INT. BACK ROOM – ACE ROTHSTEIN MONOLOGUE – SMOKY, DIMLY LIT VEGAS CASINO
Camera pans in slowly on ACE ROTHSTEIN, impeccably dressed in a tailored suit. He lights a cigarette, sips a drink, then speaks directly to the camera, calm but intense.
ACE ROTHSTEIN (V.O.)
You wanna talk about chaos? Try being in Vancouver in ‘94 after Game 7. The Canucks lose a heartbreaker to the Rangers, and the whole damn city goes up like a powder keg. Pavel Bure? That kid was a Ferrari with skates. But it wasn’t enough. Messier, Leetch, Richter—they crushed the dream. The riot? That wasn’t just about hockey. That was about hope… lost. The city burned because they believed they were robbed. Maybe they were.
But that’s just the surface. You dig deeper, you see this wasn’t just about pucks and penalty minutes.
Back then, the whole world was shifting. Russia—post-Soviet, flat on its back—was getting stripped for parts like a Cadillac left overnight in Newark. Harvard boys like Jeffrey Sachs? Supposed to be bringing capitalism, right? Instead, they brought shock therapy. Economic euthanasia. Privatize everything, sell it for pennies on the dollar, and watch the oligarchs snatch it all up. Sachs? Bono’s best buddy. They said they were helping. Sure.
But let me tell you something: when you take a superpower and economically rape it with “good intentions,” it doesn’t forget. It doesn’t forgive. Israel, America, the Western banks—they all got their piece. Loans, weapons, natural gas… whatever could be converted into cash or control.
You really think Russia just sat there and took it? No. That bear was wounded, not dead. It went underground. It waited.
And here’s the kicker—those riots in Vancouver? Tiny shockwaves from bigger tectonic shifts. People feel powerless, they rage. In Russia, they waited. They plotted. They funded proxies. Maybe they even bought a few Western elections for sport.
You mess with a nuclear power’s dignity, its economy, its soul—you better expect some form of payback.
Now maybe—just maybe—all these Cold War ghosts still have some unfinished business. And maybe, Pavel Bure’s speed wasn’t fast enough to outrun history.
Ace exhales a stream of smoke, looks directly into the camera.
ACE ROTHSTEIN
Everything’s connected, kid. You just gotta know where to look.
FADE OUT.
