AAOOOSC! #10

In the Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Sidney Crosby is practicing with his good friend, Jonathan Quick. They are both wearing their team's’ practice jerseys: Pittsburgh Penguins and Los Angeles Kings, respectively.

Sidney is standing in the empty arena on centre ice with the light mainly shining on him. He narrows his eyes at the target determinedly, mentally sketching out his plan of attack.

The puck, a few feet away from him, waits for him to move it according to his will.

Beyond the puck is the one who stands in Sidney’s way: the goalie, Jonathan.

Jonathan is standing up with his back against the crossbar, also waiting for his friend to make a move.

With a nod of his head at the goalie, Sidney begins to push out toward the puck.

He swiftly scoops it into his stick’s blade while passing it and smoothly cradles it while nearing the goalie.

Jonathan gets into his stance and follows the swaying puck with his eyes. He sees the puck a good foot away from him, yet still in the skater’s possession.

Sidney pulls the puck away from the goalie, greatly toward his right. Jonathan follows the route and slides toward the puck, landing in the butterfly position.

Sidney then swiftly passes the puck over to the left side, regains possession of it, and backhands it with a clean arch into the net.

“GOOOAAALLL!” a booming, little-kid-like voice echoes from the tiny frame of the scorer.

Filled with gaiety, he skips away from the net and raises his hands and stick into the air with a humongous smile etched on his face. He imagines the goal horn of the Penguins ringing through the atmosphere; the fans’ chants and shouts of excitement; his teammates’ celebrations with him.

“Good job, Sid,” Jonathan mutters to himself as he slowly gets up. He turns around and pushes the puck out from the net.

Sidney skates up to him and brakes next to him. “You just experienced the doom of every goalie!”

“Yeah, and it wasn’t the first time.” Jonathan mutters as he pulls the goalie mask up from his face to take a squirt of water.

“Don’t feel bad, Jonny--” He pats his padded arm. “--you’re not the only one who fell in my trap.”

“One day--” Jonathan slips his bottle back into the bottle holder. “--one day I’ll figure out how to stop that shot of yours, Sid.”

“Would you be able to stop my radical shots as well, dude?” a familiar, lax, deep voice says from off the rink.

The two hockey players look to the left to see who talked. They spot Patrick Kane on the bench along with his friend and right-hand ruler of the NHL, Jonathan Toews. They are both suited up for hockey with Blackhawks practice jerseys.

“Hey, Patrick! Hey, Jonathan!” Sidney greets happily, raising his hand in the air. He skates over to him, braking next to the boards they are standing behind in. “What brought you guys here?”

“Ah, I was talkin’ with Nemo man and he told me that you gnarly dudes were practicin’, so I decided to come along with Tazer dude.” Patrick indicates Toews by nudging him with his elbow.

“And yeah, we’re here!” Toews nervously chuckles with a shrug. He then slaps Patrick’s elbow seriously as a way of telling him not to nudge him.

“Awesome! Come along!” Sidney glides back deeper into the ice; the two friends follow after him.

“Oh great,” Jonathan murmurs while slipping his mask back over his face. “Two more skaters. Just what I needed.” He gazes to the benches again, this time seeing Nashville Predators’ goalie, Pekka Rinne, stepping into the arena, wearing a Predators practice jersey.

“Pekka!” Jonathan skates over to Pekka. “Glad you’re here, I’m the only goalie here and Sid just got two more skaters!”

“Alright, glad to know that I’m needed.” Pekka nods his head and steps out onto the ice. He begins gliding toward the other side of the ice with him. “So what are we doing here: scrimmage, drills…?”

“To be honest, I got no idea. It’s up to them.” Jonathan points his stick toward the three skaters, who are rummaging through the penalty box.

Pekka raises his eyebrows with a miffed expression. “Ah, I see. Wonder what they’re doing…”
He skates away toward the other end of the rink, where the other net is located.

“Ah-hah, found a puck!” Sidney says with relief as he skates up to Jonathan.

“Um, y’know there was one here the whole time, right?” Jonathan slides the other puck with his stick toward him.

Sidney glances down at the puck. “Oh! Uh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh!” he laughs deeply out loud. “Well, don’t need this!” He throws the puck behind him.

Patrick ducks down as the puck nearly hits his head.

“So, what are you guys planning to do?” Jonathan asks the skaters.

“We wanna do a three-on-three scrimmage, but we’re short three guys,” Toews explains.

Then right on cue, Nathan MacKinnon, in his Colorado Avalanche uniform, brakes next to Sid.

“SID!” he yells excitedly, throwing his gloves off.

“Nathan!” Sidney shouts back happily, flinging his gloves off as well. He high-fives him.

“Yeah!” He high-fives him back.

“Yeah!”

“Yeah!”

“Yeah!”

“Yeah!”

They give each other one last, huge high-five. “YEAH!”

All the other guys have flat looks on their faces.

“Alright, so we got four...that’s something.” Toews nods his head with his bottom lip sticking out.

“We need two more, man,” Patrick points out. “Where would we get two more guys?”

Toews is gawking at something beyond Jonathan. “John?”

Patrick faces his friend with confusion. “John, dude?”

“Yes, that is my designation; pleased to perceive that you obtained knowledge on it,” John Tavares remarks, properly braking next to Toews; he is wearing the New York Islanders’ practice jersey.

“Awesome!” Nathan exclaims. “Now we need one more guy!”

