Epilogue "Are things always this slow in Tampa?"

* * *

Something smacked me. Something smacked me very hard. Muttering some choice expletives, I opened my eyes to find Janne standing beside my seat on the plane. "What?" I asked groggily.

"Wake up, Sleeping Beauty," Janne said in a singsong voice. "You’re the last one on the plane."

At that, I shot up into a standing position. "Am I really? Why didn’t anyone wake me up?" I demanded, grabbing my carry-on bag.

Janne grinned. "Everyone thought you looked so cute sleeping, Salo, that they all left you. But I got the short-straw and was sent to get you back." I glared at him, and his grin turned sheepish. "And because we couldn’t do anything without our star goaltender."

"All right," I conceded, following him out of the plane, to where the other guys were waiting. I gave them all glares. "I wonder what you would do if I was left on that plane and ended up somewhere in Japan?"

Ryan grinned. "We’d just play Jussi. Then we would play telephone tag trying to get you back, Tommy. And soon we’d probably lose interest and just put Jussi up as starting goaltender. We’ve got all the bases covered."

"Are you getting your intelligence from that mullet of yours?" I asked off-handedly, a grin on my face. Ryan’s face darkened, and he swatted at me, but I ducked, and he ended up popping Ethan Moreau in the chin.

Ethan rubbed his chin, and Ryan apologised quickly. "Ow, have you ever considered helping Georges with the fore-checking? That’s one punch Smytty."

Craig cleared his throat, and we all looked at him expectedly. "Once we get to the hotel, grab your hockey stuff and get to the Ice Palace, because we have the ice first before the game. Tommy, you’re starting in net, and I hope the rest did you good. We’ll go over the game plan and regular practice procedures at the IP. See you there."

"Is it just me, or is he beginning to sound more and more like a drill sergeant?" Eric asked, scratching his head.

Todd laughed. "With our standings in the playoffs, I think a drill sergeant is just what we need to get our rears out of the frying pan."

"And into the fire," I added, a grin on my face. "We’re going to be jumping from the frying pan into the fire. But that is the Edmonton Oiler way."

"Well said!" Steve praised. "Underdogs for life, but we’re going to kick some major ass in the playoffs, boys!"

"But first," Jason spoke up, now in Captain mode, "we need to get this win over Tampa Bay. Good news is, we haven’t lost there since the 92/93 season. Bad news, we could goof up and end that lucky little streak." We saluted our beloved Captain, and after we threw our stuff into our rooms at the hotel, we drove in separate vehicles (grouped by four) to the Ice Palace. It was only a few hours until we would play the NHL’s version of the Country club. But they could upset us, and I wasn’t going to let it happen.

I was a little on edge. We had had four penalties called against us, and only two went to the Lightning, which didn’t give us a powerplay, just four-on-four hockey. I had stopped all the shots so far, and now I was getting comfortable back in my net. Georges and Chris Dingman had gone at it just fifteen seconds into the game. But Chris could do squat against big Georges.

Dave Andreychuk came down the ice and was joined by Brad Richards, who had the puck. Richards shot the puck, and Andreychuk deflected it with his stick, and it found its way to the back of the net. I let out a frustrated sigh, as Eric ripped the puck out of the net, sending the piece of black rubber the length of the ice.

"Ah hell," I muttered, settling myself back in the net. This wasn’t exactly how I wanted to come back after sitting out two games. But what could I do? Basically, I could do nothing, so I just focused on the rest of the game, and the period ended with a 1-0 lead for the Lightning.

Jochen rubbed my back as we talked about what had happened in the period. We had gotten some pretty good chances, but Khabibulin was sharp. "We have to make sure we don’t take any stupid penalties," Jason said, adjusting the strap on his helmet. "Our PK is doing great, but there’s always the chance they’ll double up on us on the PP."

"Call me crazy—" Ryan began.

"Crazy," the guys, plus Jussi and myself, chorused.

Ryan glared at them. "As I was saying, call me crazy, but I have a funny feeling about the officiating tonight. Bill McCreary may be the best in the league, but it’s just this weird feeling I have."

Eric raised an eyebrow. "You mean like the same feeling you got when we watched the women’s Olympic gold-medal game against the US, with those 13 penalties?" Ryan nodded. "Well, I guess we’ll just have to be careful." He turned to me. "And you’ve got to be extremely sharp, Tommy. They already scored once on the PP and—"

"They could do it again, I got ya," I finished, nodding. The loud buzzer sounded, signalling the end of the first intermission. "And away we go…"

Ryan flew down the ice with Steve Staios and Mike Comrie over the blue line. After creating a three on two, Ryan dumped the puck (as far as I could see) to Steve, who rifled it over Khabibulin’s glove, and we had tied it up. The shots, almost immediately, came at me, but I kept them out, keeping this a tied game.

