Travis had never felt so young and insignificant in all his life. He had gone to the hotel payphones and, with two quarters, made two calls. The first was to the Hockey Hall of Fame, the second to the police.

“Two men are going to steal the Stanley Cup,” he’d said, wishing his voice didn’t sound so young.

“Is that right?” a man at the Hall of Fame had said.

“Yes.”

“Well, we watch it pretty closely,” the man said. “What’s your name, son?”

He couldn’t give it. The last thing Travis wanted was the police and the Hall of Fame security people racing to the hotel to talk to Muck about what a Screech Owl knew about some plot to steal the Stanley Cup. That would be the last straw for Muck. He might pull the entire team out of the Little Stanley Cup. And Travis, as captain, would never be forgiven by his teammates for such a thing. So far, he hadn’t even told Nish what he knew–or at least suspected. Nish could never keep his mouth shut, and Travis didn’t want the whole team knowing. Not until he’d figured out what to do.

“They really are!” Travis insisted. He knew he sounded like a silly fool. “I heard them plotting to do it.”

“Yes,” the man said. He sounded bored, as if he handled several such calls a day. “Well, if we don’t know who you are, then we don’t know whether to believe you, do we?”

Travis had hung up. Both times. His call to the police was almost exactly the same. Both were utter failures. They thought he was a kid pulling a prank.

Travis gave up. If the Stanley Cup was stolen, so be it–he had tried his best. At least he told himself it was his best.

But he knew it wasn’t.

To no one’s surprise, Muck cancelled the trip to the Leafs game that night. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity lost because three of the team got caught shoplifting. There were bad feelings all round. Most were angry with the three boys for costing them a chance to see a real NHL game at Maple Leaf Gardens. Travis was angry with Andy Higgins, even though he had no proof that Andy had been involved or had put the three up to stealing. He just knew Andy was in there somewhere.

Muck put a 9:30 curfew on the team and did room checks to make sure everyone was where they should be and ready for bed. With Data now back home, Travis moved over into the other bed with Willie so Nish and his injured ankle could have a bed to themselves.

At 8:00 a.m. the Screech Owls were scheduled to play the Muskoka Wildlife–an all-star team made up of players from the three towns in the Ontario resort area–and the winner of the game would have an outside chance of making the final. It all depended on what happened in the Toronto Towers’ next game against the Sudbury Nickel Belts, a team both the Owls and Towers had beaten several times. If somehow Sudbury could beat the Towers, then the Owls would still have an outside chance.

Nish said his ankle was feeling much better. He used only one crutch to go down for breakfast, and by the time they got to the arena he was claiming he was good enough to play.

Muck didn’t think so. But he was three defencemen short, with Nish’s ankle and Data and Willie sent home. Gordie Griffth had already been told to play defence, with Liz moving over to centre the second line and Travis double-shifted to cover the shortage at left wing. Muck said Nish could go out for the warm-up, but he wouldn’t make any decision until they were ready to start the game.

Travis felt great. His legs were back. He hit the crossbar with his very first warm-up shot. His skates were sharp and he had no sense of them being on his feet–the best possible feeling for a good skater. He was sure he was finally going to have a good game and glad that he would be getting extra ice time.

Nish tried, but couldn’t do it. He could barely take his corners.

“Not this game,” Muck told him. “You’d better get undressed.”

“Can’t I just sit on the bench?” Nish asked.

Muck stared at him, then nodded. Nish would at least make it look as if the Screech Owls had enough players.

The Muskoka Wildlife were good. They had excellent skaters, good shooters, and big players. Travis and some of the other Owls found them intimidating just to watch in the warm-up, but Muck said something just before the face-off that made them think they might have a chance.

He called them all around the bench while the Wildlife were down in their own end going through their team yell.

“All-star teams are rarely good teams,” Muck said, seeming to contradict himself. “You put three stars together, you don’t necessarily have a line. You have a situation where everyone is chasing glory, you won’t have anyone chasing the puck. Understand?”

They all shouted that they did, but Travis wasn’t so sure any of them followed Muck when he talked this way. He knew the reason his line worked was because Dmitri had the speed, Derek could make the passes, and he, Travis, could come up with the puck. A line of three Dmitris might look sensational, but who was going to dig out the puck for them?

Five minutes into the game, the Muskoka Wildlife were up 2–0 on the Screech Owls. Muck’s little speech was starting to ring a bit hollow, but he wasn’t letting up. “Two goals on two individual rushes,” he told them. “You stop the individual, you stop this whole team.”

Muck changed the game plan so that there were two Screech Owls going in to forecheck instead of the Owls’ usual plan of having one go in and the other two forwards holding back. Muck’s hunch was that the Wildlife would be weakest on passing because each all-star player would always be trying to make the big play.

He was right. The first time Travis and Dmitri pressed in on a defender, he tried to step around them. He got past Dmitri, but Travis took the body, forcing the defenceman to panic and dump the puck out blind. Derek snared it at the blueline with his glove, dropped the puck, and hit Dmitri as he circled the Muskoka net. Dmitri waited for the goaltender to make his move–and he did, going down–and then roofed a forehand into the top of the net. The Owls were back in the game.

Not long into the second period “Cherry” Johanssen hit Liz Moscovitz with a breakaway pass and Liz was home free from centre ice in, the Owls all standing at the bench, petrified she would blow it. Liz had speed, but bad luck in scoring. “Stone hands,” she said herself. But this time it seemed she had Dmitri’s hands, deking out the Muskoka goaltender and dropping a light backhand in behind him. Tie game.

Once the game had been tied, Muck’s words came true. The Muskoka Wildlife gave up even pretending to pass and work as a team and turned instead to an endless series of individual efforts. All the Owls had to do was concentrate on the puck carrier and there would be a turnover and the Screech Owls could counterattack.

Cherry Johanssen used his speed to pick up a dropped puck and rushed down the ice with Derek and Travis. They crossed the blueline on a three-on-one, Cherry slipped it under the defenceman’s stick to Derek, and Derek dropped it back to Travis, who faked a shot and slid the puck over to Cherry, who had the wide open net to score.

The Screech Owls had a 3–2 lead. The Wildlife tried frantically to come back, but Jennie never even let a rebound out. The Owls had won the game they had to win.

When the horn blew, the Screech Owls bolted over the boards and the entire team spilled over the ice toward Jennie as if they’d been dumped from a pail. Nish, of course, was right in the middle of it all. The only player on the team who hadn’t broken a sweat.

They lined up for the naming of the Player of the Game. When the announcer began, “Most Valuable Player, Screech Owls…,” Nish pushed out from the blueline to the centre of the ice and did a little twirl. The Muskoka Wildlife, who weren’t paying full attention, rapped their sticks on the ice to congratulate him while his own team booed. “…is the goaltender, Jennie Staples!”

Now the Owls could cheer and slam their sticks. Jennie skated out and collected her prize, a tournament T-shirt. As she skated back she rolled it up and tossed it at Nish, who caught it, delighted.

“Take it,” she said. “You earned it.”

“How so?” Nish asked.

“First game you ever dressed for when you haven’t screened me,” Jennie laughed.

“It’s not ‘screening,’” he protested, “it’s blocking.”

“Whatever,” Jennie said. “It’s still your big ugly butt in my face.”