comments Beartown is dying. It's an industrial Swedish town where actual industry is on the decline and development has stalled or even reversed. Sometimes it feels as if the surrounding forest, thick with knobby spruce trees, is encroaching on the city, like nature has forgotten anyone lives there at all. But for Beartown (or Björnstad) residents, there remains a glimmer of hope for the town's future: its junior hockey league. "Beartown," the new five-episode HBO limited series from Sweden, centers on the league's hopes for ascendency after former National Hockey League player Peter Andersson (Ulf Stenberg) returns to Beartown, his home town, after an injury cut his time playing professionally in the United States short. He's joined by his wife, Mira (Aliette Opheim) and their 15-year-old daughter, Maya (Miriam Ingrid).