AJ walks into the locker room and stares at everyone.
“Whose got the fastest selling jersey? I do,” he smiles.
“I thought it was impossible for your ego to get any bigger, but I was so wrong,” Kevin says looking over at him
“Don’t worry Kev I’ll sign one for you,” AJ smiles.
Kevin shakes his head and looks at AJ. It was seven games into the season and he had already become the star of the team scoring at least a goal per game if not more. His team was getting along great and he hadn’t even had any idea it would be this good in the beginning. They had only lost one game so far to the New Jersey Devils, but that didn’t come as a surprise to him at all, since he considered them the best team in the league by far. Brian didn’t take the loss that well though. The first loss of the of the season always seemed to be the hardest on his especially after last years disappointment and rumors flying all over that he was being traded and the back up goalie Brian Boucher would be taking his spot. Boosh was good though, without a doubt he was good and he was bigger then Brian so he took up more room. Brian was his cousin and he loved him to death, but Brain didn’t handle the threats of him being pushed to back up well. Boosh had already played one game and it was a shutout against the Ottawa Senators one of the best teams in the league. They had two red-hot goalies on their hands now and neither wanted to be the back up.
AJ was more stuck then Kevin though. AJ had been hanging out with Brian a lot lately, but Boosh was a former teammate of his and one of his best friends it turned out even though they didn’t talk as much as him and Fedoruk. AJ had also moved up to the second line with Williams and Premeau even though it wasn’t his choice and he had been arguing with Barber to move hi back down to Fedoruk’s line with Fedoruk and Nick or else he wouldn’t shot anymore. He was moved back to the third line the next day. In all his years Kevin had never heard of any player wanting to be moved down before, but hell it was AJ, AJ who was running around at this time singing BBMak at the top of his lungs and out of key at that. Why he knew all the words Kevin was afraid to ask, if he did he might move on to NSYNC and Kevin was not about to encourage that.
Nick was good and getting better each day since he spent most of his free time practicing. He was still quiet though and mostly only talked to Williams, AJ and Brian. There were still some things that Kevin didn’t understand about Nick and that was one of them. He also thought that Nick could be better, but something was holding him back. He would talk to Nick about it…at some point, but right now he was more worried about himself.
Yeah, it sounds selfish, but Kevin’s right knee had been swelling up after each game and once he woke up the next morning he couldn’t bend it without pain shooting up his whole leg. Of course all he could do was ice it and elevate it without going to the trainer. If he went to the trainer he knew that they would send him for surgery or something and at his age he couldn’t deal with it. He was 29 turning 30 and a 30 year old in the NHL was required to play a certain number of minutes per game or risk being traded for someone new and younger. The fact that younger guys like Gagne, McLean, Williams and Carter were around made the threat even worse. Only his wife knew about the pain so far and she wanted him to get help, but he wasn’t willing to do that just yet.
Brian starts putting on his pads as he watches AJ pulling on his skates singing some song he didn’t know, but knew he heard before. He looks over at Kevin who was zoning out again like he often did when he was thinking hard about things. What though, he would never know. Then AJ switched to “It’s Been Awhile” by Staind and started to sing in key. As soon as AJ finished tying his skates he walks towards the bathroom bumping into Boucher purposely throwing him into his locker and running off as fast as a person can run in skates on a hard surface before Boosh sprays water on him.
Brian liked Boosh he didn’t deny that. Boosh was a good guy with just as much energy as AJ, but he save it up for when he got on the ice. Brian knew he wasn’t playing as good as he could be and if thought the reason they were winning was because of the goals the team got for him. It was getting worse in practice though and between his temper when he was doing bad and Boosh’s temper when he was doing bad the goalie coach did not want to be around them. The whole team had stopped to watch Brian the other day at practice when he threw a fit because the guys had made shot after shot into the net throwing his stick across the ice and storming to the bench as Kevin came up to tell him to calm down it was only practice. Barber had given him the rest of practice to calm down and the team took shots on only Boosh. Boucher had come up to him after practice and told him to calm down, he was having an off day, every goalie had one, it was only practice and Barber knew he was trying. Boosh played in the game the next day against the Senators.
