The Other Olympic Experience

By Sasha J

Author’s notes: Okay, here we go again everyone! This would be the pre-quel to "When words fail to come", and my attempt to see if lightning can strike twice. Since I haven’t really decided who is going to be paired with Smytty (sorry Gaile! Don’t hurt me!), in Salt Lake City. How do I handle this in the first chapter? You’ll see ;)

A few things you need to know: Ryan Smyth is single in this fic. So is whomever I chose to be the guy paired up with him. I don’t like doing the ‘cheating behind the wife’ type deal, because that leaves me with a bitter taste in my mouth, never mind some of the fics like that are really good. Second, Ryan’s a little clueless, but I wanted to play on his nativity at times, but it’s not horribly clueless, so it’s all right.

It was too much to take in all at once. First of all, being at the Olympics for the first time, and being with all these hockey greats like Mario Lemieux, Paul Kariya, Steve Yzerman, Joe Sakic, all these guys I’ve played against in Edmonton are now my team-mates. Being on the Canadian team meant getting a lot of pressure from back home. Canada has been without the gold medal in men’s hockey for 50 years. FIFTY YEARS. I was used to pressure back home in Edmonton, being the underdogs for more than one year, but this was the playoffs as seen through a magnifying glass, and reflected off of a carnival mirror.

"Hel-lo, Ryan," Theo Fleury said in a singsong voice, breaking me out of my thoughts. "I know it’s a lot to take in, but we’re going to lose you in this big ass crowd." He gestured to the crowd busying all around us outside, as we had gotten out of the vans to get some fresh air.

Rob Blake laughed. "I don’t think we can lose him with that mullet."

"Hey, I trimmed the mullet, okay?" I retorted, subconsciously running a hand through my golden-streaked hair. "I wanted to look presentable."

Wayne Gretzky laughed, and put a hand on my shoulder. "Guys, the last thing we need right now is to critique Ryan’s hair. We should get to the Olympic Village as soon as we can. I know you’re all tired from the plane ride."

Al MacInnis made a funny face, and put a hand to his stomach. "Although that plane food was definitely questionable."

"Are you sure it’s not just because you’re the old guy?" Simon Gagne joked, and Al swung a right punch, but Simon ducked, and Al ended up hitting Mario Lemieux square on the chin.

Mario rubbed his chin. "That is not the way you should treat your captain," he scolded, "although that is one heck of a punch, Al."

"There you go slugging out the Captain again, Al!" Chris Pronger exclaimed. "If you don’t be careful, we’re going to end up like the Americans with a rep for destroying both people and property."

Joe Sakic rolled his eyes. "Can we please get going? I’m tired, and you guys acting like little children is really making my headache—" he looked to Eric Brewer and Simon pointedly, "even worse than before."

"Sorry Joe," Eric and Simon chimed innocently.

"You’re really not," Joe muttered, pushing the Roots Canadian hats we all adorned, on Eric and Simon’s heads further down. The two fumbled to get the hats back to their original position, while giving the assistant Captain dirty glares.

"Um, we’re leaving now," I pointed out, as Chris, Simon, Eric, Joe and Jerome Iginla got into one of the vans. The rest of the guys scrambled to get into the vans we had entered Salt Lake in, and we drove to the Olympic Village, acting like tourists. All of us had brought cameras, and Jerome and I were taking pictures of the huge pictures hung on the side of office buildings.

"Man, this is extreme," Jerome remarked, as Joe, who was driving, played with the radio station. "This is definitely mind-blowing."

"Ha, a far cry from little Calgary and Edmonton, huh?" I asked, laughing. I wrinkled my nose as Joe switched from radio station to radio station, never staying at the same one for more than fifteen seconds. "Joe, do you have ADD or what? Just leave it at a station already."

Joe made a scoffing noise. "There’s just no good radio stations down here."

"Man, what I would give to hear Power 92 (Edmonton’s most popular music radio station) right now," Eric sighed, leaning back. "Or even ‘The Bear’."

"Well, we all have to make sacrifices," Chris said sagely. Then he began flipping radio stations, and finally settled on one that played both rock and pop music. "There. This will be the radio station until we hit the Olympic Village."

Jerome patted Chris on the head from his seat behind the St. Louis defenceman. "Good job, Pronger. You did an excellent job of handling the situation."

Eric snorted. "You act like it would’ve led to the third world war."

"You never know," Simon piped up. "They did have a war with shoes in America."

"SHOES?" Joe and I echoed.

