Another Author's Note that is too long but very important:

Hello again. So you know I will try my very hardest to update everyday, so if you like my story check back as often as you like, but only updating twice today because I'm working ten hours tomorrow so I won't be able to. This is my big project right now, because no one likes my other stories.

Now I've gotten a suggestion for a second romance, but I need to know who. I think I can write O.C., Buzz, Mac, and Jimmy (leaning towards Jimmy or O.C....or Mark for Piper, and Piper if you read this, which I don't think you are reading my story anyway, you can just stop right now and get writng ok.) So if everybody wants a second romance you have to vote for your favorite now, and I'll get them in just after the Christmas party. I've already concocted a way to do so. {Smiles fiendishly eyeballing hockey team who cowers away in fear.} Or you can just tell me, "No bitch you can't have two of them!"

"Come on you Minnesotans," O.C. yelled over the falling rain, "My backs starting to hurt from carrying you all. Pretend you're pushing some cows."

"Why don't you stop talking and start pushing, Boston Boy," Mac shot back. Nikki laughed and shook her head.

"I feel so retarded for wanting to do this," she admitted to Mike, who was leaning against the wheel next to her.

"I told you it wasn't going to be any fun," he joked with her

"I'm going to put it on my college application under disabilities," she admitted. "'Wants to do stupid things like pushing planes in the freezing rain'."

"With hockey players from Boston and Minnesota," he added.

"Well we were taxiing out to the run way," Herb explained to his wife over the phone. "And we sort-of hit a moose." There was a brief pause. "No, the moose is fine, but we got to make sure the plane is okay, so some of the boys are pushing it back so these guys can take a look at it." Another pause. "Patti the moose is fine, he ran off, I saw it."

At that point the boys (Ralph, O.C., Rammer, Mac, Rizzo, etc.) and Nikki returned from the runway.

"They said it'll be about an hour," Nikki told her dad before going back over to sit down, fully soaked now.

Nicolette was half asleep curled up on a bench with her head set in Rizzo's lap, as he was playing cards with some of the other boys who were still alert. At this point she knew for a fact that Mark Johnson and Jimmy Craig were totally out of it.

"You want to see what I have?" Rizzo asked her going to show her the cards.

"It doesn't really matter what you have," she protested. "Right now it looks like Bah has a straight flush." The boys groaned.

"She's a counter," Buzzy huffed setting his cards down.

"No," she answered, and pointed to the reflection of Bah's cards in the window.

They sat talking for a while, and at that point it had to be the weirdest thing to do something like this right now, in a crowed airport, but she couldn't help it.

"I love you," she mouthed very clearly to Rizzo.

"I love you, too," he cooed back to her, and feeling completely safe and comfortable at this point, she slipped into an easy sleep.

"Russian style of play boys," Herb provided commentary for the film he was showing the boys, who were sitting attentively in their long underwear. "Fluid, creative, forwards are constantly circling. They don't so much look for a man as they do a patch of ice. You get the mismatch, two on one, easy goal." Most of the boys "ohhed" as an impressive goal was scored.

"Looks kinda like me out there, huh, Buzz?" Bah asked receiving several laughs from the boys.

"Boris Mikhailov," Herb continued to explain. "Captain of the team. He is the best player in his position, including, as we've just found out, the NHL."

"Do these guys ever smile?" Baker asked.

"There Russians, they get shot if they smile," O.C. informed them; laughs.

"Vladislav Tretiak," Herb continued as the footage went to a goalie performing, some drill that looked like it would be giving him serious knee problems in the future. There were lots of 'woah's' going around. "If you score of Tretiak, keep the puck, 'cause it doesn't happen often."

Nicolette peered back at Jimmy. He was looking a little with drawn at this point, with a sense of brooding behind his eyes, betraying immediately to her, who had spent time getting to know the mannerisms of the team, that he was intimidated.

"Forty-two games in the last three months, forty two wins," Coach Brooks went on. "Their main weapon is intimidation, they know they're going to win, and so do their opponents." The film was switched off as he went on. "Look I can give you a load of crap about how you're a better team than they are, but that's just what it'd be. Everyone knows what they're saying about our chances; I know it, you know it. But I also know that there is a way to stay with this team."

Nicolette noticed that many of the players leaned forward in their seats, as if to say: 'Okay Herb, let's hear it.'

"You don't defend them," Herb instructed drawing a big 'X' on the chalk board. "You attack them. You take their game, and you shove it right back in their face! NHL won't change their game, we will. The rest of the world is afraid of them, boys, we won't be. No one has ever worked hard enough to skate with the Soviet team for an entire game. Gentlemen, we are gonna work hard enough."

"Bravo daddy!" Nikki called from the back of the room.

Whistles were being blown left and right. Boys were flying around every which way, skating beyond the point of exhaustion. It was really something good to be a part of. Coach Brooks was doing everything he could to get these boys in the best shape of their lives. He had them doing wind sprints and suicides, they were skating in between pairs of gloves, anything to keep them going.

"Pick up your knees boys!" Nikki could hear her father from the lobby.

"Keep your shoulders square. The legs feed the wolf."

"Push it boys, you've got to work," he ordered as the boys were running Herbies. What Nicolette found odd was, the amount of skating that had them throwing up on the ice weeks before was phasing them less and less everyday.

That day after practice Coach cut another player, bringing them ever closer to the final twenty boys.

"Come on, Jimmy," Herb prompted. "Stay with him." Here was an audible 'clank' as the puck hit the inside of the goal.

"Damn it!" Jimmy shot in frustration.

The boys were running more and more suicides and sprints, Nikki was handing out water bottles on the bench listening to the boys talk.

"How are your legs?" Mac asked O.C.

"I'll let you know when I can feel them," O.C. retorted. Nicolette smiled to herself; they seemed to have patched things up nicely.

After a brief water break the boys were shooting on goal again. This time Jimmy did so much better.

"Better," Coach started blowing the whistle. "Not great, but better."

Then came more wind sprints with a constant commentary: "You've got to have mental intensity, boys!"

That afternoon, Nikki and Jimmy were in the hallway, juggling tennis balls back and forth.

"So if the hockey thing doesn't work out," O.C. commented mockingly. "You two are going to run away and join the circus."

"You bet," Jimmy answered without ever breaking concentration. "It's going to be the Ringling Brothers, Jimmy, and Sissy."

"Nikki and Jimmy," Nicolette returned.

"Watch yourself," he warned chucking a tennis ball that hit her in the stomach. She yelped as he laughed light heartedly.

"Work boys, quick feet," they could hear her father even by the lockers.

It was now closing in on four months to Lake Placid, the roaster was currently at twenty-one. Mac ran through the showers, occupied by half clothed O.C., Rizzo, and Mark Johnson.

"Got them," he laughed, handing Nikki's skates over to them.

"Perfect," O.C. started confidently. "She's gonna die."

"Herb is going to murder us for this," Mar assured them with an oddly pleasant smile on his face.

"Come on Mac," they could hear Nikki screaming. "I don't want to go in there! Please, just give me my skates. Come on. This isn't fair!"