born

"C'mon boys, team meeting."After the game this evening Billy Guerin stuck his head into every player's hotel room and announced this. He didn't hang around to see if anyone was listening, just pimp strutted away and knew they would follow him like the bitches they are.This is why we aren't worried about the series.We know what this game led to.Pay attention.Guerin's room was dimly lit and smokey from the cigars he was lighting and passing around to anyone who wanted one. Dupes takes one, because with a beard like that you aren't allowed to decline cigars. Gonch takes one, looks it over, and approves with a mildly impressed nod. Petr Sykora grabs it out of his hands without even looking him in the face. Talbot and Malkin wander over from their room, cheap cigars already lit in their mouths. Guerin rips them out of their mouths and crushes them on the carpet with his bare feet and hands them a new one."Today, you become men."Talbot looks pleased with this idea. Malkin gapes like a fish. Billy shuts the door and turns on some music.He proceeds to pass out an assortment of mismatched glasses. Max Talbot eagerly springs for a hideous etched glass highball. Guerin rips it from his hands and chucks it at the wall forcefully, glass shattering everywhere, making everyone stare. He pimp slaps Max without a second's hesitation and hands him a normal glass, muttering something about how it's "about fucking time you get some taste."There is a knock on the door, and Billy goes to deal with it as the men wait, confused. He comes back with a room service cart. Whiskey, as far as the eye can see. He starts making rounds, pouring a full glass for everyone."How many of you have come back in a series before?"The room is silent. Billy smells fear."We'll I've had enough to cover for all of you." He stops in front of Kris Letang. "You remember the 1998 Western quarterfinals? Were you evenyet, boy?" LeUnicorn is silent. "We took the first game, but we lost the next three. The Avs. You know what we did, boy?" LeHair whimpers. "WE TOOK IT IN SEVEN, BOY. NOW DRINK!"Kris Letang throws back the whiskey, making a series of unreal faces. Billy looks accusingly to the rest of the men. They all follow Tanger's lead. Satisfied, Billy starts drinking directly from a freshly opened bottle. The guys sit there, drinking, smoking, taking in the music. Billy is on to bottle number two. No one is talking, and he doesn't like it. There is obviously a lot to talk about. He stands. He grabs a chair, and before anyone can prepare for it, swings it at the wall, shattering it into hundreds of flying splinters and chunks of wood. As if on cue, the music changes.Brooks Orpik stands up and walks to the bathroom, unfazed. He closes and locks the door behind him. Everyone stares at one another, stunned, until they hear it. The sound of glass shattering, repeatedly, and an animalistic scream. They wait a moment, and it stops. The door opens. Brooks emerges then, blood dripping from his hands, shards of glass still hanging from his skin. Everyone gazes at him, silent, until Staal speaks up."Hey man...wanna help me with the T.V.?"Orpik nods. They lift the cheap television from the stand, throwing it against the door. They proceed to throw it around the room, Feds joining in to help end its life as they stomp on the various parts.Gonch takes his cigar and his drink over to the sliding glass doors to the balcony, surveying a beautiful skyline of our nation's capital. He pauses, takes a thoughtful puff of his cigar. He walks back inside and punches a hole in the wall. He stares at the hole he created. "Goddamn this country."Sykie sits with his glass, surveying the action. He finishes what he has left in his glass and then grabs a full bottle off of the room service cart, pacing as he throws it back, considering the game, the series, the season. He swallows heavily. He sets his focus on the bedside table lamp, walks over and kicks it with soccer-like follow though and a loud scream.Guerin stands on the balcony, listening to the mayhem in the room happily, a bottle of Jack in each hand. Crosby, who had been drinking slowly in the corner of the room, unsure if he wanted to be a part of this, stares at Evgeni Malkin for a moment. Geno is systematically deconstructing a dresser drawer, creating some sort of rusty-nail-studded plank of wood. He doesn't ask questions. He sees Guerin on the balcony, sees the empty bottle in his