Author's Note: As much care as possible has been made to make this story historically and culturally accurate. For instance, all the Swedish foods mentioned are common breakfast foods according to my research, and the Swedish proverb is a well-known one, although it has been translated into English. From the hockey standpoint, Don Edwards really was the goaltender for the Buffalo Sabres who had drafted Mike Ramsey eleventh overall in the 1979 NHL Entry Draft, making him the first American to be drafted for the NHL in the first round. On that note, Mike Ramsey had one of the most decorated NHL careers of the Miracle team, being an NHL All-Star four times and captain for the Sabres during his fourteen seasons with that club. The hockey culture of enforcers and skill players is also as portrayed as realistically as I could.
While I've done my best with research, I've also tried to be creative, so that's where the fiction part comes in. If readers have any questions about the historical accuracy of anything in the story, they should feel free to PM me or submit a review, and I'll get back to them with an answer as soon as possible, which may take a little longer than I like since I'll be undergoing oral surgery to have my wisdom teeth removed. Without any further ado, on with the story:
"He who takes the Devil aboard must row him ashore."—Swedish Proverb
The Devil Aboard
The crowd—or maybe it was just his hammering pulse—roared in Mike Ramsey's ears. This was the big league, where every check and pass mattered. Every mistake he made might be why he and his teammates didn't get their names engraved on the Stanley Cup, the trophy that everyone claimed was the most difficult in all of sports to earn, and the one that had dominated all their dreams since they had learned to skate, serving as their own commentators as they pretended to score the game winner in game seven of the Stanley Cup finals in front of a packed, adoring home stadium.
That was pressure that made his ankles tremble with an excess of adrenaline, but it was mostly a pleasurable one that made him perform at his peak. It meant that he didn't hesitate or cringe when a forward in an opposing jersey tried to run over his goalie, Don Edwards. Mike was called Rammer for a reason, and the meat-brained forward who got too rough with his goaltender was about to receive a swift, painful education. With a fierce crosscheck that lived up to his nickname, he cleared the crease, and when the idiot forward retaliated with a punch, he began throwing his own.
A shrill noise pierced through the scarlet veil of his wrath, freezing his fist in the middle of a vicious attack. He expected the sound to have originated from a killjoy referee about to drag him away from the fray to the penalty box to serve a five minute roughing major (and, if there was any justice in the universe, the goon he had just been using as a punching bag would receive a roughing major and a goalie interference call). Instead, it was his diabolical alarm in its latest nefarious scheme to ruin his life slicing through his dream of playing in the NHL as an ill-timed something always did and yanking him awake for what would doubtlessly be an extremely taxing day.
Mumbling incoherently about how the person who invented alarm clocks should be launched into space without food or water to investigate black holes, Mike fumbled around on the nightstand until his fingers hit the button that silenced the wretched alarm clock.
"Has the nuclear holocaust just begun?" inquired a bleary voice from the den of blankets on the opposite bed, as Jack O'Callahan, Mike's roommate in Stockholm, lifted a head with hair spiky from sleep off a pillow.
"Nope." Shaking his head, Mike rolled out of bed into his slippers and stumbled into the bathroom to brush his teeth and comb his hair. "That was just the damn alarm clock with its usual rude awakening."
"Fuck." Jack scowled as he pushed himself out from under his covers and crossed over to the dresser, where he rummaged through the top drawer in search of comfortable travel clothes. "I was hoping it was the nuclear holocaust, so I wouldn't have to get up."
"Tell me about it." Mike spread a line of Colgate along his toothbrush. "I was having a really amazing dream where I was in the NHL playing for the Sabres, and I got in the most exciting scrape with an opposing forward who didn't respect the boundary of the crease around Don Edwards. What do you think that means?"
"Why do you always ask dumbass questions first thing in the morning?" Jack's head disappeared in the sweatshirt he was putting on, and then emerged a second later as the clothing settled over his chest. "Do I look like a psychologist about to ramble on about the Freudian meanings of dreams, or some fraud of a psychic attempting to predict the future based on dreams and tea leaves?"
"Why do you always wake up on the wrong side of the bed?" retorted Mike, as he brushed his teeth with vigor, trying to freshen himself for a day spent in the misery of an airplane—his least favorite vehicle. "I was just wondering what you thought my dream meant. You don't have to act like you've got a stick shoved up your ass all the time."
