Author's Note: This story is rated T for language, the presence of alcohol in later chapters, and the wacky costumes and Halloween hijinks in future chapters. Everything is intended in a comedic context rather than an offensive one, but the target audience for this fic is a thirteen and over crowd.
"Hope not ever to see Heaven. I have come to lead you to the other shore; into eternal darkness; into fire and into ice."—Inferno, Dante Alighieri
Into Fire and into Ice
As far as Rob McClanahan was concerned, there was a particular circle of hell Dante had neglected to mention in his famous tome on the subject. It was called hockey practice with Herb Brooks while suffering from jet lag after a long flight back from a grueling schedule of games in Europe. Rob did not know how it felt to be thrown into a lake of fire and to be denied the freedom to move out of it, though he was certain it wasn't a remotely pleasant sensation. Still, he could say with one hundred percent confidence that hearing Herb Brooks go through the roof of a skyscraper every time a player failed to perform one of his crazy drills (which no sane person could hope to truly comprehend) to his satisfaction was a form of torture even Dante would deem too hideous to document in his epic poem. And it was a torment Rob would be enduring as soon as Herb decided the team had done enough stretching. "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here" should have been inscribed on the doorway of any rink Herb coached in, just as it was etched into the Gates of Hell.
At least, Rob had possessed the foresight to buoy himself up on caffeine before leaving the apartment he shared with Eric Strobel, Janny, and Steve Christoff for practice. A massive mug of black coffee should have infused him with enough energy to survive the first few drills and Herb diatribes. Beyond that, his continued existence was not assured.
"Defensemen and goalies, go down to the far end of the ice," Herb commanded brusquely, as he finished setting up two rows of eight cones spaced at irregular intervals, pointing down the ice to the opposite goal zone, where Coach Patrick was organizing more cones. "Forwards, you're up here with me."
As he team straightened out of their split positions, Herb clapped his hands together briskly."Get moving, boys. If you don't know where you're going, you don't belong on this team."
Glad that it was never too early for some verbal abuse from Herb, Rob skated over to join the knot of forwards clustering around Herb. Once all the centers and wingers were crowded around him, Herb announced, every syllable crisper than the one preceding it, "Everyone who hasn't got a rock rolling around where their brain should be realizes that you can't win a game of hockey without getting the puck any more than you can drive a car without filling the tank with gasoline. Unfortunately, getting the puck alone is no guarantee of victory. If you want to score, you have to find a way to maintain possession of the puck long enough to do so. That means stickhandling and passing—forehand and backhand—to teammates. Since most of you stickhandle as if all your fingers were just amputated and couldn't pass to save your lives, this drill will focus on those skills. You'll need a partner to complete this drill. You have a minute to find someone dumb enough to work with you starting now."
Reflexively, Rob glanced around, trying to catch Steve Christoff's gaze, because, at the U, the two of them had often paired up when they had a choice in partners. However, it looked as though Rizzo, who had been standing at Steve's left throughout Herb's lecture and whose policy with pick-your-partner drills boiled down to asking whoever was closest to pair with him at the first possible millisecond, had already claimed Steve.
That meant that Rob would have to pair up with someone else. Maybe Mark Johnson. They had a solid enough chemistry between them during assigned drills that Herb had decided to put them on the same line midway through the European tour, and they had become fast friends off the ice, too. Some players might have been afraid to voluntarily place themselves in a position where they could so easily be overshadowed by Mark's brilliant passing and stickhandling abilities, but Rob's experience had always been that Mark made anyone he worked with shine all the brighter and watching Mark's maneuvers was an excellent way to improve your own technique.
"Are you feeling dumb enough to work with me, Magic?" Rob asked solicitously, parroting Herb's phrasing as he twisted around Neal Broten and Eric Strobel, who had paired up in a flashback to the '79 NCAA playoffs, and came to rest beside Mark.
"Of course." Mark nudged his shoulder. "Let's be stupid together, Robbie. If we work really hard at keeping any stray thought from crossing our empty minds, we could have a real chance at being the dumbest partners."
