“Tibbets shut the hell up!” AJ yells across the locker room in the Pittsburgh after the game as the reporters along with the rest of the players turn to look at him.
“AJ calm down,” Kevin says to him.
AJ holds his arms across his chest and stares daggers at Tibbets.
To say Tibbets was on AJ’s last nerves was an under statement. Now the event that led up to AJ’s outburst was the following. Tibbets decided to have an outburst at Philadelphia Inquire reporter Tim Panaccio. Tim asked him when he had gotten the pass to Justin Williams if he had looked for Williams or if he had blindly thrown it to the circle. In reply Tibbets asked him had he ever played hockey? Had he ever watched him play hockey? Then he asked for his credentials and when Tim produced them said, “Tim. Well Tim get out of here,” cutting the interview short. After that ended the yell of “Got any more stupid questions, Tim?" as Tibbetts shouted across the room as Panaccio was interviewing another player. "It wasn't a stupid question, Billy," Panaccio replied in a calm tone. "Just because you decided to give a bad answer doesn't make it a bad question." "What's the matter?" Tibbetts said, noticing that all eyes were on them. "Are you feeling a little uncomfortable, Tim?"
That’s when AJ blew. Kevin could see the melt down happening before his own eyes. It pissed AJ off enough that Fedoruk was sent down, but then to have someone like Tibbets come to take his place just topped it off. Hell by now Kevin didn’t like him that much either. He had been taking stupid penalties and a player knew to give the press respect. No one challenged his or her credentials without a good reason to and even then it was not you place to. The fact that Pittsburgh reporters along with Penguin players were claiming that Tibbets had left threats against his former teammates on cell phone was bad enough. Yeah it was official Kevin had lost all respect for Clarke. They had given up a hard working player like Mandy for a rapist with a record. Kevin was actually kinda glad when Manderville scored…hell it shoved that back in Clarke’s face.
“I hate that man,” AJ says to Brian Littrell looking at Tibbets across the ice.
Brian looks at him and shrugs, “He’s on the team man. You can’t let it get to you like that.”
“He’s a poor excuse for a human being. Why the hell is he on the power play while Williams and Nick have worked all year to get there and still haven’t got it. Pisses me off.”
Brian shrugs again, “Don’t let this ruin your game AJ…please. You’re our leading scorer and with Roenick and Dopita out now we need you more then ever.”
“Primeau is coming back tonight for the Leafs game right?”
Brian nods.
“How you doing?”
“I’m getting re-evaluated on Tuesday then I’ll go from there.”
AJ shakes his head, “We need you man.”
“I dunno…Boosh isn’t doing that bad. It’s not his fault about this draught. I mean those goals that beat him yesterday probably would have beat me too.”
“I dunno,” AJ says, “He’s become the whipping boy for some of the fans now. Every loss is his fault now. It’s gonna get to him eventually.”
“Our defense is piss poor right now,” Brian sighs, “I was talking to JR about it. Rico has stepped it up and McGillis is trying and Kevin is always working hard, but we need help back there.”
AJ nods, “We need St. Jacques back up here.”
Brian nods, “I bet you fifty that Tibbets won’t be here next year.”
“He better not,” AJ puffs.
“Boston is four points ahead of us you know,” Brian sighs.
AJ shrugs, “I’d like to finish first, but we’re still in the playoffs. That’s all that really matters.”
Brian nods, “You think we can go all the way?”
AJ shrugs, “I dunno with the way we have been playing lately. We really need to come together. I don’t want us to end up like the team did last year.”
“Please don’t remind me,” Brian sighs, “8-0…I was pitiful.”
“Make up for it this year.”
“Oh trust me I will,” Brian says, “Trust me about that.”
“Tibbets you ass!” AJ yells from the bench as Tibbets is called for a four-minute penalty.
Kevin was screaming down the ice to Tibbets before focusing his attention on Barber and yelling at him to control Tibbets.
The game was tied 1-1 early in the first with only seconds separating the two goals for either team. But as of now the Leafs had a man advantage for four minutes courtesy of Tibbets who had decided he would go up and sucker punch McCabe across the face before skating up to him again and grabbing him in the face with his gloved hand. If you were a professional you DID NOT make mistakes like that. Primeau had said it was in defense of him for the hit McCabe had put on him. Kevin hated it either way.
It was Primeau’s first game back after two missed games and he had gotten the Flyer goal off an assist from Fedetenko. What Nick saw going on during the whole first period were a series of changes of power plays between the two teams. The games before the refs didn’t call anything, now they called it all. Nothing came from them though for either team and Nick was just hoping AJ wasn’t going to go off on Tibbets in the locker room when they went back into it for the break between the first and the second.
