Drop The Puck, It's Time To Go

Saying goodbye was always the hardest thing to do sometimes. After a weekend of insanity, I was glad to say I was walking away with new friends. But sadly I wouldn’t be seeing those new friends till I played them all again…if I got to.
Backes I wasn’t going to be seeing again for a long time…
Skinner, Staal, Ward, and McBain I was playing again tomorrow for the last time of the season…
Erika I would be playing once more this year but gladly it wasn’t going to be a bitter feud. Just a friendly rivalry.
Giroux and Briere I would be seeing again but we were all going to be in close contact anyways…
I still didn’t want to lose the company of these guys though. But just like life itself, all good things have to come to an end and the All-Star Game surely did come to an end…
Till next year.
I found myself unpacking in the hotel on the other side of the city that the Bruins were using for our home game. To me it felt retarded having to just change hotels in the same city, could have just comfortably stayed in the one I was currently! Almost became a home…
Shit, I’ve been in Raleigh for a long ass time. Where did I come from? Oh yeah! Good old Boston! Alright, sometimes I should just stop making jokes.
“ROOOOXANNE!” I jumped a mile as the music trilled into my room and Team Canada came waltzing in.
“HOLY SHIT!” I cried. I wasn’t expecting that but in all honesty I should have! I’m roommates with goddamn Marchand! I’m out of touch with my Team Canada Detecting Skills.
“One red-headed MassHole scared. Ten points to us.” Boychuk stated, high fiving Bergeron and Marchand. Taking a deep breath and letting it out, letting my heart resume normal beating, I let a smile hit my face and shook my head.
“Can I ask why you wanted to scare me? And face possible destruction if you have enraged said MassHole?” A) they were either here to annoy me, B) they were here to come fetch me for something or C) they were here to kidnap me.
I’m going with the last one.
“We’re here to kidnap you.” Bergeron said bluntly. “All Marchand’s idea.” Marchand quickly jumped on that.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! No it was not. You can’t always blame they short guy for everything! I don’t need a beating, it was definitely you and Boychuk’s idea!”
“Bullshit!” Boychuk and Bergeron said at the same time and Marchand slapped his face, causing me to burst out laughing.
“You guys are just an epic bundle of insanity. I love it.” I then stopped and thought of what I said. “Actually scratch that, it can get fucking annoying as hell.”
“What the hell!” Marchand said. “We only do this cause you’re out lovable little sister!”
“Same age as you.”
“Shut up, not the point.”
“ANYWAYS! Yeah, we’re here to kidnap you because it’s been far to long since we’ve hung with you…really. We’re getting bored without our fiery MassHole to keep us on our toes and the one who would get drunk with us and go prancing into closets looking for Narnia!” Boychuk stated, and I chuckled at that memory. So long ago…
“I knew it!” I declared, throwing my hands in the air. “You guys are pre-” I was instantly cut off.
“COMMENCE OPERATION: HIJAKING!” Bergeron yelled and before I knew it, Lucic and Krejci came from the hallway and hoisted me up and started to carry me out of my room. I squeaked in surprise.
“WHERE DID YOU GUYS COME FROOOOM? WHY CAN I NEVER WALK ANYWHERE?”
“Just shut up and go with it!” Marchand cried. “Good afternoon to all you viewers! Marchy here showing you that Micky is in good spirits today and that we’re off to kidnap her for a visit to some Irish pub down city!”