Brian tried to be a nice guy and off the ice he was. He was all sunshine and apples, but when he had a bad game or practice it was best just to stay out of his way. Of course AJ and Boosh never seemed to learn that and were constantly trying to cheer him up after one of those days. When Boosh had his bad days, because he had just as many if not more then Brian, Brian would do the same for him. The fact was that the only way to make the goalie happy was if they won and won it well.
Brian turns to look towards the bathroom as AJ comes out screaming.
“It burns! It burns! Jesus Recchi what the hell is with your cologne! It is eating away at the top layer of my fucking skin. Get it off!” Brian walks up to him with his water bottle and sprays him all over his face.
“Thank you soooooooo much,” AJ hugs Brian with water dripping off his face.
Nick stares at AJ from his locker stool and laughs a little. As soon as AJ calms down from his face burning with Recchi’s cologne, which he was claiming to be traumatizing, he was dancing around in full gear, skates and helmet with Boucher to the “Thong Song” grabbing Brian by the shoulders and making him dance along with them.
Nick didn’t know what to think of the Philadelphia Flyers team he was on. He had expected a more, well, professional team to say the least. His old team the Whalers was a very disciplined team, hardly penalized and he came to Philadelphia expecting the same. Kevin was professional there was no doubting that, the man even alphabetized his shelf in his locker. A lot of the older players were as professional as him, but surprisingly they were also as immature as AJ too. The other day Recchi had gone around with an afro wig on that he had also worn the previous season out in a game.
Nick had never gotten along well with Williams when they played on the Whalers together of course Williams was only there a year and then he went pro. Nick and Williams were always fighting for the same spot on the starting lineup and 9 times out of 10 Williams won the spot. He was around two years younger then Nick and he was still better. Nick was determined before the end of the season to get Williams spot from him even if it meant practicing in all his free time. His father wouldn’t be happy unless he got at least second string.
Nick’s father was an ice hockey buff and spent all his extra time watching any and all games no matter who was playing. When Nick got drafted to the Flyers his father spent his tie looking up past records of the Flyers teams, so Nick could be “prepared”. All of his memories of him and his father were on a little pond outside his house where he would practice all the time. In high school his father wasn’t happy with anything less then varsity for his son even if he was a freshmen. When he got older and moved to the minors he wasn’t happy with anything less then second string his first year and then moved to first string the next.
Nick was nineteen when a seventeen year old came to the team named Justin Williams. Williams came and he was extremely good. He was still in high school, but had moved up to the minors instead of playing for his high school team. There were rumors going around that he would be the next Wayne Gretsky or Eric Lindros since they were the youngest Canadian players ever. With Williams came the obvious move of Nick back to second string after a few games and one year later he was drafted pro. It was just damn ironic that they ended up on the same team. They talked now every once in a while, but everyone else pretty much assumed they were old friends and left it at that. “C’mon guys its practice time,” Kevin says getting up from his stool while everyone else on the team filed out after him.
Another practice another time to prove how good he really could be.
AJ skates around the rink leading the team along with Kevin in their warm up laps.
“Left, left, left right left,” AJ says skating around and looking back at Brian and Boosh bring up the rear laughing and joking about something.
“Must you do that every time?” Kevin asks staring at AJ as he skates.
“I can sing if you want that instead. “Teen Spirit”? Wait, no I don’t know any of those words. Ok here we go. I feel just a local God when I’m with the boys. We do what we want. Yes, we do what we want. I feel just like a local God when I’m with the boys. We do what we want. Yes, we do what we want. Yeah, we do what we want. Be my Romeo. Tell me all about your love. Tell me all about your pain, baby breathe and rubber gloves. Be my Romeo. My go go Romeo. See you twist and turn you look so fucking stupid. I feel just a local God when I’m with the boys. We do what we want. Yes, we do what we want. Go, summer days can lead to the bad times. The world gets larger every day. Yeah yeah, those summer times can lead to the bad roads. They leave me feeling stupid, happy and numb.”
