Untitled Document

Playing with the boy's

by jim moran

Here's a weird story from the Olympics in Nagano. I got myself some lunch and was going to sit down with some guys from some US Olympic team.

"Hi guys do you mind if I join you?"

"No, have a seat," they replied.

"What team are all you guys on?" I asked.

"We are on the US hockey team, how about you?"

I wasn't a huge hockey fan, or I am sure I would have known. I answered their question, and told them that I was on the US Mogul skiing team.

All of a sudden the rest of the team sits down on the other side of me. All of the guys were wondering who the hell I was, so I got the twenty questions. All of the hockey players were excited because mogul skiing is a very physical sport as well. Granted I don't get in a whole lot of fights on the ski hill, but they still thought I was cool. After the first few minutes, many of them got disinterested; but there were three guys who still wanted to talk. At the time, I had no idea that these guys were all super stars. I was just chillen' out with a few new buds like Brett Hull and Mike Chelios.

I thought that was pretty cool, so I went over to the United States Olympic office and signed up for two women's figure skating events, and 4 hockey tickets. I thought I might get one or two tickets, but I got them all. The problem was that the seats weren't too good-front row right behind the goal! I attended one game that the men won; but the second game, they lost to Canada.

That evening was a big party night. Jonny Moseley won the gold in the finals that day, and the whole US hockey team wanted to drown their sorrows. I was supposed to meet Jonny at a bar around midnight because the press had already gotten a hold of him. As it turned out, he did not make it out until around 1:30 am. It was no big deal as I had the rest of my ski buddies to party with until he made it. Unlike Utah, Japan lets you drink until 5 a.m., so there was no rush. My new hockey pals ended up there as well.

Once Jonny was there, we didn't mess around. We went right to the bar and I ordered a full bottle of tequila. You can do that in Japan. We were all partying together Brett, Mike, Jonny, Alex, Evan, Donna, and Ann. Only about five of us where chugging on this tequila bottle I had bought along with the rest of the drinks.

We were dancing, having a disco time, and the clock ticked 5 a.m. All of the people that were left were totally wasted. Jonny had to go to sleep about an hour earlier, and the rest of the team was gone as well. It was just me and some hockey stars drowning their sorrows. After a while, we all split. My new girlfriend that I had met at the Olympics was probably just waking up to go to work as a radio announcer. I really like Australians so I paid her an early morning visit.

I heard later that a few guys (I will let you guess who) made a trip back to their room and continued to toss em' back. As it turned out, they thought it would be cool to trash their room, and get rowdy. They also thought it would be cool to rip the door off at the hinges and throw it off their deck. Since the door was mostly made of glass, when it smash-landed it shattered every which way-including into the achilles tendon of a Canadian luger's leg. He was supposed to compete that day! Obviously he could not, and the real trouble started.

As it turned out, the people involved did not want the world to find out. The athlete that could not compete that day was upset that his dream had been stolen. He went home and got a good lawyer to represent him. The luger's lawyer and the lawyers of the rowdy boys worked out a number that would keep things quiet. That drunken night would then be forever forgotten…until now.