Working for the Weekend

Everyone's watching, to see what you will do

Everyone's looking at you
Everyone's wondering, will you come out tonight
Everyone's trying to get it right

Everybody's working for the weekend

Dave Silk was sitting on the bench in what turned out to be a horrific and gruesome Friday night practice. Apparently, Herb had a meeting with Lou Nanne (and some other guys who's names Dave didn't know) following today's afternoon team meeting. All he knew was that these guys could make or break his Olympic dreams, and that was enough to send his hockey anxieties into overdrive. Therefore, practice was set to be from 7:00-9:30P.M. and right now, with 30 minutes left, this was becoming (what Dave thought was) one of the worst practices of the one month that the team had been together. No one was playing well, and it was probably due to the fact that the colliegate boys should've, would've, been out at Stub and Herb's right now.

This was why Dave's mind was focused more on a nice, cold Corona than anything else when his coach called out his line."Silky!" Herb shouted, taking Dave out of his dreamland. "Get your head out of your ass and play hockey! Let's get moving some time tonight, please!"

With an eye roll, Dave knew that his dreams would stay dreams tonight, because once practice was over, he justed hoped that he could make it to his room before collapsing. "Weave, weave, weave, but don't weave for the sake of weaving!" The sounds of his coach were drowned out by the sound of two players colliding. Dave stopped short to see Ramsey and McClanahan on the ground. Ouch... Dave thought. Nobody wanted to be rammed into by the 6'3", 190lbs defenseman. Better him than me... Maybe that will shut him up for a while, or at least, tonight...

When the team had arrived in Minnesota, staying at the U of M's unoccupied dorm, Dave had been less than eager to find out his rooming assignment. He was only familiar, only comfortable, with the guys from BU and Jack Hughes, who was from Harvard. Yet, he figured he would be rooming with Buzz Schneider, since it was most likely going to be alphabetical. Buzz was 25, mature, and married, so Dave figured that it wouldn't be so bad having him as a roommate. But boy, couldn't he have been more wrong. When he and his fellow Bostonians heard the rooming assignments, Dave could barely form a sentence, let alone a word.

"I bet Verchota is a nice guy," Rizzo said. "Can't wait to room with him."

Dave shook his head. "I wish I could say the same. I'm rooming with McClanahan."

OC gave Dave (what attempted to be) a 'look on the bright side' pat on the shoulder. "Maybe it won't be so bad, Silky."

Now, at practice, sleep was replacing alcohol as Dave's ultimate fetish. Watching his roommate suffer almost caused Dave to crack a smirk before he was nudged in the side by his linemate.

"What the hell, Verchota? Are you trying to break my ribs or something, because, well, good job..." He shot his blonde-haired teammate an angry look.

"No, but if I was, it would be more of a favor then the warning I'm giving you," Phil replied with an eyebrow lift.

"What? What warning?" Dave questioned. Seems like practice was starting to pick up afterall.

"Just beware of grumpy Mac, okay Silky?" Phil shot his linemate a sympathetic grin, which Dave was not receving. "Look, what I'm trying to say is try not to get murdered tonight."

Just as Dave was about to retort, he was cut off by Mac, who was now on his feet, yelling at Rammer at the opposite blue line. "You think that's funny, huh, Rammer? Crash into me on purpose?"

As the chaotic scene was unfolding, Phil and Dave were joined by John Harrington. The three viewed the scene in unison, then looked at eachother and broke out into laughter. "Gosh, I feel so bad for Rammer. The poor kid just wants to go home like the rest of us," Bah spat out between chuckles. "Robby is such a big baby sometimes. How the hell do you live with him, Silky?"

Dave shrugged. "I've contemplated jumping into an outdoor pool during a thunder and lightning storm before. Or at least playing pick-up sticks on the freeway."

Phil and Bah began, once again, laughing, which apparently caught the attention of Coach Brooks, who blew his whistle.

"This is absolutely ridiculous, boys. I'm coaching an Olympic hockey team, not babysitting a bunch of kids from daycare! You all better have your brains screwed on properly by tomorrow morning, and bring your game. Practice is at 9 A.M." With that, their head coach exited the arena leaving everyone baffled.