"I'll humor you. Your dream means that you, my belligerent buddy, are trying to rival my lifetime stitches count." Jack pulled on a pair of jeans. "What else could it mean?"
"Don't know." Mike's words were muffled by the toothbrush he was running over his teeth. "I hoped it might mean that I was going to be an NHL All-Star one day."
"Come on, Rammer. Don't be a moron." With a snort, Jack rolled his eyes. "You're going to be an NHL All-Star one day because you're a kickass defenseman, not because you had some weird dream about throwing punches in the big league on a night you had too much milk."
"You'll be an All-Star, too, of course." Grinning, Mike spat out his toothpaste into the basin, rinsed out his mouth by swishing cool water around in it, and then cleaned out the sink, watching the water flow down the drain. "We'll travel all over the country and have many grand adventures in all sorts of arenas. It'll be the height of fun."
"The Rammer I thought I knew hated traveling the way the Hatfields despised the McCoys." Jack glowered at his reflection in the dresser mirror as he attempted to brush his hair into some semblance of order. "Did you get a lobotomy performed on you last night and forget to mention it to me?"
"Nah." Mike stroked his comb through his dark hair. "I don't mind traveling in general. It's flying I hate. Flying makes my ears pop and my stomach clench with nerves, because, as far as I'm concerned, the only things that should fly are those like birds and bats that God obviously intended to fly."
"How do you know God didn't intend for humans to fly?" Jack arched an eyebrow. "He might have inspired the Wright brothers to figure out this aviation crap so that rich people could have their weekends in Paris and GI Joes could drop atomic bombs over Japan."
"If God wanted us to fly, He would have told us to invent the airplane in those commandments He made Moses lug down from Mount Sinai." Deciding that his hair was at least neater than the crow's nest it had been upon his awakening, he stopped combing it and carried his comb, toothbrush, and toothpaste over to the duffel bag he had packed for today's flight out of Stockholm into Oslo.
As he tucked his toiletries into his baggage and tried not to contemplate how soon his intestines would be knotting as his plane took off and his ears popping like corn in a kettle as the pressure built inside his brain, he went on, "Better yet, He would have given us wings so we wouldn't have to rely on metal contraptions that seem distinctly not aerodynamic."
"You're so clueless about physics," scoffed Jack, while throwing what appeared to be an entire drawer of clothing into his otherwise empty duffel bag in a noticeably haphazard fashion. "No wonder you're so terrified of flying, since you've got no idea how airplanes work. Maybe you wouldn't be such a baby if you bothered to get an education beyond the end of your hockey stick."
"Shut up," snapped Mike, who, as the youngest member of the team, perceived any cracks about his relative youth as the ultimate affront. "At least I'm mature enough to pack my bag before takeoff. Pity the same can't be said about you."
"My bag will be packed before takeoff." Jack dumped another drawer's worth of outfits into his luggage. "Stop worrying before you give yourself a fucking ulcer."
"It won't be packed neatly." Primly, Mike checked that the golden ribbon his girlfriend Jill had given him to remember her by before he left on the team's European tour and that he had tied to his duffel bag as a rapid means of identification when it was rotating round the carousel at an airport's baggage claim was affixed tightly to his luggage.
"Are you channeling Mac?" In the midst of tossing a bathrobe and towel into his duffel, Jack shot Mike a withering glance. "Only Mac would give a flying fuck whether somebody else's bag is packed in an orderly fashion."
"Nope," countered Mike, as he pulled on the jeans and T-shirt he had left folded at the foot of his bed, setting it aside for wearing during his upcoming travel ordeal. "If I were Mac, I'd be at severe risk of hernia, because, once again, you're forgetting to put any form of identification on your luggage."
"What did I do to deserve having a complete idiot for a roommate? Did I drown a puppy while sleep-walking or something?" Gazing up at the ceiling he plainly intended to serve as heaven, Jack spread his palms hopelessly. "Haven't I explained to you a dozen times, Rammer, that when I'm traveling with a bunch of people who all have their luggage marked, I don't need to waste time worrying about tying ribbons or taping initials to my bag, since it will be among the baggage of those with whom I'm traveling. Now, why don't you do your stupid self a favor and quit while you're ahead, since if you were any slower, you'd be moving backward?"