"Let's shoot for a combined IQ of absolute zero." Rob nodded seriously. "Nobody could be stupider than that, or, if they could, I wouldn't want to think about it, though I don't want to think about anything anyway, now that I'm trying to be dumb."
"Huh?" Mark assumed an expression of exaggerated blankness and bafflement. "Too many big words for my small brain, Mac."
"What?" Rob stuck out his tongue. "Stop trying to make my head explode, Mark."
Before Mark, who was opening his mouth to respond, could say anything, Herb continued sharply, drawing triangles doubtlessly intended to represent cones on the glass boards to illustrate the drill he was about to explain, "You'll form two lines starting a foot behind the first cone. One partner goes in each line, and make sure you're standing next to your partner. The partner on the right line starts with the puck in a forehand position, shifts his stick so it's in a backhand one, and then passes the puck to his partner, who, by then, should be near the second cone. The second partner should take the pass backhanded and then give a forehand pass to the guy on the right, who should be at the third cone on his side…"
Rob listened as Herb outlined the passes and stickhandling required at every one of the sixteen cones on the way up and down the ice. On a whole, he thought that the drill sounded simple, although he had the sinking suspicion that when he tried to put the theory into practice, it would prove far more complicated in messy reality than on the neat diagram. Probably he would discover that his hands, which were jittery from too much caffeine, were outside of his control, and his body had forgotten the difference between a forehand and backhand pass, nonetheless how to transition between them swiftly and smoothly enough to appease the perpetually wrathful Herb Brooks.
"That's the drill." Herb pushed the cap back onto the marker with a click that resounded across the rink. "Any questions?"
When the mass of forwards had shaken their collective heads, Herb rapped out, "Then let's get down to business. You boys are so dismal you need all the practice you can get. What are you waiting for, huh? Line up behind those cones. If it takes you more than five seconds to line up, I'll have you skating sprints to build your speed before we start the drill."
Definitely not in the mood for an episode of Herbies to begin the day, the forwards surged toward the first two cones in a rabid rush, creating two relatively straight lines.
"Drills," muttered Pav to Bah, whom he had paired with for this drill, a fact that should have surprised nobody with more than one brain cell to rub together, since Pav and Bah had been line mates at the Duluth branch of the U and played with a synchronization that suggested they had been skating as a unit since birth.
As he settled into the left line behind Pav with Mark across from him, Rob noticed that Pav pronounced the word "drills" with the same contempt for oppression most beings would spit into the horrific term "Nazi Germany." Not that this was a particularly shocking revelation, either, because it was common knowledge on the team that Pav preferred the spontaneity of scrimmages and games to the regimentation of drills. Pav didn't approve of his creativity being in any way stifled by so-called strategy. In contrast, Rob didn't share Pav's instinctive aversion to drills. Drills were about order and fulfilling expectations: about being in the right place at the proper time and putting in a consistent effort. He could do that all day. He was good at that…
"Drills can be fun," Buzz, who was partners with Silky and who was standing in front of Pav, put in, sunny as ever. "Really, you just have to go into them with a positive attitude, Pav, and they can be a blast."
By way of reply, Pav lifted his shoulders in one of his patented vague shrugs. The gesture, as far as Rob could translate it, could be interpreted as argument, agreement, or a declaration that Pav had a hankering for Caesar salad for lunch.
Rolling his eyes, Rob thought that he was very grateful that both his line mates—Eric Strobel and Mark Johnson—spoke in complete sentences. Mark might be quiet, but he communicated with nouns and verbs, unlike Pav, who seemed to feel that employing both parts of speech in one of his rare attempts at using actual words in conversation was a waste of breath. Besides, once Mark was familiar with someone, his reserve fell away like a cape and he opened up to them—joking around and sharing his placid insights into situations—whereas Pav's idea of opening up probably entailed shrugging in a slightly less enigmatic fashion.