Jonathan looks behind his shoulder to see the benches. He spots Jonas Hiller, goalie of the Calgary Flames, hobbling onto the ice in his practice jersey. “We got one more guy.” He turns to face the others. “But he’s not a skater.”

“Hey, guys!” Jonas breaks next to Jonathan with an excited look.

“Why do you have to be a goalie?” Sidney yammers with a frown.

“Well, it’s a long story.” Jonas shrugs.

“Can you be a skater?” Nathan asks.

“Hm…” He looks up in deep thought. “I was a skater once upon a time, so I guess I could be a skater for now!” He looks back down at the others.

“Yay!” Sidney and Nathan high-five each other.

“I call Tazer man on my radical team!” Patrick pulls Toews closer to him by slinging his arm over his shoulder.

“Nathan is on mine!” Sidney hugs Nathan.

“John can be with us,” Toews says, smiling at John.

With a chuckle and a smirk, John skates closer to Toews and places his arm over his shoulder.

“And Hillsy's with us!” Sidney fist-bumps Jonas with his fist against his blocker. “And you can stick in your goalie gear,” he adds on quietly to him. “We don’t have any extra skater equipment.”

“Thanks,” Jonas whispers back to Sidney.

“I’ll be on Sid’s team,” Jonathan says, skating backwards toward Sidney. “So that means you guys have Pekka as your goalie.”

“Sounds gnarly to me!” Patrick gazes at his “teammates.” “Let’s go get ‘em, dudes!” He then skates away toward centre.

The hockey players get into their position: Sidney is going to take the faceoff on centre ice against Toews.

Toews leans over toward Sidney with his stick against his lap. “Who’s gonna do the puck drop?”

“Ummm…” Sidney darts his eyes in many directions. “Whoops.”

“Don’t fret, I’ll attend to it.” John skates over to the two; he places the puck in dead centre, in between the two. “On my mark, you guys may strive for the puck.” He skates back into his position.

Sidney and Jonathan both stare down at the puck.

“One…,” John’s voice is heard clearly.

Sidney clutches his stick against his lap.

“Two…”

Toews stares menacingly at his opponent.

“Commence!”

Sidney rapidly swings the stick onto the ice and pulls the puck into his possession. He skates past Toews and begins skating into his opponent’s territory.

“Sid!” Nathan shouts from the other side of the rink. “Over to me!”

Sidney glances at Patrick, who is guarding Jonas, and John, who is guarding Nathan. He then finds a gap behind Nathan that is far for John to cover. “Back!” he shouts; he then passes the puck toward that direction.

Nathan spins his stick around him, grabbing the puck from behind him. He then boards John out of his way while bringing the puck forward to a more comfortable position. He skates toward the net, seeing that Pekka had his full attention on him.

Nathan looks to the left, spotting Jonas skating up toward the gap around the left side of the net Pekka has behind him. He calculates that the length between them is too long for the puck to survive before one of the opponents take it away.

“Nathan!” Sidney shouts, begin chased down by Toews; he is coming in between him and Jonas.

Nathan back-hands it to Sidney, who does a one-timer toward the net for the sake of not getting rammed down.

The puck goes sailing toward the net, but does a huge curve, leaning widely toward the left.

Before the puck could pass the area of the net, Jonas whacks the puck aimlessly with the wide blade of his stick; with the deflection toward the right direction, the puck flies into the net.

“YEEEAAAAHHHH!!!” Sidney hops into the air and scoops Nathan into a hug.

Jonas skates joyfully over to the two and they welcome him into their celebration.

“Okay, that’s not fair-- He has a wider stick than ours!” Toews points out with a frown.

Sidney pulls out from his celebration and turns to him. “Don’t you worry, we’ll do another play!”

Before he could skate back toward the centre ice, a familiar beeping sound fills the air.

“What’s that sound?” Sidney asks with a furrowed eyebrows.

Jonathan brakes next to him. “It’s my intercom--Niemi’s callin’.” He stuffs his stick in between his left arm and side, shakes his blocker glove to the ground, and pulls up his left sleeve to reveal the watch-like item that is his intercom. He presses a button on it.

Antti’s face pops up in the cyan-coloured electronic screen with a teal hue and yellow outline to it. “Sidney, Jonathan, can you hear me?”

“Yes,” all the hockey players reply flatly.

“Oh!” Antti chuckles with a sweet smile. “You guys are all here! That’s wonderful you guys took my advice!”

“Why did you call us, Niemi?” Jonathan asks, wanting to get to the point.

“Right! Well, my wife and I are hosting a dinner party tonight in honour of this eight-month period of peace!”

“Ooo, yay, food!” Sidney claps his hands excitedly.

“Yes, there will be lots of food!” Antti comments on Sidney’s excitement. “The dinner will be at seven o’clock at my house, so if I were you guys, I would go dress out and get ready to come to San Jose!”

“So that means no more scrimmaging?” Toews says with a frown.

“Yes, if you don’t want to be late.” Antti’s head sways a bit as a form of nodding.

“Alright, thanks for telling us, Niemi! We’ll see you there!” Jonathan tells him.

“You are welcome! Good-bye, boys!” The intercom’s screen blinks black.

“You heard ‘im, guys-- Let’s get going.” Jonathan recollects his stick and blocker and skates away.

Everyone else begins skating toward the benches.

Toews pokes Sidney’s padded shoulder. “We’ll have a rematch soon,” he tells him seriously.

“You’re on!” Sidney nods his head cooly and skates toward the benches.

Notes