A Miracle On Ice

Chapter 8 "Team Bonding and Practises"

Herb Brooks had made the introductory questions a regular at practise, asking everybody, "How about you?"

"Dave Christian." Davey answered.

"Who do you play for?" Herb asked.

"University of North Dakota." he responded.

Practises got tougher each day. Coach was building up the teams condition, as well as he could.

"Come on, no! No, no, no. Get it to a point." he yelled, "You're quarterbacking this play. Come on, Rizzo, I got you running this play. The only thing you're gonna run is the bench."

"Mac, get out here!" Herb yelled towards the bench, as Rizzo disappointedly sat down next to Carly.

"Come on, man. Heads up." she hit his helmet, "One mistake doesn't get you kicked off the team. You got this."

"Thanks." Rizzo absentmindedly said, but he was scared.

"Boom. He can get him. Boom, boom, boom." the team was gathered around a board on which Coach Brooks drew all of their plays to elaborate on them, "We're opening up options. We've got four options off one play. Anybody have any questions?"

He barely waited a second, before he continued, "Okay, let's go."

As soon as he was out of ear reach, Buzzy leaned over to Pavvy, "What the hell is he talking about?"

"No clue." he replied, looking at Carly.

"Hey, man. I can't look inside his brain." Carly raised her hands in surrender, "He just raised me, he didn't share his brain powers."

"Yeah, obviously." Mac sassed, causing Carly to punch him in the arm.

They worked on several plays for the rest of the day, ending their practise with conditioning. Herbies was the name they had given the suicide skates.

When Herb finally excused them, the team filled into the locker room.

"Anybody hungry?" Rizzo asked.

Verchota piped up to that, "Starving, actually."

"Mario's it is." Carly jumped into the conversation, before anyone else could make a suggestion.

But Mac had a different idea, "No, let's go to the diner. We get discount there."

"Good point." Carly nodded approvingly.

The team barely noticed the door to the diner open, since they were so loud and into their separate discussions. Carly was sitting in a booth with Mac, OC, Rizzo, Philly and Mark.

"Brooks! What you doing here?" a voice suddenly yelled, making the guys stop talking immediately.

Carly gave them a weird look, "Wow, impressive."

Then she turned towards her other best friend, "Dinner with the team. Why are you here?"

"Felt like a milkshake and fries." her friend said, "Now I feel like meeting the boys."

"Smooth." Carly chuckled at her flirty friend, "Guys, this is Jack." 

"Ah, so you're the chick that always runs around the rink shouting after Carly!" OC joked.

"Yeah, that's her. She has a home, but she hardly ever uses it. 'Cept for parties. So I'm just gonna take a wild guess here and say she's gonna be around a lot from now on." Carly Brooks grinned her signature grin.

"Which reminds me. My parents are out of town next weekend. You can bring these hotties." Jack winked at OC, causing Carly and Mac to laugh.

At that point Jack noticed Mac, focussing her attention on him, "McClanahan, you on board anyway, right?"