His musings were interrupted with a jolt by Herb barking at Steve and Rizzo, who were kicking off the drill, "Faster, boys. In a game, you only have time to do, not to think. Christoff, that pass was sloppier than a pig's sty! Rizzo, you can skate and pass at the same time, damn it! It's no more difficult than chewing gum and walking…"
Not bothering to lean around the forwards in front of him to see how Steve and Rizzo were botching the drill, Rob wondered for probably the millionth time since he had started playing hockey for Herb at the U what sort of career his mercurial coach might seek out if he hadn't devoted his life to making college hockey players miserable. To amuse himself while he waited for his and Mark's turn to run through the drill, Rob imagined a cover letter Herb could affix to an application.
Dear Sir, Herb's letter might open, I am writing to inquire about your advert for the position of Balloon Breaker. I have a razor tongue that would do the trick neatly and bring about the wails of young people everywhere. My former charges will attest to the fact that I rarely smile, never laugh, and can steal the joy and hope from any room simply by entering and bestowing upon it my unique sense of utter doom and derision. My references in this matter are impeccable. If you have not fallen into a state of deep depression merely by reading this note, please respond to Herbert Brooks (I have a nickname, but you'll never have leave to use it) in care of the University of Minnesota Athletic Department. If you cannot be troubled to find the address on your own, you are not trying your hardest, and your shameful lack of exertion in this regard indicates you will never be anything but a failure at life because that is all you aspire to be. Sincerely, Herbert Brooks.
"What's the joke?" Mark arched an eyebrow, as Steve and Rizzo skated to the ends of the lines, while Buzz and Silky started their run of the drill. "Is there a fly on my nose or something? Why are you grinning like that?"
"I'm just envisioning what careers Herb would be in if he weren't a coach," explained Rob quickly sotto voice, hoping that Mark wouldn't believe that he had been sneering at his teammates being reprimanded. "So far I've come up with Balloon Breaking Bastard. You may think you're going fast, but he'll tell you that you're being outpaced by snails the world over, and your balloon is shattered to smithereens just like that."
"Bubble popper," Mark contributed in a whisper, smiling. "You may believe that your slapshot is one of the marvels of the modern world, but actually your wrist movement doesn't generate sufficient momentum to get the puck in the net, so that's one of the hundred reasons you fail at hockey. Pop goes the bubble, and the suds land right in your eyes."
"Dream dasher," murmured Rob, valiantly pretending that he could not hear Herb snarling at Silky that it shouldn't take a week to travel from one cone to the next and at Buzz that his grip on the stick was so clumsy that it appeared as if he had coated his fingers in butter. "You may think you have what it takes to be an Olympic athlete, but you're deluded, because you don't and you never will. Another dream smashes against the rock that is Herb."
"Drill sergeant in the Marine Corps." Mark's eyes were shining with humor but he still kept his volume at a hushed level. "He's always inventing new, inhumane conditioning techniques, and anyone who trained under him would be more afraid of him than any enemy."
"Interrogator for the CIA." Rob snickered, determined not to be outdone in this absurdity contest. "He could look at any Commie scum for a second, spot instantly the one thing that could be said to transform them into a babbling nutcase, and then just say whatever it is. Then your callous Communist is reduce to a sobbing ball curled up in the fetal position, begging to be returned to the warm safety of a mother's womb. The whole effect would be very Freudian."
Buzz and Silky had finished the drill and were returning to the end of their lines. As Pav and Bah streaked off to perform the drill, Mark and Rob skated up to the starting cones, awaiting their turn.
Aware that they were now too close to Herb to crack jokes at his expense but also wanting to distract himself from the pressure of the upcoming drill as long as possible, Rob, casting wildly about for another topic, remarked, "It's almost Halloween."
What a sparkling conversationalist you are, he criticized himself mentally. Pointing out the obvious fact that it's near Halloween. What astonishing statement will you offer as an encore? A review of the weather? An analysis of the merits of cranberry juice in keeping a person regular? I bet the world can only wait with bated breath to hear your next piercing comment.