left hand. He feels every frustration, every retarded interview question, every uncalled penalty flash through him at once. He runs up behind Guerin, grabs the bottle, chucks it as far as he can into the parking lot. "EAT MY DICK, WASHINGTON," are the words that erupt from his mouth, as if he'd wanted to say it his entire life. They hear the glass shatter and a car alarm goes off. "What the FUCK do you want from me? This is what you people MADE me, and now you hate it?! Go FUCK yourselves.""Good job, kid." Billy hands him his other bottle and heads back inside. Sid takes a swig and grimaces at the view. Back inside, Geno is going ape shit on anything he can reach with his tetanus-ridden plank of doom. Garon and MAF are destroying every shred of artwork they can find. Cooke and Boucher are smashing the desk into pieces with their fists. TK and Eaton are punching through the windows. It is beautiful.Adams looks around the room. He nods towards Gill. "Help me get the mattress." The two of them flip the mattress off of the bed, and the other guys rush over to help. They lift it on it's side and manage it to the balcony, where they heave it over the edge. For a moment, there is calm. They all stare at one another, panting. Letang takes another swig from his recently refilled glass. Malkin clears his throat. Orpik rips a shard of glass from his hands. Guerin slides something out of his duffel bag and into his pocket.Max Talbot breaks the silence. "Let's go burn the fucker."In the parking lot, the air is think with smoke. All of the guys are running back into their rooms, returning with game-used sticks, good luck charms, player manuals, tossing them onto the fire and screaming into the night. Talbot and Letang throw on an armload of unreal shirts. They burn brighter than magnesium. Chris Kunitz disappears from the group, backing silently out from the light of the fire. Meanwhile, Eric Godard walks up behind Tyler Kennedy in a pimp suit."Whatcha guys doing?""Burnin' shit.""...can I help?""Fersher."TK hands him the leg of the office desk from the room. Godard chucks it heavily at the fire. He steps back and smiles. Everyone cheers.From above, they hear Kunitz scream "heads up!" They hardly have time to move out of the way before the entire dresser frame hits the fire, sending soot everywhere before being engulfed in flames. Next, the headboard lands heavily. Everyone is getting burnt by the flying embers. Like they give a shit.Crosby takes off his 2009 playoff shirt and tosses it onto the fire. The guys notice, and everyone follows suit."This isn't the playoffs anymore, boys! This is war!"The group screams. Guerin staggers up alongside Crosby and raises his bottle in the air. "Did you hear the kid?! THIS IS FUCKING WAR!" Everyone screams again.Crosby laughs a "damn straight." He paces a little, the fire between himself and the rest of the group, which Kunitz has recently rejoined. "We can't let everyone else tell us how we're playing. We know what we're playing like, and we know we can do better than this. But we also know what we're doing right. The power play doesn't suck! We scored twice tonight! But you guys need to be behind me and you need to be behind everyone else. You don't win games because whoever the media is focusing on this week is on your team, you win because you want it. You're better than anyone else in the world at what you do. So fucking do it. The media will no longer hold reign over this series. We will."Guerin breaks out the bottle in his pocket as everyone screams for Sid's inspirational speech. He makes rounds, pouring shots into everyone's glasses. They realize, settling down, that it is his storied Cobra Scorpion Whiskey . They all fall silent as they stand there with their shots. Guerin raises his glass."To the greatest sport ever played."They all raise their glasses to the night sky, and proceed to knock back what is perhaps the most foul liquid known to man.Talbot, drunk on hard liquor and power, runs to Guerin, looking crazed. "I wanna eat the snake man, I wanna do it."Guerin grins and tosses him the bottle. "You have become a man." On their way back up to the rooms, Kris Letang looks around nervously at some of the other guys. "We're gonna get killed for this, guys, aren't we?"Rob Scuderi takes a swig from his bottle and looks at everyone from the corner of his eye. "No we won't. I've got it covered."This night will never be heard about again.