"I'm going to move down to breakfast." Finished dressing, Mike strode over to the door. As he opened it and stepped out onto the plush carpeting of the hallway, he tossed over his shoulder, "You're the one who's going to be moving slowly today if you don't eat breakfast, the most important meal of the day. Do you want me to bring you up a slice of that knackebrod with messmor?"
In the world of Swedish breakfast cuisine, knackebrod was a crisp bread and messmor a sweet spread made from butter and whey. It was portable and tasted more palatable than it sounded, which meant that it was ideal for a breakfast on the run.
"You're just trying to break my remaining teeth." Jack smirked. "Be gone and don't threaten my dental health further."
Determining that he would give Jack a slice of knackebrod and messmor anyway since otherwise Jack would be griping all the way through customs about how hungry he was now that his stomach had awakened, Mike closed the door and continued down the corridor to the elevator bank, where he pressed the down arrow.
A second later, the steel doors parted with a heraldic ding, and he boarded an elevator that was already transporting Mark Johnson and Rob McClanahan down to the lobby for breakfast.
"Good morning," Mark said, as the doors slammed shut behind Mike, and the elevator lurched downward.
"Morning," added Rob in a tone that stated he was awake but he did not plan on saying anything remotely upbeat until noon, so he saw it as too ambitious to ask others to have a positive morning experience.
"Top of the morning." Mike assumed his cheeriest voice to discover how quickly he could vex Rob. "What a funny expression, that is. I mean, when it's six in the morning like this, wouldn't it be more accurate to greet someone by calling it the bottom of the morning? Shouldn't top of the morning just be reserved for any time after eleven and before noon?"
"Top, in this case, means best," explained Mark, shrugging. "You're just wishing somebody the best morning possible. Nothing weird about that."
"Of course, when you're flying, it's possible to take a more literal interpretation of the phrase." Rob's eyes gleamed in a manner that announced louder than a shout that he was about to take revenge on Mike for being too jovial before noon. "You really are on top of almost everything in an airplane. There's that jolt as the plane leaves the runway. Then you're above cities and towns. Skyscrapers look like needles and houses like thimbles. Cars are like beetles and highways like worms. After that, you're in the clouds—"
"If you don't shut your trap, I'd be happy to send you into the clouds." Mike's hands clenched into fists as he waged a losing battle to keep his vertigo at bay, because the plunging elevator reminded him too much of a sinking airplane.
Ignoring Mike's menacing declaration, Rob went on as if nobody else had spoken, "Of course, at first, you don't really know that you're among the clouds, and you wonder what all the grey around you is. After a bit, it dawns on you that the grayness is clouds, and you're flying through the top of your world—the sky you normally crane your neck to look at and that you always think of as untouchable. You just have to wonder if the people staring up at the clouds think you're a tail on a fluffy bunny or something even if the idea makes you dizzy."
"Keep running your mouth and you won't need an idea to make you dizzy." Mike lifted a fist in a final warning. "You won't need a passport or a ticket to fly, either."
Rob opened his mouth—probably to offer another one of his patented piquant remarks, since he was the contentious type who would regard it as a monumental achievement to goad someone into giving him a black eye before morning coffee—but he was mercifully cut off before he could begin by an elbow in the ribs from Mark, who said firmly, "Don't be an idiot, and lay off Rammer, Robbie. You'll make him sick before we even reach the airport."
"I will not." Rob shifted his focus to arguing with Mark, as the elevator arrived in the lobby with a jolt, and they turned right into a dining room where a continental buffet breakfast was served every morning. "You're the one being an idiot, Magic, if you think a person can honestly get nauseous from merely talking about flying, because that's as illogical as believing someone can get seasick just by glancing at a photo of the ocean."
"Stomachs aren't ruled by logic," countered Mark, as they grabbed dishes and started making their way along the buffet table, helping themselves to portions of whatever food they deemed sufficiently appetizing. "Look at him. He's already got a slightly green tinge."
"I don't have a green tinge," Mike hissed, his temper flaring like oil hurled atop a blazing flame, while he piled at least a dozen slices of knackebrod and messmor on his plate. "I'm right here, too, so you both can stop talking about me as if I'm not."
