The following day training began in earnest. Gordon gathered the Ducks, or Team USA, as they were now called, onto the rink. He hobbled them together into a line, then tied them to each other with packing cord.
"This is more crowded than a truckload of goats," complained Dwayne.
"Yeech," screeched Averman. "Somebody licked me!"
Gordon walked back and forth in front of the team.
"I can't think of any way to make it clearer. You are a team. To win this thing, we're going to have to work as one. Now be ONE-skate!"
The kids started moving, but in different direc tions. The rope yanked them back, and they top pled over each other into a confused heap.
"Everyone goes their own way, everyone falls down," explained Gordon. "Now get up and do it again."
After several tries Team USA was able to move slowly, very slowly, in the same direction. When he was satisfied that they were working as a team again. Gordon untied them and handed the rope to Dwayne.
"Okay. Rancher Dwayne," he said. "Go round me up some stray calf." Then he promised double dessert to the last player left standing.
The kids took off, free-skating in all directions. Dwayne smiled as he tied the rope into a lariat and took off after them. He twirled the rope and easily lassoed Goldberg first. Dwayne guided Goldberg off the ice as if he were bringing a cow in for branding.
Dwayne returned to the ice and began lassoing players as though he were scoring points in a video game. Connie, Luis, Averman, Jesse, Julie, Charlie. One by one Dwayne lassoed them and took them off the ice.
There were only three players left: Ken, Banks, and Portman. Ken tried to twirl away but was caught by Dwayne's loop in midpirouette. Upon seeing this, Portman decided he had finally had enough. He went on the offensive. He charged Dwayne like a mad bull. Dwayne fled across the ice, but whenhe was a safe distance away he did a sharp about face. Portman shot past Dwayne and never saw the rope until it circled around his waist and jerked him to a dead stop.
The workout was over.
Everyone was watching Adam Banks start in on his second cup of pudding when Tibbles entered the dining hall. He was pushing a cloth-covered cart into the center of the room.
"I know you athletes need your food," he said, calling for their attention, "but let me interrupt you for a moment. Winning the Junior Goodwill Games is more than just a victory. It's a chance to be immortalized in a time-honored tradition."
With that, Tibbles ceremoniously whipped the cloth off the cart to reveal a huge, oversize box of USA Crunch cereal. Plastered across the front of the box was a photograph of Gordon and the team.
Gordon couldn't help but smile.
"Hey, that's us!" shouted Dwayne.
"Today it's a cereal box," said Tibbles. "Tomorrow it's video games, action figures, lunch boxes. Maybe they'll even make a movie about you. Stranger things have happened. Now, just so everybody knows who you are, put away those old Duck jerseys because from now on you'll be wear ing these!"
Tibbles opened the cereal box and pulled out abunch of beautiful red-white-and-blue warm-up suits with Team USA embroidered across the front and Hendrix sewn down the sleeves.
Portman, Luis, Julie, Dwayne, and Ken scram bled for their new uniforms. But the old Ducks hesitated. They didn't like the idea of giving up the Mighty Ducks.
"This stuff has Hendrix written all over it," muttered Charlie.
"They're our sponsors, Charlie," Gordon explained.
"So what?" Charlie replied. "Why can't we be USA Ducks or at least keep our Duck colors?"
"Charlie, it's business stuff," Gordon said. The fact was, he explained, they weren't the Ducks
anymore. They were a new team. Team USA.
Seeing his picture on the front of the cereal box, Gordon knew he wasn't the coach of the Ducks anymore, either. He was the coach of Team USA.
As far as he was concerned, the Ducks were history.
YOU ARE READING
D2: The Mighty Ducks Novel
General FictionThis is not my story!!! This is the book from the 90s!
