𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙖𝙧𝙩 𝙤𝙛 𝙡𝙚𝙩𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙝𝙞𝙢 𝙜𝙤 / 𝙩𝙬𝙤

"it's over"

The next morning, the team had practice off of the ice. Everyone was irritable, and for good reason. Coach hadn't even bothered to show up.

"I say mutiny, who's with me?" Goldberg asked, while standing up from a stretch.

"Goldberg, I'm too tired to mutiny," Guy said and a few others tiredly nodded in agreement.

I sighed, knowing that we were never going to win our next game if we kept these attitudes up. "Come on guys, it's not like we couldn't use the conditioning."

Dean stood up and smiled. "Speak for yourself, babe."

"Her name is Ella, not babe." Adam now stood and looked at Dean angrily.

Suddenly Dean started shouting and pushed Adam, "Don't tell me how to talk, rich boy!" The rest of the team was quick to pull them apart before anything bad happened, but that didn't stop the yelling.

"Portman, chill!" I heard Fulton say, which Dean responded "You want a piece of this?"

I rolled my eyes at how quickly this petty argument had escalated. I was about to tell everyone to break it up when someone called, "Hey Team USA, what are you gonna do today? A million jumping jacks?"

My eyes shifted to the side of the field we were standing on. The voice belonged to the same loud-mouth kid who had been taunting Jesse and me a few games earlier.

"This kid is crazier than me. Forget about him," Dean said. He turned his attention back to the team. "Look here, Fulton!"

Jesse however walked towards the kid. "Hey man, I'm gettin' sick of you!"

"And I'm getting sick of seeing the USA being represented by a bunch of whiny babies," He fired back.

Jesse scoffed. "It's too bad you can't back up that mouth."

The kid skated closer to us. "Man me and my boys can take you on, anytime, anywhere."

"I don't see no boys," Jesse told him. I agreed. No 'boys' in sight.

"I got 'em waiting," he told Jesse, "Now grab your gear and let's go play some old school puck. Or maybe you forgot what it's like to play for real pride."

Suddenly a security guard ran up. "Hey you got a pass?" The kid ignored him. "Come on you little wimps."

The guard grabbed him and pulled him off of the field. "You coming or not?" he shouted.

I looked at the team. Why not?

_

I had to admit that Russ was right. School yard puck was fun. I think the team was really feeling better and ready to get back to competing, afterwards.

Russ was actually a really cool person too. He showed us his "knuckle puck" as he called it, which was this crazy hit into the goal.

I walked next to Adam and boarded the bus to take us back to the hotel. Russ and all of his friends waved us off and shouted good luck. I smiled and waved back.

"I hope we'll get to see them again." I told Adam. He nodded. "Me too."

Once back at the hotel, it was straight to game preparation. All of my gear was already in my bag so I didn't have much to do.

"Hey Julie?" I turned around on the chair I was sitting in, to face the bed both Connie and Julie were sitting on. They both perked up. "Can you braid my hair?"

Julie smiled and jumped up. "Sure! Do you want one or two braids?"

I thought for a moment. "How about two?"