"Wow, Rammer." Rob whistled, as he fixed a pointed stare on Mike's overflowing saucer. "Do you mind leaving some crumbs for the rest of the hotel guests to enjoy, or would you prefer to be a fat pig?"
"Didn't your mom ever explain to you that it's rude to make snide remarks about other people's meals?" Mike scowled, since his mother certainly had taught him that, as well as not to gawk at those whose moles were larger than their noses and not to taunt unfortunate beings who appeared to weigh as much as an adult killer whale. "Was that one of the finer points of etiquette that she didn't get a chance to cover, because she was too busy teaching you that the salad fork is laid horizontally above the dinner plate at a banquet?"
"Good thing she didn't teach me that, since that would be totally wrong. It's the dessert fork that's laid horizontally over the dinner plate, you uncultured buffoon." Rob rolled his eyes as he poured fermented milk called filmjolk over a bowl of muesli, an oat cereal akin to granola. "Anyway, Mom told me not to comment on people's weight or eating habits in polite society, but she also said that everybody in polite society would sooner suffer a famine than commit the faux pas of overfilling a plate like a glutton. I guess that excludes you from polite society, so I'm at liberty to mock your excessive eating as much as I like."
"Your tongue is as poisonous as a cobra's." Mike wrinkled his nose at Rob. "I hope you die from your own venom, but if that fails, I'll be glad to slip some arsenic into your coffee."
"Death threats are the last resort of those with no imagination." Rob snorted. "Of course, if you had an imagination you'd be able to invent an acceptable excuse for that mountain on your plate."
"I don't need an excuse," riposted Mike. "Half the food on my plate is for OC, since he isn't coming down for breakfast."
"Thank God for small miracles." Rob smirked. "I don't have to see OC until later, and your breakfast might fit in the barf bags the stewardess hands out when you vomit on the plane. This morning might turn out to be good, after all. Stranger things have happened."
"I swear that you can't go five seconds without making a moronic and mean comment." To spite Rob, Mike dumped a mound of porridge on his crowded platter and sprinkled a dusting of cinnamon and sugar over it. "Every time Herb threatened to tie your tongue into a knot, he was completely justified, in my opinion."
"Clichés like that are the pathetic indications of a coach with no vocabulary," stated Rob, all tartness, as Mike poured a mug of steaming coffee, adding a river of cream and a rock of sugar to ensure the bitter beverage did not render his stomach any more queasy than it already was at the prospect of flight. "I'm so not impressed or intimidated by Herb's lack of intelligence or originality."
"Well," Mark put in, spooning porridge onto his saucer and plopping a dollop of raspberry jam on top like whipped cream on a hot fudge sundae, "I have a vocabulary, and I've often longed to tie your tongue into a knot. If you wish, I can be very creative and describe the knot in eloquent detail."
"Like all geniuses, it's my tragic fate to be reviled and misunderstood." Rob poured himself a cup of coffee, which he did not dilute with cream or sugar.
"How melodramatic." Mark poured a glass of juice. "I had hoped we could make it through breakfast without one of your trademark 'woe is me' speeches, but I suppose that just wasn't in the cards today."
"Ah, it is the rare soothsayer who can make predictions about the past." Rob snickered as they carried their dishes over to a circular table already occupied by Bill Baker and Phil Verchota, best friends who were following their policy of doing everything possible together. "The team can only hope that one day you'll be as good a hockey player as you are a fortune-teller, Mark."
"Speaking of fortune-telling," Phil contributed as Mike, Rob, and Mark slid into seats, "I haven't read my horoscope since we left America. Maybe I should get a newspaper so I can study my horoscope for a good laugh on the trip to Norway."
"I thought I saw some newspapers stacked on the concierge's desk as we passed through the lobby." Mark mixed the jam into his porridge. "You could get one there."
"I don't know if those are free, though." Phil munched on his open-faced hard boiled egg and cheese sandwich on knackebrod. "I'm a dirt-poor, penny-pinching college grad. I can't go squandering my limited funds on newspapers that will be outdated tomorrow."
