2007 Draft

“With the first overall pick in this year’s draft, the Tampa Bay Lightning are proud to select from the London Knights, Patrick Kane.”

Patrick looked between his family, all smiles. Part of him was completely bewildered. He was going to be apart of the Tampa Bay Lightning?? How could that be? How would that work out? He shrugged it off, hugged his family members and went to the stage. He shook hands with the Lightning personnel there.

He put on the Tampa Bay jersey and smiled for the camera.

****

Dave paused the video in the warehouse, where they were. They were all watching the 2007 Draft. It was difficult to comprehend, yet there it was, real and captured in time...Patrick Kane being selected by Tampa Bay, first overall in the Draft.

“He’s a Lightning Bolt???? Are you frickin’ kidding me??” Brandon Bollig gasped. “Patrick Timothy Kane, the man who in some alternate universe and time had scored the controversial game winner in Philly for the 2010 Stanley Cup is in Tampa Bay?!”

“It looks like it. Look at the pictures here, they don’t lie. He’s really in Florida,” Dave Bolland stated, pointing at the first picture that popped up, which was of him at the draft.

“That’s wrong, man.”

“How do we know it’s not playing tricks, come on, pull up another video, maybe of him playing with the Lightning,” Brandon said.

Dave typed up the search in the Youtube search bar and then clicked on a video that had a compilation of goals scored by the man. He played it for them. They were all stunned and weirded out by seeing Patrick Kane alongside Steven Stamkos and Marty St. Louis. He had four hat tricks in his rookie season with the Lightning and then he’d had a down year in 2010. It was just so perplexing.

The video ended and Dave went back to the results page. Andrew suddenly squinted at the screen. “Whoa! Guys, check that out!” he stated, pointing to the screen and to a video that was just under the complilation.

“Wait, what?” Brandon gasped.

“Am I reading that right?” Dave cocked an eyebrow.

“You are, we all are, Jonathan Toews fought Patrick Kane,” Andrew remarked. There was a brief moment of heavy silence, before the pest whacked Dave’s shoulder annoyingly. “Click on it!”

Dave sighed and did so. He pulled the video up. It went a little like this:

Patrick Kane, in a Lightning jersey was lined up across from Gabriel Landeskog. Jonathan Toews, in a Colorado Avalanche jersey, was pinned against Steven Stamkos. Jonathan won the faceoff, like he normally would do. He sent it back to his defenseman, as Gabriel lined Patrick up and sent him into the boards to the side of the bench.

There was a sickening crunch, as Patrick made contact with the boards. As it turned out, the game was mic’d, so they heard the whole conversation that followed.

“Yeah, there’s plenty more of that, Pretty Boy!” Gabriel chirped.

“Get off of me!” Patrick spat, slashing Gabriel with his stick.

Gabriel spun around to him, lit up. He was ready to attack or retaliate, but before he could, Patrick was then grabbed around the neck by the brunette Avalanche player. The other players came over and everyone was partnered with someone. Patrick spun around to see Jonathan glaring at him.

“Don’t slash my teammate, blondie!” Jonathan snarled.

Patrick shoved at Jonathan, who took it as a signal to fight and he shook his gloves off and threw them to the ice. Then he waited, as Patrick did the same. They tangled each other up and began to dance around. Jonathan landed a few punches to Patrick’s face and bloodied his nose in the process. Patrick, not known for fighting, attempted to defend himself and fight back, winding his fist up, but Jonathan spun him around and they crashed to the ice.

The refs tore them apart.

“STOP THE VIDEO!! JUST STOP IT!!” Andrew shrieked.

Dave exited the video, just as Jonathan spat at Patrick, who gave the brunette man the most disgusting look ever. Andrew had his hands over his eyes and was shaking his head back and forth.

“Shawzy, you okay?” Dave asked concerned.

The Chicago forward lowered his hands from his face and looked at Dave and Brandon. He looked irate...or dumbfounded...or a little of both. “No! This is wrong. This isn’t...I--I can’t deal with this! Jonny and Patrick aren’t fighters and they’re not supposed to do this! I can’t accept this happening - that video didn’t happen! It didn’t!”

“Well, it’s the new reality. So in answer to all of our question, ‘Where would Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane end up, if they weren’t in Chicago?’ has been answer. Jonny’s an Avalanche player and Kaner’s a Lightning player.” Dave gestured to the computer screen, with the video results showing on it.

“Alright, let’s stop this madness right now. Let’s restore everything back to normal with Kazer back in Chicago!” Andrew growled.

“What’s wrong with you Shawzy, you were the one who want to do this?!” Brandon remarked, matter-of-factly.

“Yeah, before I learned that Phil Kessel is a tyrant and Therrien’s our coach! I never thought I’d say it, but I really miss Jonny and the Kazer. And they shouldn’t be fighting each other!”

“You told me to click on it man!”

“I thought it was just verbal spat...I didn’t know they actually dropped the gloves and--fought.”

“Alright. If you’ve had enough, here…”

“I have. I’m not a fan of Saader being scared and being gay for me.”

“Oh, right, yeah, I heard about that. Saader’s always draped all over Shawzy! It’s pretty funny.” Brandon started to laugh with amusement.

“It’s not funny Bolls. It’s gross. Get the fucking machine out and let’s get the hell back to the drafts and right things!” Andrew snapped. “Saader and I are friends, just friends.”

“You keep telling yourself that, Shawzy.”

Dave closed the laptop and fetched the pad. He hopped onto it and the others joined him. He had the remote in his hand, already configured and set for the 2006 Draft. If they were going to fix this, they had to start with the beginning: Jonathan Toews’ Draft day.

Notes

Uh...I hated writing this chapter, just saying...Kaner would NEVER fight Jonny, I understand you're pain Andrew.


Next up: Returning to Normal...or Not!