"Yeah." Mark nodded, dutifully holding up his end of the sagging conversation. "Maybe Bobby and I will make paper ghosts or something to hang in our bedroom. Got to get in the spirit of the holiday."
"Host a séance," Rob told him, deciding that it was the perfect opportunity for a flash of dry humor. "That would really help you get into the spirit of the holiday."
"Perhaps I will." Mark rubbed his palm along his stick, obviously eager to get on with the drill. "Normally I like to have a raucous Halloween party, but maybe this year I'll go out on a limb and host a creepy séance instead."
"Halloween parties are so passé." Rob tried to push back his cuticles and discovered that his fingers were trembling from caffeine overdose too much to master this basic act of coordination. Splendid. When he ran through the drill with Mark he would probably resemble nothing more than a nervous condition disguised as a hockey player. Herb would crucify him if he couldn't manage to stickhandle in a stickhandling exercise. "A séance would be much cooler. You should start planning it right away, or else all the most stylish Ouija boards will be taken."
Mark was denied a chance to answer as Bah and Pav returned from their run of the drill, Pav shooting the puck to Mark as he skated toward the end of the line.
Mark caught the puck forehanded and passed it backhanded toward Rob, who was streaking toward his second cone. Receiving the puck backhanded, Rob wove around his second cone and shot a forehand pass at Mark. His fingers, though still shaking like small puddings, were under his control, letting him give and receive passes however he wished…
"The legs feed the wolf," Herb shouted, his blades whisk-whisking across the ice as if to rebuke it for being there, as he glided along what felt like inches from Rob, doubtlessly to ensure he was close enough to pounce on any mistake. "The wolf is starving."
Taking a forehand pass from Mark and converting it into a backhand one, Rob glanced over his shoulder to check where Mark was, an action that prompted Herb to bark orders like General Eisenhower on D-Day.
"Don't look around for your partner, McClanahan," snarled Herb, but Rob had already sent the puck sailing toward Mark, who was streaming away from his third cone en route to his fourth. "Know where your partner is. Sense where he is without gawking. Staring around the ice like a cow chewing curd is a waste of time that's very expensive in a game."
As Mark, spinning deftly around his fourth cone, shifted Rob's backhand pass into a forehand one, Herb growled, "I know you can do that transition faster, Johnson. I've seen you do it faster. I don't know who you think you're fooling with that slowness, but it's not me."
Rob bit his lip to restrain himself from bursting out that Mark was the best college hockey player in the country (that was objective fact, not some subjective friendship bias kicking in), and if that wasn't good enough for Herb, he could go drown himself in one of Minnesota's ten thousand lakes. Only the knowledge that Mark detested it when he challenged Herb made him clamp his mouth shut, because he hoped to make it to noon without doing anything that distressed or irritated his center.
The drill continued with Herb's litany of reprimands and corrections as a constant background to their passing and stickhandling. Glad to be removed from under the microscope of Herb's glare for a few minutes, Rob passed the puck to Phil Verchota and then skated toward the end of the line to wait behind Neal. However, before he was halfway to his destination, there was a dull thump that echoed throughout the arena.
Whirling in the direction from whence the noise had come, Rob spotted that the source of the sound was Mark Wells, who had collapsed in an undignified heap of pads near the second cone. With a wince, Rob thought that fall was not going to feel so great on the ankle that Mark Wells had fractured during their European tour. In Herb's opinion, it was acceptable and ever admirable to perform a nosedive when completing a maneuver like the epic game-winning goal Neal Broten had scored during the NCAA final of '79, but it was totally taboo to do a faceplant and fail to finish the move.
"On your feet, Wells!" Herb barked, although the addressed had already uprighted himself. "The point of this exercise is to improve your stickhandling and passing skills, not your faceplants."
