so on) effectively capture the dynamics of an entire town’s population, Fredrik Backman doesn’t settle for simply narrating their intertwined stories.
On the pages of The Winners, the typical figures of small-town life appear, along with the inevitable political-business entanglements and the opaque web of power relations.
The tightly controlled local media, the crafty businessman, and the political manipulator could just as easily exist in America’s Midwest as in Hungary. Corruption rears its head wherever there’s land to develop. And, of course, wherever there are politicians.
With this layer of his book, Backman successfully transforms his text into something universally relevant.
But naturally, no matter what machinations unfold, they somehow always circle back to hockey.
From the start of the Beartown series, Backman has addressed pressing social issues like sexual assault, discrimination, loneliness, and the macho culture tied to male-dominated sports. In fact, these themes are just as central to the series as the sport itself.
How to be a Winner After All
Over the course of the Beartown trilogy, readers will inevitably ask themselves how these big, urgent problems could ever be solved. Especially the unrelenting hostility and constant violence between the two towns. The relationship between Beartown and Hed—or, more accurately, their mutual hatred—is like an underground river. Even when it disappears for a while, it resurfaces with even greater force.
AN ATOMIC BOMB that wipes both towns off the map would certainly end the conflict once and for all. However, some might find that approach a bit too extreme.
So, what’s left? Another method, one that sometimes works: LOVE.
No laughing, okay? This is serious!
In Fredrik Backman’s Beartown (and Hed), married couples who couldn’t be more different—and who are infuriating in their own ways—always find a way to work things out and stick together.
Friendships last forever.
Most (well, almost all) of the quirky outsiders eventually find friends. Even the jerks. Though, of course, they reform first.
The smart girl with a law degree will undoubtedly come back from the city to marry the big, lovable oaf.
Greedy businessmen take up philanthropy.
Even the completely emotionless characters end up showing feelings.
And the toughest characters, like violent hooligans and outright criminals, turn out to be brimming with social sensitivity; in fact, they have the kindest hearts of all!
If anyone tried to mimic Fredrik Backman by writing a similarly dramatic, emotion-packed book series destined for global success, they would fail miserably. They couldn’t get through a single paragraph without it coming off as cheesy or ridiculous. But Backman, with a bit of goodwill, can make you believe almost anything.
Rating: 7.8/10
The Winners (Beartown #3) by Fredrik Backman
673 pages, Hardcover
Published in 2022 by Atria Books
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Reviews of the previous books:
Beartown (#1)
Us Against You (#2)
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