Joe waved a hand. "I’m not even going to touch that one." He ran a finger along the scar under his right eye. "Argh, this is not going anytime soon, is it?"

"How’d you get that anyway, Joe?" I asked.

The Colorado Captain chuckled, and looked at me with help of the rear-view mirror. "Let’s just say someone’s stick loved my face a little too much." I laughed, shaking my head. I saw Joe’s eyes sparkle, and I thought again how lucky I was to be on this team, and with a guy like Joe as one of the Assistant Captains.

"Joe? You sure you know where you’re going?" Jerome asked, peering out the window.

"Yeah, why do you ask?" Joe asked back, eyebrow raised.

"Because we just passed the Olympic Village ten minutes ago," Jerome replied, pointing outside.

The van pulled over off the road, and Joe let out a string of curses. "Why didn’t you tell me this ten minutes ago?" Joe demanded.

Jerome looked sheepish. "You were all so caught up in the war of the shoes in America you didn’t hear me."

Eric smacked Jerome upside the head. "Then you should’ve spoken up! You’re from Edmonton, man, you should have a good pair of lungs on ya!"

"Deep breaths," I instructed Joe, who looked like he was going to punch out the window. "It’s all right, Joe. It’s only five minutes; it would’ve been worse if it had been half an hour, right? Just calm down and take some deep breaths."

Chris looked to Eric. "Has he done this before?"

Eric nodded. "Yeah, the guys can get a little crazy after a hard-to-take loss, and Ryan’s like our little mediator. Him and Tommy take turns calming us down."

"He’s good," Chris commented. "We’ll need that."

"You all right now, Joe?" I asked, putting a hand on his shoulder.

Joe nodded, taking a deep breath. "Yeah, I’m good. Thanks Smytty."

I grinned. "You’re welcome, oh honourable Assistant Captain." I bowed, and Joe laughed, making a little U-turn, and getting back on the road to the Olympic Village. We got out of the van once we reached the Canadian Olympic Village, and I spotted Jamie Salè and David Pelletier. "Hey you guys!" I greeted.

Jamie and David walked over, and Eric soon joined me to talk to them. "Hey Ryan," Jamie greeted a smile on her face. "When did you guys get here?"

"Two hours ago," Eric replied, shaking David’s hand. "We wanted to get a little rest before the Parade of Nations tonight."

"Wasn’t the plane food horrible?" David joked, grinning.

"Maybe it’s a universal thing," I suggested, shrugging. "Are you two going to march with the rest of us, or are you going to rest up since you have to compete tomorrow?"

"We’re going to march," Jamie replied, and I raised an eyebrow. "I really want to go out there with all of you guys, and it’s just a little walk. It shouldn’t do any harm."

I nodded, and I gave her a hug. "We gotta show the world that we’re proud to be Canadian, no matter the competition!" I yawned involuntarily, and Jamie raised an eyebrow. "I’m tired, and we gotta report to Wayne for our roommates and stuff."

"I understand," Jamie said, nodding. "See you later, Ryan, Eric."

Eric nodded, giving Jamie a hug. "No doubt. Good luck in your skate tomorrow. Kick some major ass for Canada, okay?" Jamie and David laughed, and gave their word that they would, and we walked over to where Wayne was waiting for us.

Wayne began to talk as soon as Eric, Theo and myself joined the circle surrounding him. "You guys will be sharing rooms in groups of two, not six like in Nagano. On the wall near the first door of your rooms will be a paper listing the pairs. Now, I don’t want any of you complaining because you got stuck with the guy with smelly socks. That’s the least of your concerns right now."

"But what if the socks smelled really bad?" Theo piped up. Wayne broke down laughing, and shook his head.

"Then you will endure the smell of the socks for the good of your country," Wayne replied, as Kevin Lowe laughed quietly. With that, he dismissed us, and we all went in little clumps to where our rooms were.

I ambled along behind Theo and Paul, and followed them to where the said paper was posted on the wall. The guys paired off, and went to their rooms, and finally I got to see who my roommate was. My eyes widened as I mouthed the name. Was there a mistake? "He’s my roommate?" I asked incredulously.

A hand placed itself on my shoulder, and I yelped, jumping about five feet into the air. I whirled around to see my roommate with a smile on his face. "Sorry about scaring you, Smytty," he apologised, his eyes twinkling. "But I guess we’re roommates."

"Yeah, I guess we are," I mumbled, glaring at him for scaring the living hell out of me like that.

-TBC-