Project Blackhawk (or The Blackhawk Experiment)

“Shawzy, where are we going?” Dave Bolland asked.

Andrew Shaw and Dave Bolland hopped on the transporter with Brandon Bollig. The pest for Chicago had the remote and he plugged in the coordinates. The machine sprang to life and before long they were teleported back in time to the chosen destination.

“You’ll find out!” Andrew sang out.

They reappeared on the ice rink in the middle of a game. It was the Flyers Final...the Stanley Cup Final. The Blackhawks had the Flyers on their toes in the final minutes of the game. Luckily they were projections, so they couldn’t interfere with the game. Only Dave Bolland’s real self was there.

“Dammit Shawzy you gotta warn me!” Dave screamed, as his real self charged at him and he ducked his head into his arm. Real Dave Bolland zoomed through himself, which was fine, as long as they didn’t see one another.

“You set this thing on projection mode man?” Andrew whined, looking at the remote.

“Shawzy, you almost killed me! You can’t do things like this. You can really screw things up. You’re lucky I didn’t look at myself!” Dave snapped.

“Sorry, but I wanted it to be a surprise. But why are we like ghosts?” the Chicago pest questioned.

“Because to start out and be able to get experience, this is what is going to happen...we aren’t ghosts, we are projections.”

Andrew darted off. He realized what was going on and it was the final moments, where Patrick Kane’s mysterious, yet sure game-winning goal of the Cup final.

“Andrew!!” Brandon screamed. “Come back!”

Andrew snatched something up, being able to do so. He came back, as the whistle blew and chaos erupted. Patrick skated over to Jonathan and threw his arms around him in celebration and then the question of, “where’s the puck?” comes up. Brandon and Dave came over to him. He was gleaming, grinning largely from ear-to-ear, as he raised the object he’d picked up: Patrick’s game-winning puck.

“Look what I got!”

“Shawzy, put that back!” Dave scolded. “You can’t take anything from the scene!”

“What if I gave it to a ref or Pronger?” Andrew questioned, nodding to the Flyer’s player who was irate at the bench.

“No. Just-just keep it. You’ve already done it and taken it,” Dave growled, as he snatched the remote from Andrew and they vanished, re-appearing back in the warehouse.

They were no longer projections.

Andrew put the puck on the table. “Souvenir!” the small winger and centre exclaimed. He wagged his eyebrows as he looked at his friends.

Dave frowned, folding his arms, still holding the remote. “Shawzy, you don’t do that! That’s another thing you don’t do, you don’t take objects or souvenirs. Ever heard of the Butterfly Effect man?”

“That thing about changing the past and affecting the future?” Andrew questioned.

“Yeah. So, let’s see what you’ve changed?”

Andrew hung his head low. He followed Dave over to a computer, Brandon slapped Andrew on the shoulder. They gathered around, while Dave typed in the 2010 Stanley Cup Final into the search engine. What popped up was a list of articles talking about who took the puck and what happened to the puck.

Dave clicked on some things and then all three gasped in shock. Dave spun to Andrew. “The Hawks could have won in 2014 against the Kings, but because you took the puck, the Hawks lost in the Conference Final! And because of it, Brandon Bollig, here, was cut from the team during the offseason. See? You don’t mess with time!”

Brandon slapped Andrew multiple times across the shoulder, in a swatting motion. “You bastard, Shawzy!”

“Sorry man, sorry. Can’t we go back again and change it again?”

“No, because unfortunately the damage it done. If we go back then you’d technically be changing the past again. There’s no guarantee that the same outcome before happens. Heck, Dallas and Colorado might end up in the Final inside!”

“Okay, man, I get it. I’ll stop.”

“But wait, I was already traded to the Flames after the final, actually!” Brandon stated.

“Well, that’s true. But according to this you are not a Flame, but rather a Shark!”

“I’m a Shark?!”

“And you got hurt, after picking a fit with Los Angeles’ Loui Eriksson?!” Dave read, raising an eyebrow.

“Wait, what?” Andrew and Brandon questioned.

“Uh, yeah, according to this Loui Eriksson was traded to Los Angeles for Tyler Toffoli. Boston kept Tyler Seguin and Jamie Benn was never named Captain. This gets kind of dark.”

“Oh man, I screwed up, taking that puck!” Andrew said, shaking his head.

“Well, luckily nothing disastrous happened…” Dave began to say with a shrug.

“Nothing disastrous?? I’m a fucking Shark!!” Brandon exclaimed, hitting his fist on the table.

Dave looked at him. “And so is Antti Niemi.”

“Antti Niemi?” the Shark forward questioned.

“He was the Blackhawks’ old goalie. The one who helped to win the Cup in 2010!” Dave exclaimed. “Great Finn.”

“Okay, I get it, things changed cause I took the puck. I’ll behave. I promise.”

Dave closed the computer he had set up in the lab-style building and folded his arms. “Alright. We’ll try again. Let’s take a break first though. Okay?”

“Okay. I think we all need it after that.”

“Just out of curiosity though, who do they blame for taking the puck?” Andrew asked with a sly grin.

“Pronger.”

“Sick!”

“Oh, that’s another thing. Apparently Pronger’s still in the league as the Flyers’ Captain. He’s serving a suspension right now for illegally checking...Patrick Kane.”

“Fantastic.” Andrew hung his head low. He felt ashamed. And as he thought about it, the changes that had occurred were now implanted in his memory. He remembered each of these as though they’d occurred. But was this reality? It was the new reality.


A few hours later, the three regrouped, standing on the machine once more. Dave had passed the remote to Brandon, who alerted them that he was going to play with Patrick a little bit, challenging him to his stickhandling video.

And so they completed their new mission. This time without damaging anything, while still having fun and adding a piece to the history.

“Operation Raindrop” - Bollig’s parody of Patrick Kane - was created. (You can find the video on Youtube.) This time the future wasn’t affected, only the addition to the past came up.

Notes

Okay, now things get more interesting and complex...time to have some fun.
As Shawzy put it, "Time to have fun with Kazer!" XD


Next up: Project Blackhawk!