Disclaimer: See chapter 1.
A/N: Oh, Johnson. You've obviously never encountered any fangirls. :)
At the end of the week, USA Hockey flew us all back to Minneapolis. I was a little surprised that Coach Brooks didn't give his travel dress "you're representatives and gentlemen" speech, but, like Steve Janaszak said, he probably wanted to see if we--or at least everybody who didn't already know his expectations--would have enough sense to dress nicely. "Besides, Phil, this isn't school anymore," Jannie laughed. "We're responsible adults now."
"Heaven help us," Buzz muttered.
We sat in alphabetical order by last name on the plane, so I was between Bob Suter and Mark Wells. Suter slept almost the whole time, and Wells read a magazine. I think it was the same one the whole time, because I never saw him put it down or pick another one up. Most of the time I watched Jack O'Callahan, sitting a couple rows ahead, flirting with a stewardess. He didn't seem like a bad guy. The stewardess seemed to think he was okay, that's for sure. All right, so maybe he was a little intense, but you want that in a teammate. And besides, Buzz was right. If O'Callahan was on the Olympic team and still mad about some national championship, he had to be stupid. And even if he were that stupid, which I seriously doubted, it wasn't my problem anyway.
"Welcome home, boys!" Bah said, throwing his arm around me and Rammer. "It's good to be back."
Pav grimaced. "I almost forgot about the humidity. Can I go back to Colorado?" I laughed. Pav may not be the most outgoing, but he's a good guy, solid and funny. Most people just don't take the time to get to know him and find out what he's really like.
"I hear you on that," said a guy behind us. We turned around to see Jim Craig, the goalie from Boston. He smiled. "And I thought Massachusetts was humid. Warn a guy next time, huh?"
"Welcome to Minnesota," Pav said dryly.
Jim laughed. "I know who you are, but we've never been introduced. I'm Jim Craig."
"John Harrington--"
"Bah," Pav corrected him.
"--and these are Mark Pavelich, Mike Ramsey, and Phillip J. Verchota. Nice to meet you."
"You guys all go to the University of Minnesota?"
"Nah, just Phil and Rammer. Me and Pav went to UMD."
Jim frowned. "Pretend for a minute that I'm from Boston and don't know what UMD is."
I laughed. This guy wasn't afraid to be himself, and I had to respect that. Bah said, "There's more than one University of Minnesota. UMD is the one at Duluth."
"You mean there are enough high school graduates in the state of Minnesota to warrant more than one university?" Jim asked, faking shock.
"They've got to have somewhere to keep all us hockey players," Rammer spoke up. "That is, until they let us out to beat Boston." He smiled innocently, and Jim laughed.
Maybe if I'd paid more attention in psych I would understand people better. As it is, they keep throwing me curveballs. Like Jack O'Callahan. Here I was all ready to think that he was a decent guy, and then he goes and checks Rob McClanahan out of nowhere, like they weren't even on the same team. I've seen guys hit their worst rivals with less force than this. So I admit that I was wrong about him.
It wasn't all O'Callahan's fault, though. Well, holding a grudge for three years was, but he didn't actually start the fight. Mac got up and hit him back. I'm not saying I wouldn't have done the same thing, but Mac seemed about to let the check go until Jack told John, "Tell your boy here to keep his head up and he won't have to worry about it." I don't know if it was the reminder that they were on different sides, or the suggestion that Mac--Rob McClanahan, for Pete's sake--needed advice on how to play hockey, but after Jack said that, Rob came up swinging. Me, I would've hit O'Callahan before he had a chance to say anything. But the result would have been the same.
Herb just let them fight. I was starting to think he was one of those people who enjoyed watching other people's pain. He didn't let Coach Patrick stop Mac and O'Callahan from beating on each other, probably because there wasn't any danger of it becoming a Midwest-Boston brawl. When both guys fell on the ice, Rizzo pulled Jack up, and Bah and I grabbed Rob. His nose was bleeding, but otherwise he didn't look too hurt. I wasn't looking forward to what Herb was going to say, though. Mac may have gotten punched in the face, but all of us were going to hurt for it.
"You want to settle old scores, you're on the wrong team," Herb said. I shot a look at Buzz, who shook his head. "We move forward starting right now. We start becoming a team right now."
He asked Rob and then Jack to introduce themselves. Even if he hadn't just got into a fight with a friend of mine, I would have thought O'Callahan was a cocky bastard from the way he introduced himself. I was ready to go hit him myself. He probably thought he won because he didn't have any blood on him. I felt like such a moron for thinking he might have been okay. It didn't matter that no one else knew; I knew, and nobody likes feeling stupid.
A guy with a serious mustache was introducing himself when I started paying attention again. "I'm Ralph Cox... I'm from wherever's not gonna get me hit," he joked. I shook my head, trying not to smile. He didn't seem so bad. But that's what you thought about O'Callahan, too, I reminded myself. As Herb sent us to the goal line, I sighed. If things kept up like this, it was going to be a long time until February.
"Are you just determined not to like any of the guys from Boston?" Pav asked after practice. We were out in the rink parking lot, getting ready to go to get dinner. All right, dinner and then probably some beers. Okay, dinner and then definitely some beers. First I had to clear some space to sit in Pav's car, though. "Just throw that in the trunk."
"I'm not determined not to like them. None of them have made a good impression so far." I shoved some boxes around in the trunk to make space for a duffel bag that felt like it was full of marbles.