*****

“Conniving motherfuckers…” I said as I sat in the middle of the giant round booth at a pub, huge glass of beer in front of me.
“You love us!” Marchand stated.
“Shit, one of us probably should have told Rask we were kidnapping Roxanne…oops.” Krejci said.
“ON IT!” Marchand stated, whipping out his phone and sending a text, speaking out load. “So, you dumb ass Finn, since you’ve been hogging Roxanne way too much this weekend and making little Brui-”
“MARCHAND!” I yelled. “Seriously!”
“What!? It’s the truth and don’t dare fucking deny it because you’ve practically been telling the world about it this whole weekend.” Boychuk said.
“I feel bad for their neighbors.” Lucic said. I chucked a peanut from the bowl of munchies in front of me at the stupid Canadian.
“So we’ve decided to kidnap your girlfriend with a ransom of you not seeing her for a good chunk of the afternoon…maybe into the evening, we’ll see. From anonymous.” Marchand completed, pressing the send button.
“Anonymous…seriously? It’s going to show up as your name when he receives it dumbass.” Boychuk said.
“And link it to us too.” Bergeron said.
“Someone is using my number…HA!” Marchand attempted to get around with the anonymous signing. “How can he be 100% sure it’s us?”
“That’s cause whenever something suspicious happens, always involves you three. Remember when you guys saran wrapped the entrance to the locker room and Coach walked right into it?” Lucic stated to Bergeron. Team Canada burst out laughing.
“Oh the brilliance!” Boychuk said.
“That was my idea!” Marchand said.
“No shit, who else would be a big enough idiot to do something like that?” Krejci commented. I was laughing too.
“Oh my god, that was like…what? Second month in to working there?” Bergeron tapped his chin.
“Yeah, something like that. Shit, it’s been forever.”
“And the years just keep adding on.” I said, sipping my beer. “Years I shouldn’t be gambling away…” I ended sadly.
“Hey! I see a frown! Don’t make me call in the Bruin bear and have him smack it off your face with a fish!” Marchand threatened. Boychuk and Bergeron looked at Marchy then at each other.
“I blame you for initiating him to our friendship.” Bergeron said.
“Bullshit! All you!” Boychuk argued. I felt my smile returning at the friendly bickering. Nothing was better then being surrounded by five guys who loved you like a sister and wanted nothing but the best for you.
“Seriously though Roxy, we don’t want to see you go down the path you went through again.” Lucic said.
“It scared us…big time.” Krejci said. “I knew something was wrong but…damn, didn’t think that bad.”
“Sorry for putting all you guys through this, seriously.” I stated, putting my beer aside for a moment. “I feel horrible for making you guys so…worried about me.”
“Who said we were worried about you?” Lucic said. I looked up him to see him have a goofy ass grin on his face, signaling he was joking. Krejci was giving him a disappointed face and Team Canada just blinked at him. “God guys, I was joking around. Lighten up! Of course I’m worried about the welfare of my wing mate and fellow teammate. I’m not that much of an asshole.” I smiled, raising my glass to Lucic.
“Where would I be without your assholeness Milan?” I asked. He clinked my glass with a smile.
“Probably way better off without knowing this enforcer…” Marchand commented.
“What did you say Brad?” Milan asked, looking at him forcefully.
“Nothing!” Brad spat out quickly before stuffing a beer glass in his face. I chuckled and started to drink from my own, reliving memories of the past two years of being with these crazy guys.

*****

“NINETEEN PUNCHES FROM THE ENFORCERS, INCOMING!” Poor little Seguin didn’t know what hit him as he walked into the function hall we had rented out for dinner tonight. Today was Tyler’s nineteenth birthday and even though we planned on having a real celebration on Wednesday when we got back to Boston with both Seguin and Recchi’s (old man was turning fourty-three tomorrow!) didn’t stop all of us from still giving him our well-wishing.
Though I don’t know how nineteen punches from Lucic, Thorton, and McQuiad was considered well-wishing.
“OW! OW! OW!”
“I think this is considered child abuse!” Wheeler stated, laughing his ass off anyways. I was dying with everyone else at the sight and when Tyler finally got up off the floor looking defeated in a rumbled suit we all yelled.
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY!”
“Bullshiiiit.” He grumbled. “Get me a Red Bull, I need one!” I tossed him a can on the caffeinated concoction to the teen and he caught it, and began to chug from it.
“Alright you school girls! Settle the hell down, you can all party after I give the pep talk.” Coach Julie echoed from the other side of the room. “Tomorrow we play the Hurricanes and the last two times we’ve met these guys, we’ve kicked their ass. Or handed them their asses, how ever you want to say it.”
“I say both.” Savard stated and we all agreed.
“How ever you think of it as, just keep in mind for tomorrow that they’re going to have this exact same thought in their head and they are going to come back with twice the power they last had in hopes to regain a win from their last two losses. We need to meet their strength, be mentally prepared for a battle tomorrow. And I don’t want to see any of you falter, not expecting the force they’re going to unleash.”
“Coach, why didn’t they ask you to be in Miracle? You’d have been perfect!” I commented with a smile and Coach just looked at me.
“Because watching my team succeed is more rewarding then acting.”
“AWWWW COACH!” Team Canada cooed, charging towards Coach with open arms ready to tackle him.
“EY, EY, EY!” Coach cried, holding out his hands to stop him. I died of laughter at the scene.
“Oh, we forgot to say the magic words.” Marchand said. “NO HOMO COACH, WE LOVE YOU!”
And that is how dear Team Canada ended up running up the hotel stairs…twice.

