Midland High School Marching Band

Chapter 9

The couple woke up the next morning at 7:15 and decided to take quick showers before heading down for breakfast. 

Once they had both gotten their showers, it had only been about 25 minutes, so they grabbed the little coffee maker that was in their room and they made some coffee, but they made some of the Dominican coffee that Joe brought from home. It was so much better than the crappy k-cups that they leave in the hotel rooms. They are alright if you don’t have another option, but when given the choice of Dominican coffee or that, the answer is always and has always been Dominican coffee to Joe. It was just better. That goes for any Latin American coffee. 

Joe’s last alarm that warned them that they needed to be downstairs in five minutes went off just as he finished his cup of coffee, and Kierstan had her travel mug that she used, so they were all set to head down to breakfast. 

The breakfast room seemed to be relatively quiet when they got down there, which wasn’t any real problem to the two of them considering the fact that they weren’t going to get clobbered everywhere they went, and they would have at least a little bit of room to maneuver. 

For breakfast, Joe had some scrambled eggs, a couple pieces of bacon, and a couple pieces of toast with an orange juice to go along with it. That was sort of his comfort breakfast from back home. Super simple, but as long as he had a coffee at some point in the morning, it was more than enough for him, and he had already had his coffee in the hotel room. 

He sat down with Nathan, Matthew, Kierstan, Levi, Andy, and Tony once he had his breakfast, and then James joined them not too much later. 

“So what did y’all think of the game last night?” Levi, who wasn’t anywhere as much of a sports fan as Joey, Kiers, or James were. 

“It was awesome! It didn’t hurt that the Stars clung on to beat Colorado 4-3 last night, either!” Matthew exclaimed. “I thought Dallas was gonna blow it. Especially when they put in Khudobin and he allowed a goal on the first shot he saw.” 

“Was that right after the second goal, Matty?” Joe asked. 

“Yeah like a minute and a half later. Bishop came out after that second goal by MacKinnon. Speaking of, could you imagine getting a hat-trick and still not being able to win the game.” 

“Holy crap. MacKinnon got the hatty last night? Well, that will help me in fantasy. That’s like 10 or 11 points. And wasn’t one on the powerplay?” Joe replied. 

“Yup. He got like 18 points last night for ESPN.” 

“Damn. He really wants me to start out hot, huh? Wasn’t Francouz in net for the Avs?” 

“Yup. And he gave up 4 on 26 shots,” Kiers chimed in on that one because she had pulled it up while they were talking. 

“Yikes. And no Grubauer, right?” Levi asked, genuinely trying to figure out what the hell was going on in the sportsball discussion. 

“Nope. I think he is on the IR. Either that or he got scratched entirely because he wasn’t even on the bench last night. It was Michael Hutchison,” Matthew replied.

“Wow. They must have been in a real pinch to dress Hutchison,” Nathan didn’t like Hutchison because he had accidentally started him in a fantasy hockey finals over Halak and it cost him the win on the last night of the finals. 

“Clearly,” Joe laughed. 

Breakfast flew by as the crew had their hockey discussion, and before they knew it, they were heading out to go take their tour of downtown Nashville. It was only 9:45 in the morning, yet they were leaving for the time being, and pretty much for the day, as they would head back to the hotel briefly around 1:30 to get ready for the game, but then they would be leaving again to head over to Nissan Stadium, which was the home of the Tennessee Titans, as well as the massive competition which was now not even 36 hours away.