“Oh get your ass up,” AJ says looking over at Tie Domi lying on the ice as Kevin skates over and begins to push him away from Tie, “The ass gets a little tap with the stick from me and he goes down like he was shot. Oh is he hurt. Is he hurt,” AJ says as Domi skates over to his bench hunched over.
“AJ cut it out,” Kevin says as the two of them skate over to the penalty box and AJ steps inside.
“Pisses me off,” AJ says.
“We’ll get it back,” Kevin says skating back to his position on the ice as the Leafs head to another power play.
Nick’s steps on the ice with Williams and Marty Murray for a change for the penalty kill with Kevin and Therein in the back on defense. The face off from the point was clearly won, by Kevin who slid it around to Williams who intern shot it down at the other end of the ice. Then the Leafs had a break down. The defense didn’t make it back to their ice in time and Nick took off racing down to the other end of the ice as their goalie Schwab decided to play the puck. Goalies should never be puck handlers. As Schwab went to shoot it around the side boards Nick came speeding up behind him knocking the puck off his stick and skating around over to the now empty net. Schwab made a diving effort as his defense tried to cover up the mistake, but Nick found the empty net bringing the score to 2-1. The crowd erupted into cheers as Nick skated over and hugged his teammates.
At 8:21 Primeau drew a double minor for high sticking McCabe seconds after AJ had gotten out of the penalty box. The four-minute Leaf power play was killed off though and as the time expired there was a fight breaking out in front of the Flyers bench between Primeau, Corson and several other players. After that there was a fight between Marty Murray and Farkas behind Boucher as AJ skated over to try and help Murray. Shortly after that though Primeau headed down the ice in between a change with AJ and scored his second goal of the night. The score was 3-1. The second period ended with the Flyers pressuring Schwab and Domi complaining to the officials about whatever he always complained about.
The third was a continuation of the second period with a highlight of McAllister creaming Green into the boards with his head down. Green went down and he stayed down after the hit too. McAllister was called on a penalty for it though for the simple reason that the ref had been giving some sympathy to Green. It didn’t help the Leafs though. Through the period Domi took another over exaggerated fall and got Weinrich called for a penalty. It didn’t help the Leafs though as they made a last effort and pulled their goalie with fifty seconds left on the clock. McGillis found the empty net though and the game ended with a score of 4-1. Kevin got his win of course Boucher needed it more.
“I was a very stupid child in grade school you know that?” AJ says to Nick as the Flyers begin to practice Tuesday for their game against the rangers in New York the following night.
“What do you mean?” Nick asks.
“I dunno that whole spelling bee shit,” AJ says, “Yeah it’s just basically a way for a kid to get publicly humiliated.”
Nick laughs slightly and looks at him.
“Well it is,” he says adjusting his helmet slightly.
“Is this another AJ theory,” Nick asks.
“Oh hell yeah,” AJ says, “I mean I was always the dumb kid in class. Hockey was the only thing I was ever good at. Well hockey and acting.”
“Of course,” Nick says.
“Of course,” AJ repeats, “And that whole plural bullshit when you were younger. Blah.”
“Complaining again?” Boucher asks skating over and grabbing a water bottle on the bench.
“Do I ever not complain?” AJ asks.
“No,” Boosh says lifting his mask above his head and squirting some of the water into his mouth.
“I’m just telling Nick about how I was never a good student.”
“Oh those stories,” Boosh sighs.
“As I was saying,” AJ says, “That whole plural thing…yeah never got that. Alex how do you say the plural for ox?” he says, “I dunno. Ok Ervin how do you get the plural for ox? The plural for ox is oxen. As is the farmer had a heard of oxen,” AJ says, “Ok Alex then how would you say the plural for box? Boxen,” AJ says shaking his head, “As in a I bought a boxen of cookies.”
Nick stares at AJ and shakes his head laughing, “You’re an idiot.”
“Oh I know that,” AJ says, “but then I just used to like to freak out my teachers…especially my English teacher at that age. I bought a whole boxen of donuts and gave them to the moosen who killed an oxen in the fieldens,” AJ smiles, “It was great. Then she’d be like, ‘Alex what are you doing speaking German?’ and I’d go, ‘German. Jermaine. Jermaine Jackson. Jackson Five. TITO!” AJ laughs, “Freaked the hell out of her.”
Nick stares at him and starts laughing as Boosh shakes his head smiling and pulling his goalie mask back down.
“You are a head case AJ,” Boosh says skating off.
“Hey look whose talking,” AJ yells after him smiling.
“Brian coming back soon?” Nick asks him.