*****

Standing at the door to the locker room, Giroux took a deep breath to try and calm his head.
Sean was on the other side.
Dammit, ever since going to the All Star Weekend and becoming the most unlikely friends with Roxanne and Erika, his view of his team was turn UPSIDE down in a flash. Briere and him had a long ass conversation about all of this last night as they were “bromancing it up at the house” as Erika put it. Briere had told him that all would be ok, just to keep his cool and act like he always did and have his eyes on the Stanley Cup. But that was before Giroux accidentally spoke a little too much.
“It’s easy, really.” Briere stated, after Giroux asked how he could keep his cool and not seem like a true Erika ally. The whole team knew that Briere and Erika was buddies but didn’t suspect that he was spying on Sean for her.
“But how? How can you now that you know Erika and Roxy asot just random players in the NHL changing history but as good friends? Carcillo molested Erika, Pronger hates her guts, Richards nearly got his ass kicked by other team Captains for taunting her last year, Morrison is her motherfucking ex who I thought was cool but turned out to be a complete psycho with venegnce in his mind and clearly fucked her up, and Jake used to beat Roxy and raped her!”
“WHAT!?” Briere cried, dropping the plate in his hand and it shattered on the floor. Giroux looked at his buddy’s shocked and distorted face and then the shattered plate.
He spoke too much.
“Shit, you didn’t know the last part…and Roxy forbade me to speak of it…” Giroux felt like an ass.
“How the hell is that guy still WALKING AROUND!?” Giroux bit his lip, pondering on whether or not he just unleashed something that would explode into a terrible situation or it would be ok.
“Roxy said she let him go.”
“How long have you known of this? Who else knows?”
“Since the movie night before we all left Raleigh. Kind have had a hard time digesting this all.”
“Dammit, just as I was about to keep my cool in the damn locker room!” Briere stared at the broken plate on the floor, probably seeing his loyalty and will to be with the Flyers breaking just as with Giroux. “Are we the only two who knows?” Giroux shook his head.
“Rask obviously has to known. The man dates Roxy and she’s had to have told him. I don’t know about the rest of the Bruins team. Erika obviously knows cause she was the one who brought it up. Jake and Sean have to have known…” Briere sighed.
“Why do I have a feeling that no matter what we do Sean is still going to strike without any of us seeing?”
“Cause Sean is a sneaky asshole.” Giroux stated. “He was sneaky with me…he can twist anyone.”
Pushing the doors open, Giroux was met with the voice of his team hitting his face. Before it would give him a thrill inside to join the guys he’s been with nearly his whole career and joke around with them. But today all he got was cocky flair to speech and really wanted to say something. Keep your cool…
“Well if it isn’t the little traitor back from his weekend.” Giroux slowly turned to face Morrison and wanting to smack that arrogant smirk off his face. How did I think you were cool?
“Traitor? What’s with that title Morrison?” He asked, crossing his arms. Morrison wasn’t the one to answer.
“You’re all buddy-buddy with Harper.” Carcillo said bluntly.
“And? What’s the issue?” Giroux asked. “It’s not like I’m about to run off and abandon this team.” Briere gave Giroux a small look that told him that Briere knew that he was thinking just that.
“At least tell me it was all because you were trying to get in their pants.” Carcillo said.
“Excuse me.” Giroux hissed, not liking where this was going. Sean was the one to pipe up, slowly crossing his arms with a big ass smirk.
“Because we all have to admit it. Erika Harper is hot. And not only hot, she’s easy.”
“What are you insinuating Sean.” Briere butted in, seeming to feel threatened by that just as much as Giroux was. If Giroux hadn’t spent the entire weekend with Erika and Roxy and learn more about them and see they’re devotion to their current boyfriends (and have to hear about it too…) he probably would have been right there with the rest of the team with their smirks and snide remarks.
