Disclaimer: I don't own The Mighty Ducks.

It was the practice after Coach and I had gotten my wrist X-rayed. It was a sprain. I was happy it wasn't broken, but Bombay said he'd still have to bench me from playing, but not from skating at practice.

I walked in with my arm in a sling and my teammates immediately went crazy, asking what had happened.

"What happened?" Charlie asked.

"You know when we were playing Iceland and that guy hit my wrist after I scored that goal?" I answered tentatively.

"Yeah," everybody said.

"Well, I lied when I said it was okay. I've been wrapping it for the past couple of days. That's why I haven't been playing my best. I can't move it."

"Gonna kill that kid!" Jesse yelled.

"Why'd you lie?" Connie asked.

"Because I wanted to play. I still have to practice on my skates, but I can't hold a stick," I said.

"Coach benching you?" Goldberg said.

I nodded very solemnly.

"What happens if you get better? Do you still get to play?" Dwayne inquired.

"Hope so."

"Oh, good, you're here," Bombay said, coming into the locker room. "As you guys obviously know, Adam can't play. So you guys have to work twice as hard now."

Nobody really took offense to that. They knew I was their best player. Heck, I was the only one who scored during that first Iceland game. The original Ducks knew that I was the best player on the Hawks too, which made me the most valuable player in all the districts in Minnesota.

I was still a Cake Eater, though.

"Are you at least alright?" Charlie said.

Charlie was always the nicest one to me. The only one that was welcoming when I had first joined the Ducks because of some stupid line change. Now that I think of it, it wasn't that stupid. It gave me better friends than those who were on the Hawks.

"Fine, thanks," I said.

"He still has to practice. And so do you," Bombay explained. "Get out there. Someone help Banks put on his skates and get out there."

I sat on the bench by my locker, getting my skates out as best I could with the sling and the pain in my wrist.

"I'll help," Julie offered.

Everybody nodded and got out of the locker room. Julie took the skates from the ground and put the right one on first, starting to lace it up.

"Thanks," I said.

"Well, thanks for saying that my name is not 'Babe'," Julie said, and we both laughed. "Does it hurt?

"Sometimes. It's hard on when I sleep."

"You know they're probably going to bash him hard, right? Along with the other players, of course. You hurt one of us, you hurt us all."

"I know," I responded. "It's nice to know people care about me. You heard about how I got on this team, right?"

"You didn't try out?" Julie was confused, now. She had now finished with the right skate and started with the left skate.

"I was on a different team, a better team, as people called it. When they split us up into districts and drew the lines, somehow I ended up on the wrong team. Bombay saw that and decided to rip me away from the team. It was either play for the Ducks, once known as the worst team in the league, or not play at all. I love hockey, so it was a no brainer."

I still remembered that day. I still remembered how much I hated Bombay at that moment. But as the season went on, I decided I'd rather be with the Ducks. They were a fun team, and weren't serious all the time. It also helped that when we played against the Hawks, I got to see how awful Coach Reilly really was, and it didn't help that one of the guys I used to consider a friend, knocked me into the goalpost when I was scoring a goal.

"I knew about halfway through the rest of the season that I wouldn't play for any other team. Of course they didn't really accept me at first, only Charlie did, but they've become some of my best friends. I wouldn't go back to that other team if I had the choice."

"There you go," Julie said as she finished lacing up the other skate.

"Thanks," I said as she helped me up.

"You gonna be able to skate, do you think?"

"Yeah," I said, half-believing it.

We went out on the rink. Julie stood behind me as I took a few steps forward. I smiled back at her as I skated around, smiling at Bombay as my heart swelled at the fact that, even if I couldn't hold a stick, I was still able to skate.

"You feeling good?" Bombay pondered.

"For now," I responded.

"Great. Now, get back to skating and resting that arm. Hopefully it'll be better soon."

"Got it."

I skated away from him, around my teammates, ready to practice.

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