AJ shrugs, “His ankle sprain is a lot worse then they thought. I dunno. Boosh is finding his rhythm I can tell. To be honest…I love Boosh like a brother you know that…but every season so far the Flyers have had a goalie issue before the play offs. I mean they are both amazing goaltenders, but we need one guy. I was kinda hoping Boosh wouldn’t find his rhythm again. Now we gotta see who we are gonna go with to the playoffs. Boucher has carried us farther then Brian especially after Brian froze up last year, but Brian has a stronger head in the game.”
Nick shrugs, “We’ll see huh?”
“Yeah,” AJ says, “I hope Neil gets to play though. Forty some call ups and no ice time. Gotta love his work ethic though. NEIL WE LOVE YOU!” he yells down the ice to Neil Little as Neil shakes his head at him.
“No Tibbets comments?” Nick says.
AJ looks at him and smiles, “Kevin says if I don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all…*cough*jackass*cough*.”
Nick looks at him and smiles brightly before shaking his head, “Where would this team be without you AJ?”
“Boring,” AJ says, “very very boring.”
“Did they just call him Jason Williams?” AJ asks Kevin as Justin skates around to hug his linemates after scoring the first goal of the game for the Flyers.
“I dunn…yeah yeah they did,” Kevin says, “I hate ESPN you know that. They’re airing this game tonight. They are so biased to the Rangers. I bet you they didn’t even speak up for that goal by Willy.”
“I just hate anything to do with the Rangers period,” AJ shrugs, “brought up that way.”
Kevin looks at him and shakes his head, “It’s Boosh’s best friend on there though.”
“Berard? Yeah, but he’s Boosh’s friend not mine,” AJ says.
“I’d be screaming at Poti if he was my defensemen,” Kevin says shaking his head, “He just watched Willy skate up and take not one, but two shots.”
“Hey now it’s better for us,” AJ says.
“True,” Kevin says as the two of them head out onto the ice for a line change.
By the time they got back to the bench though it was another story. AJ was once again flipping out because Tibbets had taken another bad penalty yet again that could have been avoided. Luckily the Rangers didn’t score thanks to some saves by Boucher. The goalie for the Rangers was now Blackburn instead of Richter who had a skull factor from a previous game. Blackburn was only eighteen and the starter for the Rangers now…the falling Rangers. The captain of the team had made a promise that they would win the game to the fans, but the Flyers were trying everything to prevent that and kept the score 1-0 by the end of the first.
During the second period the physical play picked up, except in this game, unlike the Leafs game, it was not called at all. Other then a few good shots by the Lindros line, which Boucher made some good saves on, the Rangers were calming down. At 17:22 Berard was called for elbowing Williams on the open ice sending him crashing to the ice knocking his helmet off. It was a questionable call because Berard’s elbow was not up. If anything it would have been a roughing call, but the Flyers decided to capitalize on the Rangers misfortune by scoring their second of the night thanks to Desjardins. He fired a slap shot which was going wide of the net, until it hit the body of Dave Karpa and changed direction heading into the net past Blackburn. It was the only goal of the second and the Flyers were now up 2-0.
During the third though the team got sloppy. Bure got a pass from Barnaby and tried to fire a blast at net. The puck rolled however and he only got part of it firing a knuckler instead and fooling Boucher. The Rangers would have tied it up too if Boucher hadn’t come up with a series of brilliant saves. At 10:09 though LeClaire headed down the ice coming out of the penalty box along with Mark Recchi. Recchi let a shot go and LeClaire, out muscling Berard, put the rebound from the Blackburn save into the net increasing their lead 3-1. The lead was almost cut though if it wasn’t for Marty Murray stealing the puck from the Ranger players who had a wide open net in front of them as Boucher feel down. The Flyers increased their lead to 4-1 though as LeClaire scored another goal, but it was called back stating that he had intentionally knocked it into the net with his hand. Kevin argued the play until his teammates had to pull him away from the official. As time wound down Theo Fleury fell to the ice flailing at Flyer players and eventually ten players were gathered around arguing. Gagne and Fleury were the only ones to be called on penalties though. The Rangers capitalized off the four on four though as Leetch scored a goal on a deflection. With 1:44 to go Williams and Nedved got into it a bit and both were called for roughing. AJ of course was the one cheering him on. Blackburn was pulled as the Rangers headed towards the Flyer net and Primeau got the puck firing it and hitting the right post. He would have another chance though and this time he would make the empty net goal with 37.7 seconds left.
The team was going on a five game unbeaten streak with three wins and two ties. The team was coming together again and Boucher was getting on a roll with his twelfth consecutive start. The next night they would be playing the Hurricanes. Neil Little would get his first NHL game under his belt with a start after sitting forty some games as a backup goalie.
