2060.38 Bandit talks to the team

[Krathan]

Jacquot Natta walked into the clubhouse on Saturday after the Flyers lost their second straight game in Boise and spoke loudly. “What do you call a group of guys that goes up, goes down, goes left, goes right, but always ends up in the same place?”

“I don’t know, Bandit. What’s the punchline?”

Bandit let out a sigh and responded “The Charlotte Flyers, apparently. Come on guys. We need to get on a roll. Seriously, we just took 3 of 4 from Phoenix but now we have to fight like hell for a split in this series. We’ve got like 9 more games against the Frontier and we can make a statement if we can win a bunch of these games. Calgary is good but we can take them. They have to play in our house this time. And then we need to take care of business against the Oysters.”

The team listened and nodded in agreement. A couple of other players shouted out encouragement and the young two-way player continued. “Little Johnny, you get the ball tomorrow. You can mow the Spuds down. I know it.”

Rasmussen was wearing a confident smile.He was coming off a great start against the Talons earlier in the week. “Yeah, man. I’m feeling good. I can get these guys.”

“Hell yeah, you can.” said Bandit. “And we need to get some more offense going guys. We’ve been in a little bit of a slump the last couple of weeks. We’ve got a lot of talent in this room. It’s time to play like we know we can win.”

The guys continued to nod and then Natta made it clear he was done with his little pep talk when he added one last dad joke. “Hey guys, I tried some new velcro cleats last week. They were a total rip-off.”

A couple of guys chuckled, a few more groaned, and several just grinned. Then they went about their business cleaning up after the game and preparing for the reporters to come in for interviews.

The next day, Little Johnny did in fact shut down the Spuds, and thanks to a solo home run by Lawrence Stewart, the Flyers won 1-0 for the second time in the series.