“You’ll see soon enough.” Giroux didn’t like any of this.
“What are you getting at Morrison, let’s stop acting like a cocky bastard and spit it out.” Morrison laugh.
“Are you getting defensive? If I didn’t know better, I think you are.” Pronger piped up.
“What the fuck happened to you Giroux?” Giroux just shook his head.
“Whatever guys.” And turned and left the room. Fuck practicing with those assholes, he needed to collect his cool, like Briere kept telling him he needed to.
“Claude.” Giroux turned around to see Briere coming out of the locker room, catching up with him.
“I can’t do it Danny.” He said. “I can’t just sit there and let them do that shit!” Giroux angrily pointed to the locker room. Briere held up a hand.
“I can’t either…but I have a bad feeling right now.” Briere continued down the hallway away from the locker room and Giroux hurried after him.
“What is it?”
“What Sean said ‘you’ll see soon enough’. That old cliché shit.”
“But what could he mean.”
“Meaning whatever Erika has been fearing might be happening now.” Briere said, looking at Giroux with an extreme worried expression, making Giroux’s stomach drop.
“I knew you had Erika’s finger wrapped around you Briere.” Both of them turn sharply to see a sneering Jake Ramos emerge from one of the other corridors and lean against the wall and folding his arms across his chest. “And now you too Giroux? Dammit, you were such a cool guy.” Briere glared at Ramos.
“She doesn’t have her fucking finger wrapped around me like Morrison has around you.” He snapped. “Erika Harper is a friend and unlike assholes like you I look after my fucking friends. You wouldn’t know that cause you don’t understand compassion or respect.” Giroux’s hand was wrapping into fists at the look of Jake’s snake like eyes; all he could see was the thought of him fucking hitting Rox-
“Who says I don’t.” Jake asked.
“Your actions do.” Giroux snapped. Jake pushed away from the wall and sauntered over to Giroux.
“And what do you know of my actions Claude? You barely even know me.”
“And I thought you were a pretty neat guy, till I caught wind of some shit I don’t think would fly to well in the public eye.” Jake stopped just inches from Giroux’s face.
“And you heard them from Roxanne…didn’t you. Got all buddy-buddy with her like you did with Harper and how dear Briere is with Harper also. Fell for her just like I did…” Giroux glared back at him hard. A mental image of colliding his fist into this jackass’s face flashed through and it took all the power in the world to not end up doing that.
“I know what you did to her Ramos. I know you used to abuse her and rape her…” He hissed. Jake just smirked.
“And?”
“You’re not even denying it.” Briere muttered, almost more to himself.
“No, I’m not. But what can you all do about it? It’s fucking two years old, all evidence is gone.” Jake went to walk away but Giroux made his mental image a reality, putting all the force he had in him (and it was a lot) and smashed his fist down hard onto Jake’s face, watching the asshole stumble back.
“The fuck ma-!” Jake was about to cry but Giroux grabbed him by the collar and smashed him up against a wall, Briere flinching a little but not doing anything; Ramos deserved a taste of his medicine.
“Listen Ramos, and listen carefully. I don’t know what the fuck you and Morrison are doing but you’re not going to get away with it. Morrison is going to leave Erika the fuck alone and not even tread near her ever again. She’s got her dream and he won’t take it away from her. And you. You’re going to stay the fuck away from Roxanne, you’re not going to fuck her up anymore than you fucking have. You will get locked up for what you did to her, I wont let you fucking walk away free. You’re going to get what’s coming to you.” Giroux could see a flicker of what he could almost call fear in Ramos’ eyes…but it quickly darkened over with a glare followed by a conniving smirk.
“Well then, your clock is ticking Claude.” Jake said. Giroux tightened his grip.
“What do you mean?” Jake nodded towards one of the lone TV’s chilling in one of the empty rooms nearby and both Giroux and Briere both seem to slowly looked at each other, feeling like a giant Zamboni ran them over.
The clock was ticking all right.