Eyes blazing, Herb cast around his audience for a victim, and Rob felt his stomach knot as his irate coach's glower fixed on him. Feeling as if he were about to be struck by lightning but was too mesmerized by the gleaming forks of electricity to try to prevent fate from reducing him to cinders, Rob gulped as Herb stated tersely, "McClanahan understands that. McClanahan will run through the drill with Verchota to show you how it's done, Wells. Then you can try to prove that you learned something by going through the exercise again with Verchota."
Rob gritted his teeth. He hated when Herb did this to him—absolutely hated it with the level of loathing the Capulets had reserved for the Montagues in Romeo and Juliet. At the U, it hadn't been uncommon for Herb to open a practice by making Rob and John Meredith (widely regarded as the fastest skaters on the Gophers) run through a drill as swiftly as they could, time them, reduce that time by two or three seconds, and insist that everyone on the team complete the exercise at the reduced time, repeating the drill as often as necessary to garner that outcome. It was as effective as extinguishing a fire by dumping gasoline on it for John Meredith and Rob to hold anything back in their initial run, since Herb would just force them to repeat the drill until he was satisfied they had put in their best effort. Trying to outsmart Herb was futile and frequently painful.
Now deciding that his only hope of not having to humiliate Mark Wells was to act as if he did not comprehend what was happening as if that alone would be enough to prevent it from unfolding, Rob stood perfectly still, not defying a direct order but not hastening forward to comply with an implied one either.
"Get up here, McClanahan!" Herb jabbed a finger at the first cone opposite the one Phil had returned to. "You're running through the drill again with Verchota. What are you waiting for—a personalized invitation, flowers, and a box of chocolates?"
Actually a reprieve, thanks for asking, Rob thought, indulging in some internal sarcasm as he skated up, as slowly and reluctantly as he dared, to the cone Herb had indicated. As he passed Mark Wells on his journey to the cone, Rob risked shooting the other forward a sympathetic glance only to be rewarded for his compassion with a scorching glare that could have evaporated the Pacific Ocean and that clearly wished him a lifelong marriage to a girl whose breath smelled perpetually of garlic cloves.
His spine bristling, because he was not to blame for Mark Wells' clumsiness or Herb's ruthlessness, Rob reached the cone, and, when Herb blew his whistle, streaked toward the next one in his row. The passing between him and Phil did not flow as smoothly as it had between him and Mark, so Herb, was his default mood, was as far from happy as the dog days of August were from a January blizzard. Rob could feel Herb's displeasure emanating from him in waves reminiscent of the haze that radiated from sidewalks on summer afternoons when it was ninety degrees in the shade.
"Verchota, you couldn't pass to save your miserable life," exploded Herb in a towering temper as Phil fumbled a transition from forehand to backhand and sent a sloppy pass careening across the ice in Rob's vague direction. "Use your hands instead of your feet to hold your stick next time. A monkey could put your stickhandling skills to shame."
Distracted by the hilarious mental image of a chimpanzee wheeling around on the ice in hockey pads and performing all sorts of wacky stunts with a stick, Rob received backhanded a pass he should have taken forehanded and then added to the mess by sending the puck to Phil backhanded when he was supposed to do so forehanded.
"Do you know what your problem is, McClanahan?" demanded Herb in his most caustic manner as Phil caught the puck and shot it forehanded back to Rob.
Wait; don't tell me. You are, Rob thought, letting his inner snide master have free reign, because snarky remarks, even if they remained confined to his own head, were a balm to embarrassing situations and wounded pride.
He focused on correctly receiving and returning Phil's pass as he wove around the last cone and started streaking back down the ice toward the line of watching and waiting forwards.
"It's that you're lazy," Herb ranted on, revealing his question had obviously been rhetorical. "You decide not to work—I see on your face exactly when you choose not to—and then you start messing up passes and losing control of your stickhandling. Practice doesn't do you any good if you don't put any effort into it. If you're going to practice, come to work."
By the time Herb had finished upbraiding him, Rob and Phil had arrived at the cones that marked the end of the drill. Longing to find a hole in the ice commodious enough to bury himself in, Rob disappeared to the back of his line.
