Tampa, Florida					Monday, September 06, 2010

Heeeerrrrrrrrrrr’s Johnnnny!
Tuesday, October 4, 2005
TAMPA—It’s showtime for John Gillies Mark Grahame. And in so many ways. The wait is over. Shadows time is over. Next best is over. Waiting for the injury or continued lousing up is over. YOU DA MAN! Scream as Tiger’s tee ball takes off, no matter the direction. These are the best of times for Johnny Grahame, as his Tampa Bay Lightning teammates call him. Almost all are happy for him. Oh, Sean Burke is a position competitor, and a tough one, but it is John Grahame who Lightning Coach John Tortorella has declared at the start of this tantalizing season of 2005-06 to take over the lead role in the defense of the Stanley Cup. Call it the opportunity of his adult life, his hockey life. So it is Showtime for Johnny Grahame, an American goalie of ability and marketability. I mean, he is in a position all in sports, heck, in any competition seek. It’s one of those opportunity knocks deals, and he declares himself ready, as an athlete and as a man in his prime. I mean, fellas. look at Johnny Graham’s admired circumstances. After doing his time in preparation, being groomed by Tortorella , wise key aide Craig Ramsay and goalie coach-tutor Jeff Reese, he is anointed to take over the position the sometimes stoical but simply superb tender Nikolai Khabibulin filled so long and so well. Khabibulin followed the money to Chicago and the Blackhawks there. Stars Vincent Lecavalier and Martin St. Louis did not. Taking less dough and the romance they have here with Tampa and their club and teammates to work with talent man Jay Feaster and hang here. I mean, it’s not that they don’t do well with the Tampa club, but, they could have made more, Feaster said, praising their loyalty, not commonplace in pro sports, though the holding over of individual champions on championship teams is a big part of it all. We all know that. Yes, Tortorella thought Khabibulin was “an elite goalie,’’ but he did not jump off the Skyway bridge, saying, he likes what is here—Grahame and Burke. So fellas, our idol in the wings is getting his chances, in hockey and in life. Aside from being the goalie on the Stanley Cup championship team and named to help defend it in-goal as long as he can, this young fellow born in Denver, educated in hockey and other matters at this upstate Michigan University of 5,000, beautifully located Superior State, well, he just turned 30, a go-get-‘em age. He’s a bachelor who has a home on the water on South Tampa Bay, has a boat for fishing, for scuba-diving, for spear-fishing, for just cruising, all of which he does well. He is, ladies, single. And now that his flip-flop days are behind him, he dresses up well. At the Chamber of Commerce noon deal at the St, Pete Times	Forum to meet the Lightning fans, he wore a lightweight brown fitted suit, his well-conditioned 6-2 foot, 212-pound frame filling it well. Matching his full head of golden hair, and was as cordial anyone could want. Some say that was not always so. Don’t know He is gregarious, likes to be with his teammates, on and off the court, is good in the locker room. A previous piece about him said he could be scruffy and difficult and quoted Tortorella as messing up off the ice a couple of times but nothing serious. Coach Ramsay said, "Johnny is a bit of a free spirit but when it is time to work, he works as hard as anyone." Grahame says after the game he’s no choir boy, but he’s no rogue either. Fine. Now, of this role, this opportunity, "I’ve been in hockey a long time. I have paid my dues, from the great college lessons learned and now in professional hockey. I learned plenty from Khabibulin. I perhaps play the puck more than he did. I am big and fill up the net.” "I begin this new role with great hope and confidence. We know they will all want to beat Tampa—the champs. They’ll come after us. Good. Will make us better.” "Me? My deal is to follow the puck at all times and as they come at me to follow it while sizing up the players coming and what they may attempt to do. These new rules make it tougher on goalies. I know that. The attacking team will come quicker and from all directions. I can’t go behind the net, which I liked to do. We’ll adjust," said Graham. "Goals? I don’t care about the score. A 10-9 finish in our behalf is as good as 10—0, Lightning. I am not interested in my statistics. Only a win for my team, the Lightning. And by the way, it’s a good team again," Grahame said. Could he play the full season? Never has. "Absolutely." Dad and mom proud? "Sure, he’s an old goalie, you know.” Yes, with Boston in 1977-78, Johnny’s NHL team before he came to Tampa to stay in 2002. He has had a cadre of fans in Tampa who have lobbied for him from the start right along, notably after his fine, fine performance in game five of the Cup playoffs last May 2. It was his first Stanley Cup shot. He made 46 saves of 48 shots in the longest game in National Hockey League history: 111.12 minutes. Forty six saves are the second most in NHL history. "Everybody wants a shot," said this man with the genes of a Grahame Scottish Fighting Clan (all were), "now I got mine. When it’s your turn, it’s your turn." Oh, that "Gillies" name he has, "I was named after the family but my mother, Charlotte, was afraid I’d be called `Junior,’ so she stuck another old family name, `Gillies,’ in there.” Ladies might like it, John, boy. ##
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