"You could always ask the concierge whether the newspapers are free or not." Mike gnawed on a slice of knackebrod and messmor before washing it down with a gulp of coffee that, despite the gallons of cream and pounds of sugar he had added, still made him grimace at its bitter flavor. "When we checked in, he said he was always here to help, after all. At least, I think that's what he told us. He had a bit of a strong accent when he tried to communicate in English, so he might actually have been explaining that the men's restroom is located on the left side of the lobby."
"Let me know when that caffeine awakens your brain." Phil rolled his eyes. "How socially inept are you, Rammer, if you believe I can ask whether newspapers are free without sounding like an utter mooch?"
"You should ask if the newspapers are complimentary." Rob paused in his consumption of his filmjolk and muesli long enough to put what he judged to be an appropriate emphasis on this term. "Asking if something is complimentary instead of free entails using a bigger word, and, thus, allows you to preserve a modicum of dignity in the midst of your shameless begging. Complimentary is a respectable word. That's why classy resorts have complimentary buffets while cheap motels have free donuts."
"Thanks for the complimentary English lesson, Mac," Phil answered with all the innocence of a spring daffodil. "Perhaps you could translate the Swedish articles into English for me, as well. I mean, that's the only way I could stand a chance of understanding or enjoying the newspaper."
"Not true." Rob sipped his coffee. "You would have plenty of fun scrawling profanities in the crossword puzzle and looking at the pictures like you usually do when you get your fingers on a newspaper. It shouldn't matter whether the news is in English or Swedish, seeing as you don't bother to read it, anyhow."
Before Phil could debate the point, Coach Patrick, bearing a folder and a harried expression, sidled up to their table and greeted them in a rush, "Morning, boys. How are we today?"
Without waiting for a reply, he plunged on, rummaging through his folder, "I have everyone's tickets and boarding passes here. This is for you, Rob, and here you go, Mark." He thrust the documents into the outstretched hands of the addressed and then gave Bill and Phil their paperwork. "Here you are, Bill, and this is for you, Phil. You'll be next to each other on the plane. Mike, here's yours, and have you seen Jack this morning?"
As he accepted the proffered paperwork, Mike, not wanting to throw a teammate under an onrushing bus this early, responded with a vaguely saucy air, "Yep. You'll be pleased to hear that he's still alive and not kidnapped."
"Excellent." Coach Patrick assumed the exaggeratedly patient manner he adopted whenever he suspected that a player was being deliberately obtuse or obstinate. "Where exactly is he, Rammer?"
"Upstairs in our room, Coach. He has a few more belongings to pack, so he isn't planning on coming to breakfast." Mike shrugged to show how miniscule the amount of packing Jack had remaining to do was and prayed that Coach Patrick would be convinced by that gesture enough to not pose further questions. "I'm going to bring some knackebrod and messmor up to him, though. Don't worry about him boarding a plane hungry with me around to take care of him."
"Very well." Obviously only listening with half an ear to Mike's answer, Coach Patrick nodded and offered another ticket and boarding pass to Mike, who took the documents. "Here's Jack's stuff. Look out for it as well as your own."
Affixing a serious glance on the table at large, Coach Patrick continued, "I expect all of you to be careful with everything I just gave you. I don't want to hear about any dropped boarding passes or lost tickets. Let's make the journey to Norway as smooth sailing as possible, gentlemen."
"You don't have to be so damn condescending," grumbled Rob, stabbing his muesli with his spoon and spraying filmjolk all over the burgundy tablecloth, but, fortuitously, Coach Patrick, who was hastening off to deal with the next crisis surrounding their departure, didn't hear this gripe. Swiping at the fermented milk with a napkin, Rob mumbled, "We aren't exceptionally irresponsible Pee Wees who have never traveled abroad. We aren't going to lose our tickets or our boarding passes. Coach Patrick is just being a nag, which is par for the course with him. He nags, and Herb bugs. They're a fucking matching set."
"I wonder what would happen if I did lose my ticket and boarding pass." Descending into a daydream about not having to survive the torture of a flight to Norway, Mike's face split into a wistful grin.