"Herb is letting us go early?" Neal piped up from the bench.

"It appears so," Craig Patrick responded as he skated towards the bench. "I expect everyone to regroup themselves by the A.M. hour. No more silly mistakes at practice." He turned towards the group of Robby, Rammer, OC, Johnson, Suter, and Strobel still at the blue line opposite from Dave. "And let's be nice, please."

Bob Suter gave Mac a punch in the arm. "Yeah, Ricky, be nice!" Mac, not having any of the teasing today, gave Suter a shove back.

"How 'bout you shut your fat face!"

"Whoa, Robby relax, alright! He's just joking with you. Calm down," Johnson reasoned while grabbing his linemate by the waist to prevent what could unfold very soon. "And Rammer didn't mean to hit you. It was an accident, okay?"

"Accident my ass," Mac snorted. Mark sighed, wishing his teammate wasn't always so difficult.

Doc and the team's trainer, Gary Smith, who had gathered their supplies, began to leave. "I think everyone should get a good night's rest, tonight, alright boys? See you all tomorrow," Doc called out.

Some of the boys began heading to the locker room, when Rammer spoke up. "I'm really sorry for hitting you, Robby. It was just an accident. You know that we're all still trying to pick up this new European style of hockey, it's foreign to us. I mean, just look at Rizzo and Electric. They collided last week."

Mac huffed, rolled his eyes, and skated off the ice.

"Why is he so bitchy today?" Koho, whom Mac had given that nickname, spoke up, while the rest of the team began to skate towards the locker room.

Jack O'Callahan laughed, "how 'bout everyday!" Finally, someone who understands my pain and suffering.

While a couple of guys laughed at the remark, Steve Christoff spoke up. "Aw come on, OC, you know that Robby is a nice guy." Eric and some other Minnesota guys nodded.

"Riff is right," Neal squeaked, "he just has to warm up to some of you more intimidating guys."

"At least you don't have to room with him when he's like this, OC," Koho chuckled. Dave cracked a smirk, shaking his head.

As the boys got into the locker room, Mark and Robby were having a 'whisper' fight.

"I don't want to!"

"You have to!"

"Mark.."

"Robby.."

"Ugh, alright! Fine!" Rob threw his hands up, surrendering. He went over to where Rammer was untying his skates and looked at Mark, who shot him back a 'do it now or else' glance. Sighing, Rob began, "Um, Rammer, I, uh, just wanted to, um, you know," Rob gritted his teeth, "apologize for, uh, getting angry at you earlier. I'm a bit tired and cranky, so I'm sorry for being a bitch and taking it out on you."

Before Ramsey could respond, some guys began chantings of "hey" and there was some whistling. Rob apologizing was something Dave thought he would never see while on this team, or at all during his lifetime. Sure enough, the team began chants of "Robby, Robby".

"Geez, I guess I shouldn't have said anything at all," Mac chuckled.

"Alright, alright," Ramsey shut the chanting down. Holding no resentment towards his former gopher teammate, Ramsey stood up, smiling. "I forgive you, Mac!" He exclaimed, pulling Robby into a bear hug.

Robby wrinkled his nose. "I hope you guys enjoyed that because it's never happening again."

The boys proceeded to shower and change into their street clothes. Dave and his friends walked back to the dorms together.

"Wasn't that a sweet team bonding moment?" Rizzo inquired. "I just love it when everybody gets along."

Jack shook his head. "Eh, I wouldn't get used to it, Riz. They're still Minnesotans and we're still Bostonians."

Arriving at the dorms, Dave could not wait to rest his aching muscles, filled with lactic acid. When he discovered that his room was unoccupied, Dave was hopeful that he would be able to fall asleep before Mac came home. However, his friends had other plans as they hung out in his dorm room.

"Since when did you decide to start being neat?" Jimmy questioned, observing the pile of clothes (once on the room's floor) folded on Dave's lower bunkbed.

"I didn't." Dave's eyebrows furrowed. "Robby must have folded my clothes."

"Wow, you have your own personal maid!" Jack laughed.

"I guess so," Dave inquired, "It sure does make up for his annoying habits."

