The Road to the Cup ~ Wattys 2015

Shenanagins

Practice on Monday ran smoothly. We still didn't have Geno back, but our d-men were healthy and back on the ice, ready to play. We were driving on the bus to New York for game one and the guys were in a good mood.

"Tanger, your such a white girl," Beau commented as scrolled through Kris's Instagram.

"What are you talking about?" Kris asked.

"White girl? What that mean? Kris white man, Erin white girl," Evgeni muttered.

"Yeah, Sunshine, what's a 'white girl'? Is this some stupid California slang?" Maatta asked.

I was sitting next to Sidney and Ian was across the aisle from me. Ian and I were laughing and Sidney looked at us funny, "You know what that means?"

"It arose from the great land known as the Internet," I explained, motioning dramatically. "If you were on social media, you'd know this," I told Sidney.

"So it's not a States' thing?"

"No," Ian replied, "it's an Internet thing. I'm surprised Kris doesn't know."

"Will someone please explain what a 'white girl' is before I lose my damn mind?" Johnston asked.

"A white girl is a stereotype. Usually it's a girl with straight hair who wears Uggs and yoga pants and drinks Starbucks coffee. She's usually addicted to social media and posts pictures of her food, like Kris does, which is why, I think, Beau called him a white girl," I said.

"So he doesn't have to be a girl?" Kunitz asked.

"Nope," Ian said.

"That so dumb," Geno said.

"This is why I don't go on the Internet," Sidney muttered.

"Right, like there isn't weird slang hockey players use," I replied.

"Hey, hey, hey, you're part of that, too; you used to play so you can't act like our slang is weird," Sidney replied defensively.

"I'm not, I'm just defending the Internet slang," I shot back.

"Erin! Sauce me that folder!" Johnston said, getting involved. I sighed and passed it over. "Thanks, you can have it back," Johnston returned it to me.

"Ha ha," I muttered and put the folder away.

"Erin, wanna sauce me my water bottle?" Marc asked.

"She's not a puck bunny, but she's definitely a rocket," Ian said.

"Thanks," I rolled my eyes and then checked the time, I had three more hours of this, great. The guys were testing my patience, but I loved them all too much to be mad.

We pulled up to our hotel and checked in. After dropping our stuff, we had dinner at the restaurant in the hotel.

"Erin-" Geno began.

"If anyone tells me to sauce them the salt or anything else on this table, they're going to be riding the pine tomorrow night," I threatened.

"I no ask that," Geno said.

"Okay, go ahead then," I replied.

"What you thinking for tomorrow? How it go?"

"I don't know, tomorrow is a different day. If you were playing today, I think you'd win. Y'all have the energy to play a good game and you looked good at practice this morning, but tomorrow might not be the same. It's up to you guys."

"How do you think the series will go?" Lapierre asked.

"What is this? Twenty questions? Are you all quitting your jobs to become reporters?" I joked. No one responded. "I missed something. You guys were so cocky, but now you aren't. What happened?" They shuffled their menus and shrugged. I shot a glance at Mike, but he wasn't looking at me. My eyes flicked around the table and I noticed a couple empty spots. Sidney, Olli, Beau, and David were all gone. They should really hear this, but I wasn't going to wait; they could get caught up later. "You guys wanted to be here, right?"