Content Warning: Both the source text and this guide contain descriptions of sexual assault, rape, violence, bullying, suicide, gun violence, drug use, alcohol addiction, and anti-gay bias.

The entire text of Chapter 1 states: “Late one evening toward the end of March, a teenager picked up a double-barreled shotgun, walked into the forest, put the gun to someone else’s forehead, and pulled the trigger. This is the story of how we got there” (1).

It is March in Beartown. People wake and commute to work, and in the background, they all hear a “Bang bang bang” (3). A 15-year-old girl named Maya is playing a guitar in her bed. Her guitar is her “first love” (3) even though she has been in love many times. Her father loves hockey, but she hates it. The town is “losing” in many ways, and “[i]t has been a very long time since it won anything” (3). The town is losing jobs, and the only passion anyone feels is for hockey, even though the team no longer wins. There is a hope that if the team improves, the town will improve.

A 15-year-old boy, Amat, sits in his bedroom, which is covered with NHL hockey posters.