Just five minutes and 9 seconds later, Todd deflected a hard shot by Janne, and we were now up 2-1. I looked over to our bench, and I could see Jussi’s face light up. It was five minutes after the goal had been scored did they announce it. The same thing happened with Steve’s goal. Jochen skated over to me as I muttered, "are things always this slow in Tampa?" and hit the goalpost with my stick.

He laughed, which startled me. "Yeah, I know what you mean. Now they’re changing the goal to Toddy, not to Janne. Well, there’s my face-off." I shook my head ruefully as Jochen went to the face-off circle against Andreychuk.

We were once again short-handed, and these penalty calls were getting on my nerves. Ethan had been called for tripping, but strangely enough, no one was called when Alexneev hauled down Tom Poti. Tam Boyle grabbed at Jochen, who received a soft punch to the face, and then popped Boyle one. This ultimately resulted in the two of them getting into a huge fight, with Boyle taking Jochen down to the ice. Both received fighting majors.

This was seriously pissing me off, since Boyle had thrown the first punch. I had no time to gripe about it as Vaclav Prospal ripped one by me, and the game was now tied. To say this game wasn’t going our way would be an understatement. This was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt when Mike Grier was given a penalty for elbowing just two minutes after Jochen and Tam’s penalties. Mike G had just been hauled down by our blue-line, and no call had been made. Were we back at the Olympics?

By the time the period closed, Ryan, Janne, Jochen and Eric came over to my net. "I think your funny feeling may have been right," Jochen said, looking at Ryan. "Both Tom and Mike got pulled down, and there was no call. Even the linesmen should have seen that."

"Maybe they could see no Tampa Bay wrong," Ryan muttered.

"Did the figure skating judges become NHL referees?" Janne asked, undoing the strap on his helmet. "They had like seven straight powerplays."

Eric shook his head. "I guess the idea of avoiding unnecessary penalties is now out the window. I can’t say that it’s the officiating. McCreary is one of the best in the league, not to mention Rob Martel, and the linesmen Anthony Sericolo and Jean Morin. But maybe Ryan’s on to something."

"We can’t make any assumptions now," I said, as the five of us skated over to the entrance to our dressing room. "Especially ones about officiating. To say that it’s not going our way is an understatement, but we have to be the better team tonight, penalisation or not." The other four nodded their agreement, as we stepped into the dressing room, and faced a livid Craig MacTavish, who was livid with both the stupid penalties we got, and the almost one-sided officiating.

Determined to make sure that the penalties wouldn’t ruin this game, we came out of the gate with amazing pressure on Khabibulin. Ethan grabbed a clearing pass by Eric in the neutral zone, and skated away on a breakaway. The Tampa crowd didn’t like this, and they disliked it even more when Ethan scored short-handed. Steve Staios had gotten a penalty 1:54 into the third, and that call was definitely questionable.

We kept the pressure on Nikolai Khabibulin, but they also had their chances on me, but I slammed the door shut. Many penalties followed, and of course, most of them went to our team. I was beginning to think something was up with the officiating. It was like the women’s medal game, as Ryan said.

"This is ridiculous," I said to Tom as the play had been stopped. "How one sided can a game get?"

"Don’t jinx us," Tom warned. "I wouldn’t be surprised if we got the last penalty of the game. Do you think the referee’s been bought off?"

I game him a funny look. "I don’t think so. I don’t think that would ever happen. The Olympics, yes, I can see it, but not here in the NHL. I guess this just isn’t our night in the way of not getting penalties." McCreary soon signalled to Tom that the play was starting, and he got in his position, guarding Cullimore.

At 16: 55, Andreychuk was called on a controversial penalty, as he gave a high stick to Ethan Moreau. Dave claimed the puck hit Ethan, and not his stick. Nevertheless, he was given the penalty, not to mention a game misconduct. "At last," I said, shaking my head, "we got a freaking power play."

As always, it was short-lived, because when there was just five seconds left (this call still bugged me), Janne was called for hooking. I saw no point in calling the penalty, as what good would it do when we were in Lightning territory? With just five damn seconds left? "What the hell good would this do, dumbass?!" Janne demanded, as he skated angrily to the penalty box. "They’re not going to win, if that’s your motive!"

I had to agree with him on that. The game finally ended, and we had won. Our second straight victory on the road, and we earned it. In the end, I had faced 37 shots, and made 35 saves, making my record 22-24-9. "That has got to be the closest, if not the most one-sided game I’ve ever played," I said, as we entered the dressing room.

