The Bubble

The Basics

     Skyler's POV

     I sighed.

     Today is the day we leave for Edmonton. It's been about a month since we knew of this and now it's just happening... This is all so weird. I mean we had to pack stuff for possibly over a month... I hope everything will work out well. What if this is our year? I better not get ahead of myself.

     We boarded the plane and began on our trip to Edmonton. It was a pretty long plane ride. I sat down next to my main group of people which consisted of Roope, Esa, and Miro. The three of them started talking while I leaned back and turned some music on in my AirPods. I felt Miro lean over to me.

     "I'm gonna take a nap." He leaned his head on my shoulder.

     "Why on me?" I laughed.

     "Because you are the least likely to hit me." He chuckled.

     "That's debatable," I smirked. He laughed and kept his head on my shoulder. I smiled and he slowly drifted off to sleep. Once he was asleep Esa looked over and started chuckling.
"You two are so cute." He smirked.

     "I literally told you," Roope added.

     "What?" I asked.

     "Are you guys dating yet?" Esa asked.

     "No, and I don't think we're planning on it." I rolled my eyes.

     "What do you mean? You'd be so cute!" Roope said.

     "We're just friends." I shrugged.

     "Suit yourself." Esa rolled his eyes. 

     Miro shifted and we all got quiet. He opened his eyes and we were all staring at him.

     "What?" He asked. 

     "Oh, nothing." Roope chuckled. We all looked away and I got on my phone.

~~~~~

     We landed and all got off the plane. We got on the bus and soon arrived at our hotel. We were staying at the Marriot After we all got tested Coach gave us all our rooms and told us to meet him in the lobby in an hour. We all went to our rooms. One thing that was nice about being a woman in the NHL is I always had a hotel room to myself. I unpacked a bit and then went down to meet Coach.

     Once we all got to the lobby we were shown around the hotel. We got to see all kinds of stuff. There was a lounge that had some games we could play and some couches to hang out on. Then there were a few meeting rooms. Of course, there was a dining hall. There was a pool outside as well as a basketball court or two. The roof had some chairs and tables. We had a pretty nice hotel in general. We all went to the meeting room so we could get some more information on the playoffs. We knew the same amount of stuff that the fans knew. We were pretty uninformed.

     "Alright, I'm going to start by telling you what I know you know. These playoffs will consist of five rounds total. The first round will start in four days. It will be either a round-robin, which means we are guaranteed a spot in the second round and we will just play the other teams as more of a practice, or we will be in the qualifying round, which is a best of five where whichever team wins gets into the second round. That's pretty much all you guys know." Coach paused, but before he could continue Jamie put his hand up. "Yes, Jamie."

     "Which will we be in?" Jamie asked.

     "I'm getting there." He chuckled. "We have been lucky enough to be in the round-robin. We will be able to warm back up unlike some other teams. We need these as practice so you don't have to be completely serious however I do want you to try your best. You need to practice.

     "Who is our first game against?" Ben asked.

     "We play Vegas," Coach said. "Any other questions about any of this?"

     "What day is our game?" I asked.

     "We play on the third, so in six days." He responded. "If there aren't any questions on that, we need to go over our schedule for tomorrow. We will have breakfast from 7:00 to 9:00 and then we will have practice from 10:00 to 12:30. After that, we will be in this lounge from 1:30 to 4:00. You guys will be able to relax and spend some quality time together at that time. After that, you have some time to yourselves until 6:00 for dinner. That goes through 8:00. The rest of the night is for you guys to hang out or be alone. You can do as you please. I would prefer you don't stay up all night at any point but I can't enforce that. If you're exhausted it's your fault."

     "What do we have the rest of today?" Esa asked.

      "It's 4:30 now so we have dinner at 6:00 and it ends at 8:00," Coach responded. "Ok, you guys are dismissed. You're welcome to hang out pretty much wherever as long as there isn't an entire team meeting there."

     We all got up and started splitting up.

     "Hey, Esa, Roope, and I were going to go hang out on the roof. Do you want to join us?" Miro asked.

     "Sure, I'd love to. I'm gonna run to my room and I'll meet you guys there." I smiled. He nodded and I left towards my room. I changed into some leggings and a hoodie. I hopped in the elevator and started up.