Just then, Craig Patrick knocked on the open door. "Come on boys its already 10:20. Room checks are in 10 minutes."

"Alright, we were just leaving anyways," OC yawned. "Gotta catch up on our z's."

Left again to his empty room, Dave changed into his sweats (which he and many others called pajamas) and went into the bathroom to brush his teeth, still aspiring to get to bed before his roommate. However, that dream was crushed as once he was finished in the bathroom he returned to find Robby on the floor also in sweats, doing sit-ups.

"Stop making me feel guilty," Dave mumbled. He had never seen someone so dedicated that it almost made him uncomfortable. He was climbing into bed while his roommate was doing sit-ups. Dave was debating getting on the floor and doing the same thing, but he was too tired and lathargic. Once Mac finished his pre-bed workout, he went into the bathroom to go brush his teeth for probably the third or fourth time today, and Dave took it as the perfect time to try to fall asleep. Since he had the bottom bunk, he got to dictate the radio station that they listened to. Rob was never opposed to Dave's night music anyway, since he usually fell asleep in 5 seconds flat. Dave tuned into STAR 107.9, which was playing Loverboy's 'Working for the Weekend'.

Everybody's working for the weekend

Everybody wants a little romance

Everybody's goin' off the deep end

Everybody needs a second chance, oh

You want a piece of my heart

You better start from start

You wanna be in the show

Come on baby lets go

Dave shut his eyelids as Robby stepped on his bed and hoisted himself up to the top bunk.

"Goodnight, Silky," Rob whispered.

Dave cringed, knowing what was about to come. "Goodnight, Mac."

It hadn't even been 5 minutes before Dave's desire of sweet dreams had been disrupted by Rob's snoring. You have got to be kidding me. Dave turned up the radio in an attempt to drown out his roommate's obnoxious snorting. Everything had failed, and Dave found himself tossing and turning, clenching his ears with his head under his pillow. He was exhausted, but he could not fall asleep like this. Meanwhile, Mac was out cold. The minutes seemed like hours until he finally fell asleep out of sheer exhaustion, three hours later...

Everyone's looking to see if it was you

Everyone wants you to come through

Everyone's hoping it'll all work out

Everyone's waiting they're holding out

Rob's 6:45A.M. alarm clock (it took a while to tape those sticks) startled Dave as his eyes opened and he sat up with a gasp. Every single fucking morning. As he yawned and scratched his head, he shut the alarm clock off and went back to bed. Practice isn't even until 9:00A.M. 15 minutes later, Rob's second alarm went off (just incase he slept through the first one) just when Dave was about to drift off again. You have got to be kidding me. Dave shut the alarm clock off again and stuffed his head under his pillow. After another 15 minutes (Robby didn't want to risk being late to practice) and another scare, Dave vocalized his frustrations.

"Robby, would you shut your fucking alarm clock off, already?" When he received no answer, Dave climbed out of bed and performed the action himself, proceeding to climb up the bunk bed to where Robby was still asleep. "How is that humanly possible?" Dave grabbed a pillow and whacked Mac in the face with it. "Get the fuck up! Your stupid alarm woke me up three times!"

"Good morning to you, too," Robby mumbled, still dazed from his wonderful sleep. As Rob jumped down, he yawned and got dressed, while Dave got back in bed. "Have you seen my sneakers?" Rob questioned, searching the room. Dave, still angry that his sleep was interupted, picked up one of Mac's shoes beside the nightstand and flung it at him. "Ouch! Why so grumpy?"

Dave got out of bed, giving up trying to sleep. "Because every single fucking night you ruin my damn sleep," Dave shouted, putting on shoes and slamming the door behind him.

Everybody's goin' off the deep end

Everybody needs a second chance, oh

As Dave stormed down the hallway, he realized that he had been so frustrated that he didn't even think about where he was going. "Fuck... if I pull another stunt like that, there's no way I'll be here much longer." Dave shook his head as he exited the building in a hurry, still with no destination. Now, it was 7:30 and he was starting to get hungry. Dave began contemplating apologizing to Mac for his tantrum because there was no way Herb would bring him to Lake Placid if he couldn't get along with his teammates, let alone Herb's golden boy. Besides, Dave couldn't control how his roommate behaved, what time he woke up and went to bed, and whether he snored or not. Get it together, Silk.

