Oh Captain, My Captain

Chapter Seventy Five
"You ready, Alex?" Max asked me and I nodded my head.
The ten teams from the Atlantic and Northeast Division lined up and learned who they were going to be up against. We stood in our black long sleeve and pants water suits with our team logo on the back and helmets in our hands. The results came onto the board and I smirked when I saw who we were going to be up against.
Pittsburgh Penguins vs. Montreal Canadiens
Philadelphia Flyers vs. Ottawa Senators
New Jersey Devils vs. Boston Bruins
New York Rangers vs. Toronto Maple Leafs
New York Islanders vs. Buffalo Sabres.
They then announced the teams from the previous games that day and said what teams were so far advancing to the next round:
Vancouver Canucks vs. Anaheim Ducks - Winner: Anaheim Ducks
Minnesota Wild vs. San Jose Sharks - Winner: San Jose Sharks
Colorado Avalanche vs. Phoenix Coyotes - Winner: Colorado Avalanche
Edmonton Oilers vs. L.A. Kings - Winner: L.A. Kings
Calgary Flames vs. Dallas Stars - Winner: Dallas Stars
Carolina Hurricanes vs. Columbus Blue Jackets - Winner: Carolina Hurricanes
Tampa Bay Lightning vs. Chicago Blackhawks - Winner: Chicago Blackhawks
Winnipeg Jets vs. Nashville Predators - Winner: Nashville Predators
Florida Panthers vs. St. Louis Blues - Winner: Florida Panthers
Washington Capitals vs. Detroit Red Wings - Winner: Washington Capitals
"Players," we all looked to the platform to see a woman standing there holding a microphone, "Listen up! I'm going to explain the rules!"
"This is like the Hunger Games," Max whispered and I snorted and looked at him.
"It better not be!"
"Dude shut up!" Marc said and I shook my head.
"All five players will be used in this round," she announced and I smirked, "First player is to run down the fast moving platform and then jumped onto the rocking back and forth logs," she said while pointing to the first section, "Then jump onto the next platform and then onto the spinning puzzle that only has one exit and then jump onto the platform, where a teammate will be waiting for you to tap their hand so that they may continue on," she said and we all nodded our heads, "From there, you need to make it across at least four of the five giant balls. If you fall into the water before touching the forth ball, you must try again. Once you make it, walk across the bridge while trying to avoid the items being thrown at you and the bridge pieces flying up. At the end of the bridge, your third teammate will be waiting for you to tap their hand. Does everyone understand so far?" we all shouted out 'yes' and she nodded her head, "All right, from there, the person will have to slide down the swirly slide and try to aim themselves onto a rocking back and forth platform. If you do not make it, you may continue onto the next section; however, if you hit the target in the middle, your clock will go back twenty seconds! Sort of a bonus, and for some that time means a lot. Once across, climb through a serious of tunnels where items will be slippery and will pop on of nowhere. At the end of the tunnels, a fourth teammate will be waiting for you to tap their hand. Everyone still with me?" nodding heads were seen everywhere and she sighed and nodded her head, "Ok, from there, the person will run across the crumbling bridge and dive into the fast current water to find your teams logo and bring it up to the top to throw it towards your last teammate waiting. That teammate will run like mad and Tarzan your way across a muddy pit while holding onto the slippery rope, if you fall, you must try again. Make it onto the platform and then swim your way over towards the big red dotted finish line. The teams that finish the course the fastest will make it to the next round. Team that made it through the course the fastest overall does not need to participate in the next round and has automatically been moved to the third and final round! Are we all on the same page?” she asked and everyone agreed, “Good, now the two teams that will be picked first are randomly selected, so look at the screen!”
The first two teams chosen were the Philadelphia Flyers vs. Ottawa Senators. Everyone else was asked to head over towards the bench and watch.
“Alex!” I heard and turned around to see Brandon jogging over towards me, “Just wanted to say good luck.”
“Thanks, you too!” I said and he smirked and nodded his head and then headed back over towards where his team was sitting.
I sat with my team and then watched as the Captain from the Flyers and Senators’ team flipped a coin to see who was going to go first, the Flyers.
