During around the same time in Pittsburgh, the Penguins are suiting up for practice in the locker room. It is Beau’s day to supply the locker room music, so in honour of Olli due to his disappearance, he decided to put in Olli’s favourite Finnish playlist.

As the foreign music blared out from the speakers from up high, everyone is immediately reminded of Olli.

“Hey…,” Brandon Sutter begins to say, pausing strapping his elbow pads, “...that sounds like Olli’s music…!

Kris attempts to hold back his tears while sitting in his stall. “OLLI!” He then buries his face in his hands with a sob.

Spikey, who is perched in Beau’s stall, widens his eyes at his depressed defenseman partner. I am Olli! Then to get away from the sadness everyone is feeling for him, Spikey sprints out of the locker room, through the tunnel, and into the arena.

He halts at the edge of the ground, right next to the foot of Coach Johnston.

Johnston peers down at the cat with his hands on his hips. “Oh, wow, you're the first one here!”
He raises his eyebrows. “You got here faster than the captain! Maybe you should be captain.”

Then as if on cue, Bubby whizzes randomly in the air from the tunnel.

The two follow the flying stuffed gorilla with their eyes, spotting it soar over the glass.

With a downward arch, he slides onto the ice and bounced against the boards on the other side.

The ice-girls, who are on the ice, shovelling the left over snow, had to skate out of the airborne over-sized stuffed animal’s way.

Once Bubby stopped his momentum, the ice girls proceeded their shovelling, including shovelling Bubby himself away.

“Sutsy!” Sidney’s voice booms from the tunnel. “Don’t you know that it’s RUDE to throw?”

Sidney himself storms into view and skids to a stop as he sees Bubby’s predicament. “BUBBY! NOOOOOO!!!” He stampedes onto the ice and rushes toward Bubby, to the rescue.

The ice girls spot the captain of the Penguins racing toward them; they immediately stop, lovestruck.

“OMG, it’s the captain!”

“He’s coming this way!”

“Do I look good?”

“Is my hair fine?”

Sidney harshly brakes next to the shovel that has Bubby and swipes his stuffed gorilla off the ice. “Bubby’s mine!” He squeezes the stuffed animal against his chest and speedily skates away from the ice girls.

The ice girls first gape at the captain, then exchange glances with each other.

“Well, uh…”

“That's the captain?”

“Huh.”

They go back to shovelling off the excess ice.

Sidney storms back into the locker room with Bubby in his possession. “Don’t throw Bubby!” he shouts at Brandon, shooting him daggers with his eyes as he nears his stall.

“Yeah, don’t throw out our mascot like that!” Chris adds on with a serious look to Brandon.

Brandon shoots them both an odd look with furrowed eyebrows. “We already have a mascot!”

“Yeah,” Fleury jumps in from the corner of the room, “it’s Iceburgh!” He points to Iceburgh, the
Penguins’ official mascot, who is next to him with his arms crossed while bobbing his head.
“You tell ‘em, Iceburgh!” He encourages the mascot; Iceburgh nods his head.

“I have mascot,” Evgeni informs everyone with his deep voice.

Everyone turns to him with curious looks.

Evgeni just gets up and exits the room on the other side.

The rest of the Penguins exchange confused looks.

“This can’t be good,” Sidney, who is now sitting in his tall stall, points out.

Evgeni enters the room, but this time accompanied by Rozi, his pet tiger.

Everyone’s eyes fly wide open. “NOT THE TIGER, NOT THE TIGER!!!”

---

Meanwhile back in the actual rink, Spikey is attempting to grab a lonely helmet that was left on the edge of the bench.

Johnston is eying the cat with surprise. “Wow, you’re taking this very seriously. You can be one of our best players… I’m thinking defense!”

Spikey finally knocks the helmet over; it drops down and lands right on top of his head. Spikey falls on his stomach with the helmet covering his eyes. He slowly gets back on his four paws and sways over toward the ice.

“Maybe Beau can learn some stuff from you,” Johnston continues saying. He then takes a pause by looking behind his shoulder toward the tunnel. He then faces Spikey, who is now climbing onto the ice. “Keep an eye on the ice; I’m gonna check the locker room.” He then swiftly walks back into the tunnel.

Johnston walks into a locker room far from being professional: All the teammates are yelling in fear, except for Fleury, he’s calmly in the back, on his Twitter, scrunched into their stalls with wide eyes on Rozi, who is now peacefully sleeping in the middle of the room with Evgeni. And it doesn’t help when there is music blaring from the speakers.

Johnston stomps his foot in front of the doorway and shouts: “WHAT ARE YOU DOING WE HAVE PRACTICE AND WE HAVE A GAME TONIGHT!!!”