"Oh. So that's why Jim Craig came up and introduced himself."
I grunted.
"And why Mac said Rizzo introduced himself at try-outs."
I finally gave up and tossed the bag on top of a box, then looked over the top of the trunk. Pav was leaning against the car, waiting patiently. "O'Callahan's an asshole with a bad attitude. Even you can't deny that. And that Dave Silk was egging him on." I slammed the trunk a little harder than necessary, and Pav winced.
"We weren't exactly telling Mac to stop."
"That's different!"
"How?"
"It just is!"
"Right." I glared at him, but didn't say anything. He was right. Maybe I was being illogical, but you don't just come into somebody's territory and hit them. Unless you're stupid. It was becoming clearer and clearer, at least to my mind, that Jack O'Callahan really was just simply stupid. I walked around the car and looked across the roof at Pav.
"I don't see how you can be so calm about it. He comes in here, thinking he can do whatever he wants, that he can just hit us and get away with it, and you don't even get mad?"
"I never said I was happy about it, Phil, but I don't see what me being mad about it is going to help, and your being mad isn't going to help either. Look, don't make trouble for yourself, all right?"
Bah and Rammer walked up then, with Mark Johnson trailing behind them. "What are you standing around talking for?" Bah said. "Start the car! Let's go!"
"I'm starving," Rammer added, pulling open the door behind me. "Oh, and Johnson's coming with." Johnson smiled a little.
"Better get in, or Bah and Rammer will waste away," I said, more shortly than I'd meant to, before I climbed in the front.
Pav turned around from the driver's seat and stuck his hand back. "I'm Mark Pavelich. Call me Pav."
"Mark Johnson."
"'m Phil Verchota. Sorry if I'm a jerk."
They all laughed. "Apologizing in advance is never a good sign, Philly," Rammer said.
"Yeah, what's your problem today?" Bah asked.
"Nothin'," I mumbled. Thankfully, Johnson wanted to know how he got the nickname "Bah" anyway, and the story took up the rest of the ride, and most of dinner. I don't know how Bah finished his burger, because he seemed to be talking the whole time. But I was feeling a lot better by the time we piled back into Pav's car to head to the bar.
"How did they manage to find the one bar in Minneapolis that we were coming to tonight?" We stood in the doorway and stared across the bar to where O'Callahan, Rizzo, Dave Silk, Ralph Cox, and Jim sat.
"Um..." We turned around to see Rammer red-faced and looking embarrassed. "I might have said that it's the only decent place around." Bah just rolled his eyes.
"We could just leave and go somewhere else?" Johnson suggested.
"Or we could join them and be good teammates," I heard Pav say. Leave it to Pav to suggest the most grown-up and civilized thing. It obviously wasn't going to happen, though, from the looks on Johnson, Bah, and Rammer's faces.
I felt like it was my turn to be mature. "We can stay. It's a big enough place." I couldn't help adding, "They might not even notice we're here."
We found a table where we could keep an eye on the other guys, but they couldn't see us. Apparently that maturity thing had been short-lived, although Pav did ask, "Why are we hiding over here?"
"I don't know about you, but I don't want any more conflict today," Johnson answered. "All I want is to have a beer in peace and quiet, and it seems like the odds of that are better over here than over there." Pav shrugged, and Bah ordered a pitcher of Pabst for us.
The pitcher was slow coming but quick in going. When we'd drained it and looked around for our waitress to bring us another, she was nowhere to be found. "Probably went on break and forgot about us," Rammer said. Then I heard a loud giggle, and male laughter that sounded distressingly familiar. Pav leaned back in his chair and looked around the partition that kept us out of sight.
"I hate to say this, but I found our waitress."
Now, as I may have mentioned before, hockey players are a dime a dozen around here. Hockey players who look and sound like our teammates from the northeast, however, are not. Our waitress was currently being charmed by some Boston accents, just like the stewardess on the plane had been.
"Aw, jeez."
"I'm so thirsty. I need more beer!" Bah wailed.
"Do you want to go over and get her?" Rammer demanded. Bah shook his head.
"I guess we just wait then," Johnson sighed.
When she finally walked by, Bah set his empty mug down with a thud and remarked loudly, "I'd sure like another beer, hey, boys?"
The waitress finally stopped then. "I'm sorry to take so long. We're really busy tonight."
"Busy talking to OC's boys," Rammer muttered.
"So what's the deal with those guys over there?" Johnson asked, jerking his thumb over his shoulder at the other table. The girl's face lit up.
"Oh! They're from Boston, here for the Olympic hockey team."
"So are we," I said. "Here for the Olympic team, I mean."
"Really?" she replied, looking us over without sounding at all interested. There you go. Minnesota hockey players are like lakes--there might as well be ten thousand of 'em.
The waitress picked up our empty pitcher. "You guys want another? Pabst, right?" She walked away before we could answer.
"Huh," Pav said.
"I guess regular Minnesota hockey players aren't good enough to attract girls anymore," said Rammer.
Bah laughed. "When's the last time you attracted a girl because you were a hockey player, Ramsey?"
He lifted an eyebrow. "You'd be surprised."
"I wonder if Wisconsin is good enough," Johnson mused. "Probably not. Wisconsin's probably boring, too."
Bah looked around the table. "This is pathetic," he said. "They're taking our women, boys, and I for one am not going to stand for it."
We all laughed, even though he sounded completely serious. Johnson said, "I think girls are the last thing we have to worry about."