The complexity of the community of practice represented by a professional sports team yields fascinating yet understudied sociolinguistic data on sense of identity and belonging within the specific institutional context. The postgame interview between athlete and media personnel presents a meaningful interactional analysis on that player’s positionality as a member of the group, and these interactions have tangible, real-world implications. Data are taken from the postgame interviews of the Colorado Avalanche professional men’s ice hockey team during the 2020 postseason. Analysis of these interactions provides insight as to the athlete’s ability to use the interview as a vehicle to develop himself as a part of his team, or his “teamness.”I identify the ways in which the team’s culture is constructed and reinforced through specific linguistic practices and how it takes shape partially in the public eye during media interviews—with the interview a vehicle for individual and whole group belonging. The interview context further introduces the interviewer as a co-constructor who at once holds an agenda and makes space for the athlete to be agentive. The data illustrate the role of switching person deixis in cases of praise and blame, positioning evasion as the appropriate answer to avoid taking credit for oneself or placing blame on a teammate. I use research on response design to illuminate these practices and link the institutional role of the athlete to his appropriate performance of “teamness” through his use of language.