Everyone freezes in their panicking and turns to their coach.

“Oh yeah, we’re in the NHL! That’s right!” Sidney points out. He then laughs his goofy laugh:
“Uh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh!” He hops off from the stall, collects his helmet, gloves, and stick, and begins walking toward the tunnel.

Johnston eyes the captain as he is beginning to pass him. “Aren’t you forgetting something, Crosby?”

Sidney halts. “Oh yeah: Bubby!” He turns around, but Johnston halts him again:

“I meant your team; you’re the captain.”

“Oh yeah, that’s right!” Sidney faces his tea, “Come on, team!” He turns around and marches out of the locker room.

Everyone else slowly steps out from their stalls and cautiously lumbers around the sleeping tiger and Russian.

Brandon doesn’t do that though: He stomps his skate inches from Evgeni’s face. “Come on, Malkin, let’s go!”

Suddenly, the Finnish music is cranked up much louder, stuffing the whole room’s air, vibrating the walls, and waking up Evgeni.

Evgeni shoots a deadly glare up at Beau’s who is fumbling with the boom box.

“Oops!” Beau exclaims, immediately turning off the music. “Oh uh, I was just trying to turn off the music. Sorry… I think you’re never gonna talk to me again...like as if you already did…”

Evgeni just gets up with Rozi, who is also awake, thanks to the music, and walks out the locker room the other way.

Beau puts on his gloves and helmet, grabs onto his stick, and lumbers into the rink and onto the ice with his other teammates.

He immediately spots Spikey, who is on the ice, pawing at the lonely helmet. “Oh, there you are, Spikey!” He skates up to his cat. ”Aren’t you freezing?” He picks up Spikey, leaving the helmet behind.

NOOOO!! Spikey thinks. I WANT TO PLAY!!! He tries to tell what he is thinking to Beau, but all that comes out are fits of “miau’s”

Beau places Spikey in the home bench. “There. You should be warm there! Have fun watching me!” He then skates off to join the rest in their warm ups. “It’s gonna be a blast!”

---

Five minutes later into the warm-up…


Beau stumbles by the bench, arms flailing and out of breath. “SPIKEY!!! HELP ME!!! I’M DYING!!! I NEED OXYGEN FOR MY LEGS!!!”

Spikey shoots Beau a grumpy look. These are just warm-ups.

---

Two minutes later…


Beau passes by the bench Spikey is in, this time backwards.

“Hey, Spikey, I can backwards skate! How am I doing?” he asks his cat excitedly.

Spikey has a flat look. How did he even make it to the NHL?

---

Four minutes later…


Beau is skating hard across the ice.

“I’m almost there, Spikey!” he announces happily.

Then the rest of the Penguins pass by him in the opposite direction.

“Are you cheering me on?” Beau asks his cat.

Spikey turns away from Beau and sets his eyes on the defensemen’s area of the ice, which is being formed as the skaters begin breaking up into groups based on their positions.

In the defensemen’s area, Kris begins practicing his slap shots. After a shot, he spots Spikey staring at him. He continues smashing pucks into the boards, then looks back up to find Spikey still looking at him.

Grumbling, Kris skates across the ice and up to Beau, who is leaning against the boards in the forwards’ area of the ice.

“Your cat’s staring at me,” Kris states to Beau sternly.

Beau turns to him. “Oh, well that’s because you’re talking to me-- I’m the owner.”

“No, he was staring at me from over there.” Kris points back with his free hand to the defensemen’s area. “Tell your cat to stop staring at me.” He then skates away.

Beau takes this as a legit excuse to sneak in a break: He skates across the ice to the boards, breaking next to Spikey. He spots Spikey staring out at the defensemen’s area. He sighs, staring out at that same area. “Yeah, I miss Bortz, too.”

Spikey shoots a glare at Beau, gets up from his sitting position, and trots away.

Beau jumps up as he sees Spikey moving away from him. “But-but you’re still my best friend!”

“Bennett,” Jonston, from the middle of the ice, starts barking at Beau, “enough with your cat! Let’s go!”

Beau turns to look at the ice; he spots his coach, then Evgeni staring at him from the right side. “What? It’s not like you have a lion or anything,” he tells Evgeni.

Evgeni skates deeper into the right side of the ice.

Sidney brakes next to Johnston. “Yeah, Bubby stays in the locker room!”

Johnston shoots Sidney a stern look. “That is not the drill, Crosby.”

“Oh yeah.” He looks up at his coach. “What's the drill again?”

Johnston slaps his forehead. “And we have a game tonight…,” he grumbles.

Notes