I recognize the ellipse in the last chapter, but wasn't sure how to get into an altercation with Jannie. And I certainly wouldn't accuse anyone of flaming for pointing that out. I do realize that I did take a short cut explaining the dispute with the Faye/Jimmy dialogue.

As for the other discrepancy over the number of players...all the other guys were sick :-)

Thirteen

We checked into the hotel in Norway, and I was going to head up to my room for some shuteye and the boys were going to start practice. The front foyer was a mess, the manager was conspicuously absent without leave...probably pulling his hair out in the back room.

"Hey Coach," Jimmy called over to Herb. "My neck's really been bothering me; do you think I can sit this one out?" Herb looked at him strangely, but agreed,

"Alright, you should go find Doc." Then directed his attention to our other goalie. "Jannie, you're in there today...let's see what you can do." I looked at Jannie, and he just lit up. I turned back to Jimmy and he winked at me. I beamed at him and blew him a kiss that I think everyone else was too preoccupied to notice. He caught it in his hand.

So I started up to my room, feeling pretty content with myself, if I had only known.

At the game that afternoon, the boys played alright. Not great, more like mediocre. I couldn't blame them; they had just spent how many hours on a plane, and then had three hours of practice. But what really got Herb going was that the guys were barely paying attention to the game—they were checking out the Norwegian chicks in the stands!

At one point one of the guys on the Norwegian National team passed by the bench and said: "Maybe you Americans would play better if you left your bitches at home."

Before I even got to think, "How dare he!" Buzz sort-of became air-born and flew over the boards at the guy, and in the thirty seconds it took the officials to pull them apart, he had given the guy a black eye, and probably succeeded in breaking his nose. Of course, they tossed Buzzy out of the game, but we were all so proud of him. I listened in as Herb pulled him aside and said:

"I'm not going to condone fighting on the ice," he started. "But as far as picking your battles goes, that was a good choice...Next time, just wait 'til after the game." He sent Buzzy back into the lockers to change and I looked at Jimmy, sitting on the bench in his navy suite—complete with crazy tie, and he rolled his eyes.

"Sometimes I wonder," he sighed heavily.

Unfortunately, after that, the game basically went down the crapper. Buzz was fuming in the seat next to me, mumbling something, peering in the direction of the Norway bench, and the rest of the guys were checking out blonds in the stands...I don't know what they thought I was, but apparently the Norwegian chicks had something I didn't.

Anyways, the game ended in a tie. The boys got up, with the exception of Buzz and Jimmy, to shake hands with the other team, and then started off the ice as I started out of the box.

"What the...?" I heard Jimmy mumble from behind me, and turned around to see Herb having the guys line up. He started skating them, and they soon developed a pattern. Lecture, pant, again, whistle, skate... After a few sets Buzzy and Jimmy were looking at me questioningly. I shook my head, I didn't know what the hell he was doing, but Coach Patrick kept blowing that damned whistle.

"Should we get out there?" Buzzy asked me. I shook my head violently.

"Stay here and maybe he won't notice you're not out there," I told them both.

I had never seen Herb like this, and I didn't know what he was capable of, and I wasn't about to send my best friend and my boy friend to the slaughter.

Herb glared over to us at the bench and I took a defined step in front of Jimmy and Buzz glaring evilly back at him. Maybe I couldn't protect all the boys, but I could sure as hell protect what was mine.

And so they continued—lecture, pant, again, whistle, skate had worked its way into again, whistle, skate. Until finally Mark Johnson slammed his stick into the boards. I just about jumped out of my skin, as I'm sure several of the boys did as well, and in the wake of the sound of Johnson's stick hitting the boards we heard a determined voice call out:

"Mike Eruzione...Winthrop, Massachusetts."

"Who do you play for?" Herb prompted.

"I play for the United States of America!" Rizzo answered after a good deal of wheezing and sputtering.

"That's all gentlemen," Herb declared before walking off the rink. However, most of the boys had been stripped of that ability and just collapsed where they stood.

At that point I rushed out to find Herb in his temporary office, gathering some papers.

"What the hell do you think you are doing?" I yelled at him, and he didn't even grace me with eye contact. I was fit to be tied. "You could have hurt one of these boys—Do you know who has to go through all the paperwork if you get sued? Me! That's who! Who do you think you are?" Was all I managed to get out coherently, before I became possessed and just started yelling nonsense at the top of my lungs. Herb didn't even look up at me as he headed down to the boys locker room.

"I'm not done with you," I called after him. "Don't you walk away from me, Herb! Herb! HERB! HERBERT!" He finally stopped and looked back at me, as if I had gone nuts...which I had, before entering the lockers.

"And if you play the same way again," he warned the boys. "We'll do that all over." Our next game was the following morning, and I think we won eleven to nothing.