*****

“Déjà vu!” I cried, stepping out onto the ice of the RBC Center. “Feels like I’ve been here before!”
“No shit.” Chara stated. I stuck my tongue out at the Slovakian.
“Take a joke for once man!”
“WHOA, Roxy!? It’s been so fucking long!” I burst out laughing at the greeting from dear Bieber I MEAN Jeff Skinner. I tackled the teen into a hug and shuffled his helmet around on his head.
“Well isn’t someone a joker!”
“Hey McGregor.” I fist bumped Staal as he came up, prompting me to let go of Skinner who was now talking to Seguin. Bromance…I see it forming.
“Hey Staal, ready to get your ass kicked by Boston for the third time?” Staal shoved me into the bench and I laughed.
“Nice try, we’ve got some tricks up our sleeve this time, we may have been teammates for the weekend but now we’re back to being enemies on the ice.” I rolled my eyes.
“Wonderful, I thought I could trust you man!”
“No, you can, he’s just warning you that you might be able to shoot a puck at 90 mph, but I’ll still be able to stop it.” Cam Ward approached up behind Staal to chat with us.
“I doubt it Wardy.” I stated. “Anyways, got to get back into the locker room and prepared myself to kick some Carolina Cane ass.”
“Hey so do we!” Skinner said.
“We’re kicking our own ass?” Ward asked.
“Dammit! No! Bruins, you know what I fucking mean!” Skinner defended.
“Dumbass” Tyler stated, smirking and then receiving a smack with Skinner’s stick. Saying goodbye to old teammates, I got back into my locker room, readying myself for tonight’s game, felt forever since I got into my black and gold uniform and took to the ice for a good game of hockey.
This time I felt better since I would be going against some new friends, which was always entertaining.
After getting a good luck kiss from Rask who was sitting out this game, I jumped out onto the ice with my team, my friends…my family. I took in the familiar feel of competition and the adrenaline of hockey.
It was good to be back.
Setting up for the face off, I nudged Skinner’s shoulder who was up next to me.
“You’re going down Beiber.” I whispered.
“Not on my watch…” The puck drop and it was on. I felt almost out of touch with the ebb and flow of my team, being away for so freaking long and focused on so much other shit. But that fear and doubt disappeared as I chipped a pass from Lucic over Ward’s glove and into the back of the net, raising my arms up into the air and crying out.
“OOOOH WHAT NOW CAROLINA!? BRING IT ON!”

*****

Two goals.
I got two out of the three goals scored tonight! I was one away from a hat trick! Stepping out of the shower in my hotel room, I wrapped the towel around me and took in the deep smell clean and sighed contently. The Bruins won tonight, much to Staal and Skinner’s dismay, only by one point though. But my friend were still disappointed. Getting into my PJs, I stepped out of the bathroom to see dear Marchand snoring away on his bed half undressed like someone shot him with a tranquilizer before he could even get out of his suit. Rolling my eyes, I continued over to my laptop and opened it up, wondering what else was happening in to the NHL world. After pressing enter to send myself to the NHL’s website, the top news feed came up and I felt the world come to a stand still. Slowly, I blinked at what was said.
“Oh no…” I whispered before diving for my phone, needing to call Erika.
Sean had struck…