For some reason ever since the first game AJ had found a need to turn to Romeo and Juliet for answers. The book, movie, soundtrack, whatever it was he was using it on a daily basis now. That was AJ’s life a movie waiting to be made. He wasn’t saying that he didn’t appreciate the life he has, in no way been he hinting at that. He loved his life. There were just some things he hated about it.
AJ loved being on the ice, the ice was his home and he felt like he could do anything while he was on it or in a place that had a rink, but take him out of the rink and you have a totally different story. When he came back to his apartment after practice it was the loneliest place in the world to him. All you could hear there was the slow rush of the air conditioning or the heat and the television. His mom lived back in Florida where he grew up and he called her as often as he could.
AJ got into ice hockey in the first place because he wanted to play a tough sport that every dad wished his son would play. He wanted to play it so when he got older his dad would be forced to watch him grow up to be a successful pro athlete and wish he had been around for him when he was little or when his mother needed help or when his grandparents got sick or when his first girlfriend that he loved dumped him. If he could focus enough on those issues while he played he didn’t care who was in front of him he would run them down or fight them
Now he didn’t play in hate, he loved the sport too. His best friends were in the sport. Todd Eaton was in Tennessee now though. Most were on the Phantoms and a good portion of Phantoms alumni played for the Flyers, so he was here now. Of course most of his friends were married now. Boucher was, Fedetenko was, Gagne was, actually the more he thought about it only Williams, Fedoruck, Stock, Carter and himself were the only unmarried ones on the team. He had even introduced Boosh to his wife now. The team groupies never did anything for him either. He would rather go to a sports bar and find a girl who actually likes real ice hockey and actually knows what a hat trick is or what kind of check is legal or not.
“What do you think is with the kid?” Fedetenko asks skating up to AJ as they stop their laps.
“Huh?” AJ stares at him
“Carter.”
“Oh I don’t know.”
“He distances himself from everyone, but Brian, you, and Williams.”
“No, he doesn’t like Williams.”
“He doesn’t?”
“Trust me he doesn’t. Williams and him have some kind of rivalry between them that I don’t understand.”
“How do you know?”
“Rusty, I know alllll,” AJ smirks,” No Williams told me a few days ago when we were on the bus up to New York.”
“Oh ok.”
“Damn,” he mutters turning his right wrist.
“What?”
“My wrist is killing me.”
“Get it looked at.”
“Nah, it’s only my right. I use my left.”
“Then you have nothing to lose.”
“I dunno.”
“What’s wrong?” Fedoruck asks skating up.
“His right wrist,” Fedetenko says getting a glare from AJ.
“Again?” Fedoruk stares.
“It’s nothing guys and it’s like this because of you anyway,” AJ says to Fedoruk.
“Hey don’t blame me because you got in a fist fight.”
“It was over you and your damn teeth getting knocked out on the crossbar because of a damn illegal high stick by the goalie that the refs didn’t call, so I decked the guy.”
“He decked the goalie and ended up getting a stick thrown down on his right wrist fracturing it,” Fedoruk says
“Such is life in the minor leagues,” AJ says and the other two nod,” Did you read the article in Details about a minor league team the Jackalopes in Texas?”
“Texas,” Fedoruk smirks.
“Yeah, we think we had it bad. I’ll give it to you.”
“I did have it bad,” Kevin says skating over.
“Ok fine,” Fedoruk says taking out his false teeth that would he his front teeth, ”Crossbar right in the mouth.”
“Ok, I got hit in the nuts with a ninety mile an hour slap shot first year diving to save a goal.”
“Hey you know they freeze the pucks its your fault, but that had to hurt,” AJ says.
“Hey did you see General Hospital yesterday?” Fedoruk asks,” Lucky is a cyborg.”
“Not uh,” AJ says,” Damn miss one episode.”
“Um,” Kevin stares.
“What else are we going to do at 3 in the afternoon after practice?” AJ asks.
“Hey is my team gonna play or what?” Boosh yells down the ice to the four of them gathered around the bench.
“COMIN BOOSH,” AJ yells skating to his position and taking his spot on the ice.
