justlikewedo: I'm THRILLED that you like this so much. Please enjoy this next chapter.
meadow567: I'm glad you found it interesting. Hopefully you'll enjoy this chapter as well
Fog lifts to reveal potential
For generations prophesized
Our growth to be exponential
Our promise finally realized
Feel It Turn- Great Big Sea
Herb Brooks was a rather intimidating man. When he reached out to shake your hand, he was serious. His handshake was firm and to the point.
It was exactly what Tanya was met with him the first time she stepped into his office.
"Excuse me?" she knocked on the door.
"Yeah?" came the curt reply, without looking up.
"I'm the PR agent you sent for..." she took a tentative first step into the office.
Looking up to meet her eyes, he put down his pen and stood up. "You must be Tanya Burnaby."
"That I am," she answered, a hint of Russian accent following through her voice. Extending her hand, she was met with that firm handshake.
"Herb Brooks, good ta meet ya," he offered her the seat across from his desk as he sat back down. "So as I understand it, you're majoring in journalism at Boston College, am I correct?"
"Yes sir."
He looked at her over the rims of his reading glasses. "You do realize that half the prospects here are from Boston."
"Yes sir, Boston University, correct?"
"Yes," he answered. "The other half are from Minnesota, a couple from UNH, mostly Eastern and Midwestern boys."
"Sir, you do realize that the two, Boston University and the University of Minnesota, I mean, despise each other?"
"I am well aware of that fact, yes..."
"And me, being from Boston College, there's even more bad blood between my school and BU. Why sent for me?"
"Because I've looked over your portfolio and happen to think that you're the best person for the job." He answered. "The whole point is to bring people together, to work as one. I don't want anyone getting territorial, players or otherwise."
"Yes sir, I understand..."
"Just call me Herb."
"Alright... Herb. Believe me, I know that feeling all too well."
"How so?"
"I'm Russian."
Those two words seemed to echo throughout the room.
"Before you hold me to that, let me say that I'm a first-generation American. My mother and father were both from Leningrad."
"Do you speak the language?"
A series of words and sounds unfamiliar to one Herb Brooks spilled from her mouth.
"What did you just say to me?"
"I said, yes I can speak the language, and that I hope it wouldn't be used against me."
"Why should it? Being able to speak Russian is a valuable asset, especially with the reporters and people you'll be dealing with."
"Dealing with?"
"Reporters are hell to deal with," Herb sat back in his chair. "I don't like doing it."
"So I guess that's what I'm here for? To deal with the things you don't want to deal with?"
"Nah, not everything, just the media," he stood up and held out his hand. She took it, and walked with him out the door. "Come on, let me introduce you to the rest of the staff."
Staff? she thought to herself.
Following Herb into another office, she came face to face with an older man with thick glasses and thinning hair, and then met the other, taller than the one who wore the glasses.
"Gentlemen, this is Tanya Burnaby, our Public Relations agent. Tanya, this is Craig Patrick, assistant coach..."
She shook his hand.
"And this is Dr. George Nagobads, our team physician, affectionately, and I use the term loosely, known as Doc."
"Hello," he shook her hand. "Tanya, forgive me, but..." he then broke into Russian, that neither Craig nor Herb could understand.
"я не могла не заметить, что у вас очень Европы нетерпением." (I could not help but notice that you have a very European look)
"Да, мои родители были из Ленинградской." (Yes, my parents were from Leningrad)
"Тогда ваши фамилия должна изменились." (Then your last name must have changed)
"Да, она была изменена с Ковалев в Бернаби после моей семьи приехала в 1945 году." (Yes, it was changed from Kovalev to Burnaby when my family came here in 1945.)
"Tanya?" Herb spoke up. "I'd like for you to stand with Craig and Doc when they read the roster."
"You've finalized the team?" her mouth dropped open. "I was under the impression that everyone is here for a week. They've been on the ice for a day."
"You're the second person to tell me that, Tanya. And I'll tell you the same thing I told him. Every one of those boys on that list was chosen for a specific reason. I know what I need to compete, and the boys on the list are it."
Tanya shrugged. She knew enough about Herb Brooks to back off when need be.
Later that day, when Craig and Doc stood in front of an arena full of Olympic hopefuls, she scanned the crowd, looking for at least a number or last name."
"Craig, Cox, Eruzione..." Craig finished. "And that's the roster for now. The rest of you, thanks for coming out."
Suddenly she saw the stands empty and Herb Brooks emerge from the shadows at the top of the stairs.
"Take a good look, gentlemen," he said.
Tanya grit her teeth.
"Because they're the ones getting off easy," he walked down the aisle stairs. "There'll be twenty names on that roster by February, so more of you are going home."
She noticed players' eyes following Herb as he continued his descent.
"You give 99 percent you'll make my job very, very easy," he reached the end of the stairs and clapped her on the shoulder. "I'll be your coach, I won't be your friend. If you want one of those, you can take it up with Doc, or Coach Patrick here." With that, he went off by himself.
"Alright gentlemen," Tanya voiced, holding up the exams Craig had handed to her. "Coach Patrick tells me that's it for today, you've got a little homework to do," they sat back in their seats. "Before you celebrate," she added with a smile.
A little while later Tanya dropped a quarter into a payphone, which stood right by the dorm rooms on the fifth floor. Dialing, she waited until her mother picked up the phone.
"Hey Mama," she greeted.
Waiting, she leaned up against the wall as her mother spoke.
As she spoke, out of the corner of her eye she saw the same person she'd bumped into that one day on the street. He had the same face, the same broad shoulders, the same eyes.
Her mother spoke so fast she had no choice but to concentrate on what she was saying.
"Oh no, don't you dare bring Papa into this!" she hissed into the mouthpiece. "I don't care that he wouldn't have wanted me traveling with a bunch of men who play such a rough sport."
There was a muffled sound coming from the outside of the phone as Natalia spoke.
"Oh, so now he'd brand me a whore, would he?" her voice got lower. "I'm their PR agent, I'm not their..." and she let out a string of Russian only Doc Nagobads would've understood. "No I don't care. I'd sooner drink rat poison then go to visit him. He was a coward."
Again, another string of Russian.
"Don't even speak to me about that. In fact, I wish he'd died then, or better yet if you'd..."
This girl really seemed to go in and out speaking in Russian, he noticed.
When she hung up the phone she turned around, tears in her eyes.
"Are you okay?" he approached her.
"Absolutely bloody fantastic, can't you tell?" she forced herself to swallow her anger and tears.
"Look, I'm sorry for walking in on you, but you look familiar..."
Her eyes narrowed.
"You look remarkably like a young woman I ran into about two and a half years ago."
She chuckled. "Well, I'm sure you've run into plenty of young women in two and a half years."
"It was the same day I held a hummingbird in my hand."
She stopped, a lone tear running down her face. "Did you say hummingbird?"
He nodded.
Suddenly her hand reached out. "Tanya Burnaby..." she offered.
He smiled and shook her hand. "Jim Craig."