"Magnificent effort, Mac." Mark reached across from the opposite line to slap Rob's shoulder. "Two solid drills in a row. Very nice."
"Did you just pour acid into your eyes, Magic?" Rob snorted, rolling his eyes, since if there was one thing he despised even more than failing publically it was being assured that he had done well after he had just proven he was no more competent at playing hockey than Carter was at leading a superpower. "That's the only explanation for you not seeing that pass I fucked up. I allowed myself to get distracted by Herb's yelling even though I know better, and I ended up looking like a lazy son of a bitch."
"You aren't lazy." Mark shook his head in a manner that suggested Rob should do natural selection a favor and not reproduce for fear of passing his stupidity genes onto the next generations of McClanahans. "One of the first things anyone with any observational skills whatsoever notices about you is your intensity. If you're lazy, then I'm Count Dracula."
"I had noticed your incisors were getting rather long." Rob smirked. "I hadn't wanted to say anything because I didn't feel like being ruder than normal, but now that you mention it, you do look undead."
"I hope your stupidity isn't contagious." Mark nudged Rob in the rubs.
"Actually, it is." Rob adopted an expression of exaggerated seriousness as he elbowed Mark in the ribs by way of vengeance. "I caught it from you."
"Very funny." Mark's voice was laden with irony.
"Yeah, but what isn't funny is what happened to Wellsy." As he lowered his tone to a whisper that wouldn't have been out of place in a sub rosa meeting in ancient Rome, Rob's face really assumed a somber cast. "When he fell, so did his chances of staying on the team. I mean, Herb's already been not so subtly questioning whether his playing style is the right fit for this team. That's why it's him I feel most sorry for, because, sure, it sucks that Phil and I had to repeat the drill twice in a row, but Wellsy is the one who failed the most in front of Herb although he is probably least able to afford to do so."
"Wellsy is hurt." Mark chomped on his lower lip meditatively. "Even Herb can't expect him to bounce back from an injury without making any mistakes."
"Herb delights in inventing his own standards, the more unreasonable and unattainable the better." Rob shrugged. "He never stops expecting his players to turn the impossible into the actual. That's what makes working with him hell, and I know all about hell because I read about it in Dante's Inferno in ninth grade English."
"I'm sorry you had to go through that terrible experience." Mark shuddered. "At least you know that if you survived an ordeal like that you'll probably make it through this practice, too."
"The Inferno was really quite an interesting read." Rob lifted his nose in the air. He had no idea why so many people scorned classic literary masterpieces without bothering to truly study them when they contained so much beauty and wisdom. The language might be archaic, but you could look up any word that wasn't in your vocabulary in the dictionary and own it. The plots were timeless, and any decent modern literature merely paid homage to the stories already told better in the classics. The characters were vivid, transcending their settings, and the stereotyped figure in today's bestseller was only a ghostly imitation of a great, living creature in a classic. Reading classics was both intellectually stimulating and emotionally fulfilling. "You should read it one day when you want to feel massive pangs of horror and revulsion."
"I'll stick to Carrie by Stephen King." Mark grinned. "It's got a gory prom and a heroine with telekinetic powers. What's not to love?"
"Um, the fact that it's probably all scary gimmicks and no thematic substance springs to mind," scoffed Rob. "I mean, what did you even learn from Carrie?"
"Don't bully anyone." Mark chuckled. "You never know who might have telekinetic powers, and you don't want a person like that to snap and murder you with their mind, you see."
"What a valuable lesson." Rob's lips quirked into a wry twist. "It's applicable to basically any situation."
"Oh, and what grand lesson did you learn from the Inferno, Professor?" Mark arched an eyebrow.
"Many things but one that is very relevant to a God forsaken situation like practice with Herb: if you go through hell long enough, you can eventually climb out into paradise, so don't give up hope even if you see a sign telling you to abandon it." Rob's eyes widened earnestly. "Of course, once you escape the mouth of hell, you have to be smart enough not to walk right back in again. It remains to be seen how clever our team is in that regard…"