Toronto, Canada

Eastern Conference, Hotel X

Johnny, Jo and I leave the lobby and make our way outside. We need to find our next victim. I ignore the voice in the back of my head that is telling me to stop because something bad is going to happen.

As soon as we burst outside, laughing about the Penguin incident, we bump right into a group of five guys.

"Watch where you're going, Bolt Boys," someone growls out.

I blink as I spot five players wearing the familiar black and yellow combination, from their bright yellow team shirts to their black athletic pants. I see the spoked-B logo present on the material as well.

A short rat-faced man stands before me. He throws his arms out before him and shoves me back into Jo and Johnny.

"Marchand," Johnny grumbles.

"I could easily take all three of you on," Brad Marchand hisses, getting into my face. "But you Bolts ain't worth my time or energy."

He shoves me again and then storms past me. His posse follows him. There's a short dorky-looking man with dark waves of hair (Torey Krug), a curly haired man who looks like a jerk (Tuukka Rask), a youthful man, who looks like a spoiled brat (Charlie McAvoy) and an older man, who keeps his eyes down at the ground and has neatly trimmed facial hair about his chin (Patrice Bergeron).

"Boston Bruins," Johnny grumbles again. "Why do we gotta share a hotel with THEM?"

"Why do we have to share the hotel with Bruins, Caps, Flyers and Pens?" I retort, brushing myself off from Marchand's rudeness.

"Well, we shouldn't prank them, because God knows what they'll do in response and I don't think that would be a good idea. Maybe we can target Claude Giroux of the Flyers instead?"

"Yeah, I don't think pranking the Caps will be any better than the Bruins. They have Tom Wilson..." I mutter, tapping my chin as we continue to walk alongside the hotel on the sidewalk path. "Pens and Flyers have their exhibition game today, so maybe it'd be beneficial to attack Giroux now?"

"Are they at the rink practicing now?" Jo asks.

I shake my head, unsure. "I don't know. Oh, look, speaking of Caps..."

We round the corner of the hotel and spot a cluster of players walking together like the Bruins. They have matching red shirts with the eagle logo on their shirts. We stop and begin to turn around, but they spot us.

"Well, well, well," one of them sneers.

I hear footsteps rushing up to us and then a pair of bulky arms wraps around my shoulders.

"You three look a little lost, Gourde...should we walk you back up to your floor, little Lightning Bolts?" the voice jeers in my ear. "Maybe by the hand. Hate for you to get more lost, y'know."

I turn my head to see a thickly bearded man with dark brown hair that is slicked into a strange part.

"No thanks, Tom Wilson," I remark, plucking his arm off of my shoulder. "We were just out on a walk and we can return like GROWN men, ourselves."

Tom Wilson chuckles in amusement.

I look to either side to see that the gray-haired captain of the Capitals, Alex Ovechkin, has an arm around Johnny's shoulders. His Russian friend, Evgeny Kuznetsov, has his arm around Jo's.

TJ Oshie and Braden Holtby are smugly smirking as they block off our path toward the hotel.

"Come on, you don't want to make friends, Gourde. That's rather rude of you," Tom Wilson gasps.

I shove him away from me. "I'm not hanging out with condescending dicks like you who are putting me and my friends down!"

A round-headed man with slicked back light brown hair comes jogging up. "Ovi, Kuzy, Willy, Osh and Holts, quit picking on the 2019 NHL Laughing Stock Team." I recognize him as Ovechkin's best friend, Nicklas Backstrom. "It's degrading."

I roll my eyes.

Johnny shoves Ovechkin off of him with a muster of strength and then spins around to him and spits, "Says a player from the team that always choked in the second round of the playoffs and then finally made it for one year, where they won the Cup and aged their captain like 50 years...seriously, you look older than my grandpa, Ovi."

"Good one, Johnson," Ovechkin chuckles with fake amusement. "You're right, Backy, these morons ain't worth it."

They all flock off with a snap of his fingers. Backstrom eyes me, Johnny and Jo with slight disgust as he loops his arm around his captain's. And they vanish around the corner and back into the hotel, leaving us alone again.

So far, I'm not really enjoying Toronto. There's no one really to prank and everyone is anti-Lightning. The rivalries and on-ice crap heavily outweighs the peacefulness right now. I am hoping that we can just survive long enough until each one of them slowly trickles out and away from the playoffs.

We continue on our walk outside and brainstorm ideas for our prank against Giroux. After all, tomorrow is our exhibition game against the Florida Panthers! 

****

Sorry, Katt, I fibbed a little, the tiger thing will be explained TOMORROW during the game diary lol