40 minutes later, after a nice walk around campus, Dave had finally blown off steam and cleared his head. Even though he felt he should apologize to Mac, the problem was that it still wouldn't cure the fact that Robby was causing him to severly lack sleep. "Maybe I should just confront Robby about the snoring," Dave pondered to himself. He re-entered the dorm's lobby, to where some of the team was eating breakfast, Mac being one of them. Talking a deep breath and approaching Mac, Dave decided that the best thing to do was to call out his roommate on his behavior if he ever wanted the issue solved.

"Mac, you may not like what I'm about to say, but too bad, alright? Your obnoxiously loud snoring needs to stop because it prevents me from sleeping. And you can't set three alarms if they don't even wake you up, because thrn they only wake me up, and maybe I don't want to get up that early. Especially after not being able to fall asleep until 1:00A.M. if I'm lucky. If you're not willing to do anything about it then we are going to have a big problem because I need sleep, just like everyone else does." Dave exhaled in relief, as he was satisfied to get that off his chest.

The rest of the guys were chattering amongst themselves as Mac rolled his eyes. "I don't know what you're talking about, Silky. I never snore. And the fact that those alarms don't wake me up shows you why I need them."

Dave scoffed. "Did you here a word I just said? I need sleep!"

"Yes, and I don't snore so I don't see what the problem is."

Mac turned back to the conversation that he was currently having with OC. "Anyways, it's a fancy term that means being scared of the guy that lives next door," Mac continued.

Dave crossed his arms. "How would you fucking know if you snored? You're asleep, you asshole!" With that note, grabbing the team's attention, Dave spun on his heel, took a bagel, and scurried back to his room.

"Wait 'till we get to Lake Placid, we'll see who absorbs who," OC chuckled.

Dave practically stomped his way down the hall. "I'd rather get on a plane back to Boston then room with that jerk until February." Opening and shutting his door with a slam, he rushed to get ready for practice. Throwing on some shoes, Dave packed his duffel bag and hitched a ride with Rizzo and Jimmy to Bloomington Ice Arena, where Saturday's practice was being held. During the whole practice, Dave went out of his way to not speak to, or even look at, Robby. After two and a half hours of pure skating drills, Dave decided he was finally going to get that Corona tonight.

"So Silky, what was that little blowup at breakfast about?" Verchota asked, while they made their way to the showers.

Dave cringed. The whole team saw your little tantrum. You're too old for this, no matter what the cause. "Let's just say 'grumpy Mac' better sleep with one eye open tonight."

"He's that bad to you, huh?" Verchota gave him a sympathetic smile. How does he like Robby? How do any of the Minnesotans? If Dave was fed up after almost one month, how had they lasted over three years with Mac?

"You have no idea," Dave responded, shaking his head. Now, it was less about Dave's sleep loss itself and more about the fact that Rob was in denial about it. Letting the hot water sooth his aching muscles, Dave contemplated how he was going to handle this situation further. He figured that all would be decided after he got his long awaited fixing of alcohol. After getting dressed, Dave had realized that he had left his wallet at home. Having enough of the chitter-chatter atmosphere, he made his way out of the locker room, desiring some alone time. Or at least time to him and his Coronas.

Arriving back at the dorms, Dave realized that he had forgotten his room key. "Dammit!" After taking out his anger on the door, he remembered that Mac had left a spare key under the welcome mat (because even the most deteriorating of college dorm rooms needed a home-away-from-home feel).

Absolutely drained, Dave was completely oblivious to what was lying on his bed (which must have magically got made). Searching for his wallet, Dave almost entirely missed the small square box, before stopping dead in his tracks. It was covered with green wrapping paper and topped with a small white bow. Shaking it, Dave wondered what it could be, while he attempted to open it. "If this is some sort of prank, I swear..." Removing the cover, he found what appeared to be a set of earplugs. Taking them out of the box, he found a little note:

Sorry for your troubles. Maybe this will help.

-Rob