"Don't say things like that, Rammer." Bill's eyes widened in reproach over his ham, tomato, and cucumber on knackebrod, and Mike's cheeks burned with twin fires of guilt and embarrassment. If there was anyone (including aliens) that he didn't want to be chided by, it was Bill, since Bill was his hero. When Bill, being a brilliant defenseman, had carried Grand Rapids High School to victory at the state championships, Mike had begun to idolize him. Once he had started playing hockey at the U, he had been simultaneously giddy with eagerness to meet his hero and numb with terror that he might uncover that his idol was no larger than life, after al. However, Bill had proved to be the rarest of role models: one who became only increasingly admirable as you discovered more about him. No amount of hanging around his dorm room until Phil kicked you out could reveal a flaw. He was calm and patient even when Mike followed him around like a particularly exuberant golden retriever. On ice, he was a defensive rock who could be an offensive catalyst from the blueline, but he was never smug, and he always had time to teach Mike a new maneuver. Whenever Mike had a problem on or off the ice, he could turn to Bill for guidance and support, because Bill was never derisive or dismissive about anything. "We don't want you lost in the airport forever."
"I'd rather be lost in the airport forever than have to fly." Mike realized he probably sounded like a sulky brat, but he couldn't stop himself from offering this commentary even if it was borderline whiny. "I hate flying, every single ear-popping and stomach-twisting moment of it."
"When will you outgrow your wimpiness, Rammer?" Phil emitted an impatient tut. "Cars are much more likely to crash than airplanes, and I don't see you having a nervous breakdown whenever you have to go for a drive."
"That's because not all car crashes are major." Mike chomped on his lower lip instead of his knackebrod and messmor, since his appetite had faded from all this discussion of flying. "All airplane crashes are catastrophic and probably fatal."
"He has a fair point, you know, Phil." Putting on his most judicious face, Rob inserted himself into the conversation again. "In plane crashes, the stewardesses tell the passengers to duck not to protect them but to preserve their teeth so the mangled remains can be identified via dental records. Nobody wants to admit it, but, in a plane crash, there's very little you can do to keep yourself safe and alive."
"I'm sure you intended all this talk of plane crashes and deaths to be reassuring, but it's actually not helping at all." Bill shot Rob a repressive glance. "Now would be an impeccable time for you to be quiet, Robbie."
"Sorry for making your flying phobia worse, Rammer." Rob flashed an apologetic smile. "I'll slip you a piece of gum before takeoff to make up for it, okay? Gum always keeps my ear popping to a minimum."
"Fine." Not troubling to point out that gum might reduce ear popping but could not stifle instinctive fear, Mike snatched up as many slices of knackebrod and messmor as he could handle, rose from his chair, and headed toward the lobby, tossing over his shoulder, "See you guys around. I'm going to bring OC up his breakfast, since I always was curious about what it's like to be room service."
Three minutes later, as he unlocked his hotel room door, he was provided with a very real education in how room service was treated like dog excrement attached to a tennis shoe when Jack responded to his announcement about carrying up breakfast with a snarled, "Put it on the desk, and then do something useful for a change by helping me close this shitty bag."
"Chill out." As ordered, Mike placed the hard bread and sweet spread on the desk and then bent over to assist Jack, who was panting as if he had just run a marathon through the Andes, in zipping a duffel that optimistically could be regarded as having reached its carrying capacity and pessimistically could be defined as overpopulated with luggage. Yanking on the zipper with all the energy he could muster, Mike grunted, "Next time, you should fold your clothing to conserve space, damn it."
"You can use your ass as a filing cabinet for your smart comments," growled Jack, as the zipper shut, and the resultant velocity slammed them into one another. "I asked for you to help, not criticize like some neighborhood harpy."
"Don't call me a harpy." Shooting Jack a scorching glare, Mike collected his belongings, hurrying to get out of the room so he could ride the elevator down to the lobby to wait in peace from Jack's gibes until the bus was ready for loading. Unfortunately, he was in such a rush that the strap of his skate bag slid off his shoulder while he attempted to make his escape.
As Mike, his cheeks burning hot enough to roast marshmallows to a brown crisp, scooped up his skate bag, Jack hooted, "Don't need those. You can't skate anyway, neighborhood harpy."
"If I'm a harpy, beware my claws," Mike volleyed back, and, before Jack could fire another quip, he stomped out of the room into the hallway, feeling exhausted even though they hadn't even reached the airport yet.