“Hey, we’re in luck. The door is open,” Zach said. The bus ride to the Harrington Arena had taken half an hour. I hadn’t even considered that the arena might be locked up. We were lucky. According to a flyer on the door, there was a Junior B hockey camp going on.
“Yeah. At least we can get in,” I said.
“More importantly, they’ll be using the Zamboni,” Zach said.
We walked around to where the Zamboni was parked, but no one was there. Down the hall was a maintenance room where you could get your skates sharpened. Inside, a man sat at an old wooden table drinking coffee and reading the paper. His hair was silver, and his blue overalls had the name Bill embroidered on the pocket.
“Dressing rooms are on the other side,” he said without even looking up.
“Uh, thanks,” I said. “But we’re not here for the camp.”
He put down his coffee and paper.
Might as well get right down to it. I never was any good at small talk.
“We were wondering if we could have some… well…um…snow.” I let the words hang in the air.
“Snow.” It was more a statement than a question.
“Yeah, you know, from the Zamboni.”
“This some kind of joke?”
“No, sir. It’s actually really important.”
“Important to have snow from a Zamboni.”
“It’s hard to explain.”
He got up. “Sorry, it’s against the rules.” He walked out before I could even think of something to say to convince him.
This was too much. First we found snow in summer, and then we couldn’t have any.
Zach and I walked back out to the rink, stood at the boards and watched the Zamboni clear the ice. I couldn’t believe we had come this close, only to fail.
“You guys here for the hockey camp?” one of the coaches called out to us as he skated over. “Or are you Chiefs fans?”
“No, not hockey camp. But we are big fans,” Zach said. “My dad and I come to a lot of the Chiefs’ hockey games. Do you think you’re going to take the Sutherland Cup this year?”
The coach folded his arms and tilted his head. “Hard to say. Lots of competition. If this hockey camp is any indication, though, then we’ve got the talent. No doubt about it.” He sighed. “But last year’s heartbreaker in the finals got to us. Game seven and a tied score. Thirty-four seconds left in regulation play and a freak rebound off our guy’s skate puts it in the net for them.”
I sucked in my breath. That was a lousy way to go out.
“They’ll bounce back this year,” I said, trying to sound more optimistic than I felt. After all, I wasn’t exactly having a good run of luck lately myself.
“You know, it’s funny,” the coach said. “A team can be the strongest, the fastest, the most talented, but if they don’t believe they can win, they won’t. It’s that simple. I’ve seen it happen over and over again. Thing is, that’s two years in a row we’ve lost in game seven with some bad luck. The Chiefs think they’re jinxed.”
The Zamboni had finished and was heading out the exit. Zach and I couldn’t help groaning when we saw Bill shovel perfectly good, frozen, cold snow into a grate in the arena floor.
“We better get going, Wes,” Zach said. “The bus to Six Roads leaves in about eight minutes.”
“You guys are from Six Roads?”
“Yeah,” I said as we turned to go.
The coach stopped me. “Isn’t that where that guy found the lucky arrowhead?”
“Sure. Why?”
The coach rubbed his chin with this hand. “I know this sounds crazy, but that might be just what the team needs.”
“An old arrowhead?”
“Yeah, like a lucky charm.”
“I don’t think it really is lucky.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“All that matters is that the team thinks it’s lucky. I could talk Bill into burying it at center ice like they did with that loonie at the Winter Olympics.”
“Good luck talking Bill into anything,” Zach muttered under his breath.
“Tell you what, Coach,” I said, trying to keep the excitement out of my voice. “If you can get Bill to let us have some snow from the Zamboni, we’ll get you that lucky arrowhead.”
“Snow from the Zamboni?”
I sighed. “It’s a long story. Do we have a deal?”
The coach smiled and held out his hand. “Deal. Sutherland Cup, here we come!”