"I hope this isn’t a Florida thing when we play the Panthers tomorrow," Janne griped, taking off his skates. "Tell me, what is the point of giving a freaking penalty with five seconds left in the game?!"

Jussi put an arm around Janne’s shoulders, and patted him on the shoulder. "Well, think of it this way," Jussi began, "at least it’ll show you only served five seconds on a penalty. That’ll be a good thing. Sort of…"

The platinum haired Finn looked up at his boyfriend and grinned. "Thanks for the cheering up, kiddo."

"Is it just me, or was everything extremely slow in Tampa?" I asked, taking off my huge shoulder pads. "It took them five minutes to announce the goal that we originally thought was Janne’s, then took another three minutes to announce that it was Toddy’s."

"I think it’s the over-abundance of the elderly," Steve joked. "That has got to be it. I can’t think of another way for taking so long to announce a goal."

Ryan shrugged. "Whatever it is, at least we proved we can handle such ridiculous officiating. I hope it doesn’t happen again."

"Maybe it’s a Canadian team thing," Jochen suggested. "It happened to the Canadian women, maybe it’ll also hit Canadian NHL teams?"

I made frustrated noise, causing Jochen to raise an eyebrow. "I hope not," I muttered. "If it does, I think I’ll retire early." The guys voiced their agreement, and Jochen soon elbowed me in the side. "Yeah?"

He leaned in close. "Do you want to go for something to eat after we clear out of here? We haven’t gone on an official date yet."

I blushed, and nodded. "Sounds great." After we had gotten dressed in our street clothes, we bid the guys farewell, and went to Jochen’s rental car. In taking the car, we also effectively left Todd and Steve without transportation.

** Jochen **

My face still stung a little from my fight with Tam Boyle. The guy may have been shorter than me, but damn, could he snap a bunch. Not to mention the punches he landed when he pulled me to the ice. Tommy, as we sat down at a small table in the Café, put his hand on my face. "Does it still hurt?" he asked.

"A little," I admitted, taking the crescent shaped ice from the glass of water our waitress had brought seconds after we were seated. "But I’ve handled worse, so I’ll be good to go for our game against the Panthers."

Tommy smiled. "Good to know." He looked up at the stars, and smiled. "That game was unbelievably one sided. I was so pissed off that neither of the referees saw Tom or Mike get hauled down."

I shook my head, sharing in his disgust, and ran a hand through his short blond hair. "What matters is that we won. I say we forget about the game, and focus on this date. It wouldn’t be a date if we talked about the game all night long. That would be a business-influenced thing."

He laughed, and nodded his agreement. "You know, I never thought I’d be sitting out here, on a beautiful night, with you, on a date. It was just something I wanted to happen, but I figured never would."

"Well, it wouldn’t have, if you had decided not to tell me after the Nashville game," I pointed out. "I had a dream a while back, before the Nashville game. It was about you and me. We were at a restaurant, and it was a date. We talked about all sorts of things, which, by the way, I can’t remember for the life of me, and then we kissed. THEN, Eric woke me up by plugging my nose."

Tommy’s face had gone from blushing, to surprise, and then he broke out into laughter upon hearing the last bit of my story. "Well, it’s going somewhat like your dream…" He drifted off, and looked at me. "What would happen if it ended like your dream?"

"Well, it would—" I didn’t get to finish as Tommy leaned across the table and kissed me deeply. I held the kiss for a while longer, and when it broke, my face turned red. "What was that for? Not that I’m complaining or anything."

The blond haired Swede across from me smiled. "I just wanted your dream to come true."

It sounded so corny, but at the same time, so sweet. Just as I kissed him gently on the lips, a camera flash went off, scaring the living daylights out of Tommy and myself. "What was that?" I asked, rubbing my eyes.

Tommy’s eyes narrowed, and he looked to where the flash had come from, finding Sasha smiling guiltily. "You!"

"Hiya," Sasha greeted sheepishly. "Don’t worry, this isn’t going into the paper. I have a little bit more credibility than that."

"Come back here!" Tommy ordered, as he leaped out of his seat and began to run after Sasha, who took off as soon as she saw the look in Tommy’s eyes. I watched this all amusedly, one of my arms dangling over the back of the chair.

I looked over to the café across the street, and smiled. Jussi and Janne were having a little date of their own. I had to admit: they did look good together, and Jussi would be just the person to shut Janne’s big mouth. "And to think, none of this would have happened if Tommy didn’t find the words…"