Alaska | Adam Banks

team usa

CHAPTER 2 | TEAM USA

* * * *

THE NEXT MORNING, I woke to the sound of Julie's alarm that we had set for 10:00, so we would have enough time to eat breakfast and prepare for practice. I began to get up and get ready, but Julie just sat in the bed groaning about how tired she was. The time change was probably hitting her. 

After a lot of complaining, and a lot of bribing, Julie and I finally made our way to the local cafe in the hotel lobby. I ordered a breakfast sandwich and orange juice, and I bought her a blueberry muffin and a coffee, which was part of what I bribed her with. 

While sitting at a small table, we were approached by a couple people, most asking if I was who I was and for an autograph. Apparently hockey was a big thing in Minneapolis, and so was I. But one of the people who came up to us turned out to be one of our teammates and fellow recruits, Luis Mendoza. 

He told us about himself, but we all laughed when he told us that he was really fast, but couldn't stop. He told us he was from Miami, which made me surprised. The three of us were from complete opposite sides of the US, I very northwest, Julie northeast, and Luis southeast. It was kind of cool. 

By the time we finished, it was almost 12:00, meaning we had just over two hours before Nicholas picked us up. The three of us didn't know what to do, so I decided that we could take a walk around Minneapolis, but making sure we didn't get lost and not be able to find our way back to the hotel. 

Long story short, Minneapolis was very different from Nome, in a lot of ways. There were significantly more people than back home, but it still seemed like most everybody knew each other. We saw the many varieties of sports they had here, besides hockey. We eventually had to make our way back, but it was a great way to waste the time. 

At 1:45, Julie and I began changing into clothes appropriate for before hockey, her outfit consisting of shorts and a T-shirt and sweatshirt, and mine consisting of sweatpants that said Alaska down one side, and one of my many Alaska Wolves shirts, which was my club team name. 

We made our way to the lobby at 1:55, and just as he said, Nicholas was there at 2:00 to pick us up, this time in a limo. We were told that the ride to the arena would be around twenty minutes, so we all did a little meet-and-greet. 

Julie and I already knew Luis, from Miami, so we didn't need to go into great detail about him. 

Ken Wu, or Kenny was what he told us to call him, was Junior Olympic figure skater, but he told us that once he tried hockey, figure skating was left behind. 

Dwayne Robertson was a full-bred cowboy, Julie and I established. His Texan accent was so thick, and he would talk about his days in Austin. Apparently he was very good with puck handling. 

Dean Portman was a completely different story. He was sat up front with Nicholas, and he said he was an enforcer. That was all he really told us before he put headphones on and began listening to some very hard rock. The other recruits thought he was a bit scary, but he looked like he was having fun, so I didn't care.

Our meet-and-greet took up most of the drive, so when we were done, we kept our eyes out for the arena we were going to. 

When we arrived, Mr. Tibbles was waiting for us, and while he led us to our temporary locker room he kept going on and on about how excited he was for us to meet the Ducks.

We were left alone in the locker room, and were told that we were to be ready and on the ice at 3:00 sharp. Julie and I took our stuff to the other side of the locker room so we could change, away from the boys. They were already getting rowdy.