“Hey Alex!” I heard to see that the Kings were a few sections down from where my team sat. They all stood up and waved towards me, and I smirked and waved back.
“I’m feeling a lot of love here,” I said and Sidney smirked and wrapped his arms around my neck and I looked up towards him and smiled. He sat behind me and I sat in-between Marc and Max, “Are Sam, Mel and Vero here?”
“Yeah, they’re at the top,” Marc said and I turned around and looked passed Sidney to see that they were at the top of the bleachers with the rest of the wives, children and girlfriends.
I watched as the Flyers got organized and decided who was going to do what, once they knew, they jumped into the water and swam over towards their sections and climbed up the later.
“All right guys, pay attention so we know what we’re getting ourselves into,” Max said and Marc, Sidney, Kris and I nodded our heads.
“Let the games begin,” I said and then the horn blew.
Flyers decided that they were going to use Matt Read as their first teammate. Read ran down the platform, that looked like it was one of those non step escalators, something you see at airports. He almost lost his balance when he first stepped on, but quickly recovered and ran down and jumped onto the moving logs. Once he got to the fourth log, he lost his footing and fell, but grabbed onto the log and was holding onto it with one hand.
“He’s gunna fall,” I muttered and then smirked when I saw that as he tried to pull himself up, he fell into the cold and deep water below, “So does that mean that he needs to do that section over again?”
“I think so,” Marc said and we watched as Read swam back to the beginning and did that section again and actually making it, “This might be harder than I thought it was going to be.”
“Ya think,” I muttered and then sighed, feeling Sidney’s hands on my shoulders.
We watched as Read climbed through the spinning puzzle and jump onto the platform and slap their second teammates’, Braydon Coburn, hand. Coburn then took off and jumped in the air to at least touch the fourth giant ball, he didn’t make it, and everyone flinched when they saw him hit the second ball and bounce off the third one and then fall head first into the water.
“He might feel that in the morning,” Max said and I nodded my head.
Most of the Flyer’s time was spent trying to get across those balls, or at least trying to hit the fourth one. By the time Coburn managed to hit the fourth ball and run through the rest of his portion of the course, it had already been seven minutes into the game. They chose their third teammate to be Tyler Kennedy and he did a fine job. He positioned himself on the slide right and waited for the perfect time and actually landed onto the platform and onto the target, allowing the Flyers’ time to go back twenty seconds. He climbed through the tunnels, getting whacked into the head with what looked to be pie, and then as soon as he was through, he slapped his fourth teammate and Captain’s hand, Claude Giroux, and we watched as he dove into the water to get his teams logo. He had to dive under a few times because he couldn’t fine it, but once he did, he threw it to their final teammate, Bruno Gervais who ran like mad and Tarzan’d his way to the finish line. Ten minutes and twelve seconds. Damn.
“This is gunna be interesting,” Kris muttered and we all nodded our heads.
The five players swam out of the water and headed over towards the team, breathing heavily and a smirk on their face, hoping that the Senators took longer than they did. The Senators were called up and told to get into their positions and once the team was ready, the horn blew and their race started.
“All right guys, whose going to do what?” Sidney asked and Marc, Max and I turned around to face Sidney and Kris.
“I can start off,” Kris said and Sidney nodded his head.
“I’ll do the balls,” I said.
“Yeah, you like those balls, don’t you, Alex,” Max said and I smacked him upside the head, “Ok, shutting up now.”
“Good boy,” I muttered and then looked at Sidney to see him shaking his head.
“You be careful on those, everyone’s getting whipped around,” Sidney said and we looked back just in time to see Senators’, Saniel Alfredsson getting bounced off of the balls and smashing hard into the water.
“I’ll be Tarzan,” Marc said and I laughed.
“I can hold my breath pretty long, so I’ll dive into the water to get the logo,” Max said and Sidney nodded his head.
“So that means that I’ll do the swirly slide and the tunnels,” he said and we all nodded our heads.
“You guys got this,” our team said and we smirked.
We looked back to see that the Senators had finished, ten minutes thirty six seconds, so long Senators. Flyers made it to the next round.