From the sound of the cheering, Travis could tell that the Toronto Towers were already on the ice. They were the home team, and their parents and fans had filled up the lower seats of Maple Leaf Gardens. This was to be the highlight of the Little Stanley Cup, and even a camera crew from TSN was here. Player introductions and floods between periods. The real thing.

And yet it couldn’t compare to what Travis already felt inside. Travis and Nish and Andy had made it back before curfew. They had told Willie, who didn’t believe them until Nish found the news channel and there was a brief report on a foiled break-in at the Hockey Hall of Fame. They made him swear he wouldn’t tell anyone.

In the morning the attempted robbery was front-page news–complete with a composite sketch of the three youngsters who had apparently been involved somehow but had slipped away into the night. The descriptions had been given by one of the tied-up security guards–Travis presumed the innocent one–but the sketch of Travis looked nothing like him whatsoever. Nor did the drawing of Andy. Nish, on the other hand, was…well, Nish was Nish.

Muck had been reading the paper when they came down. He had the story laid out on his lap and he kept looking at the drawings and looking up at Nish. But Nish never let on. “Sleep good, Coach?” he asked as he passed by.

If Muck suspected anything, he wasn’t letting on. He didn’t speak to them until just before the game, when he pulled a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket and announced, “I have a letter to read to you.”

Dear Screech Owls,

Please accept our sincere apologies for what we did to you all. We are very sorry about what happened.

What we did was wrong and we know it. We don’t really know why we did it, just that it happened and we were very, very lucky to be given another chance by the manager of the Hockey Hall of Fame.

We hurt a lot of people by our actions. We hurt ourselves by betraying those who trusted us: our parents, our coaches, and our teammates. We hurt the Screech Owls by causing the team to be short players when you were all counting on us. We cost you all a chance to see the Leafs play.

We know we can’t bring back the game, but we are all going to try to earn this trust back. We hope one day you will have us all back on the team, because that is where we want to be, more than anywhere else in the world. We love being Screech Owls and we’re proud to be Screech Owls.

Thank you for listening to us.

Yours sincerely,

Larry Ulmar (Data)
Fahd Noorizadeh
Wilson Kelly

P.S. Beat those Towers!

Muck folded the letter, put it in his pocket, and walked out of the room without another word.

Travis pulled his sweater over his head, making the worst possible face at Nish as he was momentarily hidden from view. He pulled on his helmet and picked up his gloves.

“Let’s go!” the captain of the Screech Owls shouted as he stood up.