Post Olympic

BONE ZONE 3: Hips Don't Lie and other assorted tom-foolery

This is a deleted scene from the very first draft, so the writing ain't so hot. But Nico's scar, the songs during warmups and Fen not wearing a shirt under his gear all returns later on. During late phase editing, I think I'm going to stick this back in again, but for the moment, it's a blooper

ALSO - you find out Ireland's real name in this chapter

FIVE
DAYS
UNTIL
POST 
OLYMPIC
RETURNS

-rabid

******************

"Hadley?" I jog to catch up with him after practice.

"Yeah?" He puts his phone away to pay attention to me.

"Hear me out on this, what if instead of the normal warm up music, we played more pop like songs, and instead of being really intense, we could let loose and relax a little. Go into the game on fresh legs, not stressing out, just having fun, because when guys go out to win, they don't play their game, they play the game to win, so,"

"So, make them loosen up so that they play their own game instead?"

"Yeah, I was thinking do a pilot game for the idea, and then maybe work it into like a brand type thing next year,"

"Long term?" He smiles. "That sounds like a great idea, we'll try it tomorrow,"

I can't tell if he believes me.

***

"Alright boys, this is a little weird, but," I clear my throat, looking around the locker room. "Hadley, Rod and I are doing an experiment that we might put into place next year," They look a little scared. "Change of warm ups completely, still do your normal stuff, but let loose, we're not playing the normal music, because ew, and I want each one of you to put on a smile and forget about winning. When you think about winning, you forget to think about the game. The point is to play your game, and I'm hoping to toss some personality into the warm ups so that you're reminded of that."

"Weird," Ireland mumbles.

"Continuing on, engage the crowd, we have like fifteen fans, I want sixteen by the end of the month."

They buzz the horn, signaling the start of warm ups.

"Game time." Hadley crosses his fingers.

"Game time," I agree, grinning.

Paxton, Ireland, Sauerkraut, Greenie, Yeti, Keegan, Pikachu, Blacksmith, I they race out onto the ice, no helmets yet. I won't even talk about how Fen looks, because god.

"Ready?" Hadley looks at Jorgen, Rod, and I. I nod.

"Let's get this roaring." Hadley lifts his hand up, waving it around, catching the attention of the guys running the board. They wave back. We wave again. They wave back, a little confused this time. Hadley sighs and points up at the speakers. They point up too, confused. Hadley mimes listening to headphones and they finally get it. 

The intro to Come On, Eileen blasts through the speakers in the rink.

"Did you pick all this out?" Rod looks at Hadley, Hadley shakes his head.

"Nah, Jorgen did." He points at his nephew, Jorgen raises his arms.

"I thought this would be fun." He laughs. "Just wait, there's more."

"Jorgen, I swear to god," Rod mumbles.

"Guys," Fen stops in front of the bench. "What's going on?"

"Sauerkraut, go have some fun," I point out to the ice. This is backfiring. He raises his eyebrows at me and I grab his glove, spinning him around and pushing him back out onto the ice.