Part 1 - Pure Gold

“So what are you gonna do for Christmas?” Dion asked me the night of my birthday in late November.

I shrugged. My parents had gotten divorced the year before, both my Dad’s parents were dead, Mom’s parents were in Florida, Dad’s an only child, and Mom’s siblings are all over the country. I didn’t really have a place to go. Well I did, but I didn’t really want to spend Christmas with either of my parents if I told the God honest truth. Because no matter who I spent Christmas with, the other would bitch.

“No plans.” I said taking a swig of my drink.

“Come to North Dakota.” He said, slinging an arm around my shoulders. “You know you wanna….” He added.

I shook my head (and shook off Dion’s arm), and laughed. “Only if you guys bring home the gold D.” I teased him back, using the nickname I’d given him several years before, having decided that his name, for all intents and purposes, sucked. Besides, he plays defense, so it just makes sense.

That made Dion go all hockey serious on me. “We’ve got the guys to do it you know. There are a ton of guys who are eligible to come back and Coach spends most nights looking a tape of goalies from all across the country.” He informed me. “Coach is serious about this thing. It was weird this summer, not trying to build the team and instead trying to get a spot.”

“Is that hottie from the Raiders gonna be invited back do you think?” I asked, taking another drink.

“Reggie?” D asked.

I shrugged. “I don't know his name.” I replied with a grin. “I just know he’s hot.”

D laughed at me. “Umm well he’s struggling right now, but part of that is that his team sucks.”

“And he’s in PA.” I pointed out. “I mean, what self-respecting non-aboriginal wants to live there?”

“You’re such a racist bitch.” Dion laughed.

“Look whose talking.” I replied, sticking my tongue out at him. “And I used the politically correct term.” I pointed out.

He jabbed his shoulder into me. “Actually I think Reggie is Mètis.” He said.

“Oh.” I said shrugging. “Well that explains how he can live in PA without getting stabbed.”

D shook his head. “You are never gonna forget about what happened the last time we were there are you?”

“Nope.” I said shaking my head. “I’m sorry, but that was fucking scary.”

I am not actually racist. I just hate Prince Albert, Saskatchewan (and everyone who lives there essentially) with an unbridled passion. Being a good friend of D’s, as well as couple of the other older guys on the team (guys who had already graduated from high school by the time I started teaching, and a few who I went to school with), they liked to talk me into going to games with other fans every now and then.

A few years before, when I was on a break from University, the guys had a road trip into Saskatchewan and a group of us planned to follow them around on bus. Which was cool and tons of fun. Then we got to PA. We won the game handily, and the fans got more then a little out of control.

In the parking lot afterwards, a bunch of Raiders fans decided that they were going to fight us. And they did. A knife was pulled out, not that anyone was actually stabbed. Either way, the experience left me with what can only be called a bitter taste in my mouth. It was a scary situation, and as Dion said, I wasn’t about to let it go.

“But I am serious Drew.” Dion said as he took a swig of his drink. “If you don’t want to get caught up in your parents BS you should just come to Grand Forks. If you really want to stay out of it, fly to Winnipeg first and hang out with me.”

I should probably introduce myself, since I realize that I’ve failed to do so. You probably noticed that Dion called me Drew. My name is not actually Drew and this is not going to be some whacked out SLASH story. (Remember I did mention short skirts and being hot.) My name is actually Delreinne (it means the Queen, my Mom was watching way too many bad French soaps while she was pregnant) Rochelle Esmèe Whitney… or fortunately for me, DREW for short.

“But it’ll be expensive….” I whined.

“And you can totally afford it and you know it.” Dion pointed out with an irritating use of logic. “You’ve hardly touched the money your Grandmother left you.”

I shrugged. My Granny Whitney had only died about a year and a half before. “It just seems wrong.” I said looking at my drink intently. “I mean, spending her money.”

Dion shook his head. “Drew, you told me yourself that she wanted you to use the money to do something fun.” He paused, and grinned cockily. “And what’s more fun than watching Canada win gold?”

I grinned. “I’ll think about it D.” I said, shaking my head at how incredibly cocky the boy was. He was totally serious.

“I’m going to book you a hotel room and plane tickets.” He said firmly taking another long swig of his drink. “You don’t need that shit that you know your parents are gonna try to pull. I mean, look at how they acted over your birthday.”

Dion had a point. My parents had argued back and forth over who I was going to eat my traditional birthday dinner with until I’d decided that 22 years of tradition could go to hell and had decided to spend the day drinking with Dion. Needless to say, neither of them were very pleased with that decision and were probably spending the evening arguing over whose fault it was that I didn’t respect them.

I shuddered. “Do it.” I said. “But are you sure you’ll be able to get me a room on such late notice?”

Dion shrugged and gave me that familiar cocky grin. “Drew, number one, I’m Dion Phaneuf. Number 2, if worse comes to worst, I’ll talk to Coach. He likes you.”

“He likes me?” I laughed. “Yeah right. I failed five of his boys last year.”

“And Coach knows that they deserved to fail.” Dion said. “Coach is like that. He’s a hard ass.” Dion grinned at me. “And he likes the fact that you are too. A couple of us were talking one day after practice about all the shit you were dealing with, you know with those parents and Coach overheard us. He asked us what we were talking about and we explained and he actually grinned and said that you were a tough cookie and that from what he knew you didn’t take shit from anyone. He said you would have made a good hockey player if you were a guy.”

That made me laugh. I looked down at my 5’2” frame and laughed even harder. “Shortest hockey player ever.” I pointed out. “But its nice to know that Coach likes me.”

Dion laughed and took a swig of his beer. “Liar.” He said. “You don’t really care.”

“Actually I do.” I said. “Because this means that next time someone is on my ass to pass one of his players that doesn’t deserve it I’ll just call the Coach and see what he has to say on the subject.”

Dion laughed. “And he’ll back you up.” He said. “Coach doesn’t believe in taking time off, in school or in hockey.”

“Good.” I said. “Then I’ll start calling HIM when his boys skip my class too.”

“Umm I didn’t mean you should call him all the time….” Dion said slowly.

I laughed. “No worries D.” I said. “I’m not about to call him every day or anything like that. But if someone is skipping a ton of classes, I may just let Coach know.”

Dion nodded. “Well either way, I’ll book rooms for you in Winnipeg and Grand Forks." He said. “We’ll have fun.”

“Liar.” I accused him. “I’m never gonna see you, so don’t lie.”

Dion flushed. He knew full well that he was going to be super busy. Between the media and actually playing hockey he wasn’t going to have much time for me at all. Which meant that I would be hanging out all by myself most of the time, which is okay when you’re watching the games, because there are tons of other fans and stuff, but I couldn’t watch hockey all of the time. “We’ll find time Drew.” He said. “We have to scout other teams and we are allowed to have a little fun when we’re scouting. Plus we are allowed to see people after the games.”

I shrugged and took another drink. “It doesn’t really matter D.” I said. “I’m going to be coming either way. Anything is better then dealing with my parents for Christmas. They can spend Christmas arguing over whose fault this desertion is.”

D shook his head. “You deserve better Drew.” He said firmly.

I shrugged. “Its what happens when you’re an only child and your parents get divorced. I’m just glad that they waited until I was on my own before they did this. I couldn’t imagine being a kid going through this kind of shit.”

Dion took a long drink. “So are we going out or what?” He asked, looking around my apartment, where we had gathered early in the day to eat and drink (mainly drink).

“Sure.” I said, putting my drink down and calling a cab. “Let’s go paint this town red and white.”