The atmosphere at the Waskaganish Community Arena was electric. The little rink was packed so tight, there wasn’t an empty seat to be found. The entire village was there. And all the other teams. It felt like Hockey Night in Canada, not Hockey Night in Waskaganish. He could hear the cheers, the boos, the thundering clap of the public address system as the Wolverines’ came onto the ice.
We will,
We will,
ROCK YOU!
Travis rounded the net and did his sweet little hop. He skipped slightly, shrugging his shoulders. He felt good. But he couldn’t help thinking about his missing stick. What if he broke his last one?
The Owls warmed up Chantal, who was getting the start on the basis of her play in the game Travis and Nish and Jesse had missed. Travis hit the crossbar–the good luck sign he needed.
The warm-up over, the Screech Owls gathered at the net to charge themselves up. They rapped Chantal’s pads. They tapped each other’s shins. Travis knocked helmets with Chantal, then his linemates, Dmitri and Derek, then Nish. He usually stopped there, but he found himself going to Jesse and tapping him, helmet to helmet. Travis led the team cheer: “Screech Owls, Screech Owls…GO, SCREECH OWLS!”
Travis skated out to take the face-off. He looked into the stands and saw Chief Ottereyes sitting with Jesse and Rachel’s grandparents. They had come in from the camp to see the game.
He scanned the crowd and found his parents, waving to him. He saw where the Moose Factory Mighty Geese were all sitting.
Travis was facing off against Jimmy Whiskeyjack, his host and the Wolverines’ captain. Jimmy winked and tapped Travis’s pads with his stick. Travis returned the tap. The big, surly assistant captain was on defence, already scowling at him. Rachel wasn’t on the ice. He checked the Wolverines’ bench. She was sitting, waiting. He could see the “A” on her sweater.
When the puck dropped, he wasn’t paying full attention. The Wolverines’ captain swept it away easily, sending it back to the big defenceman. Travis and Dmitri both gave chase (Muck usually wanted only one to forecheck), and the defenceman waited until the last possible second before flipping the puck up to the left winger. Travis and Dmitri turned into each other, catching up in each other’s sticks and legs. Travis went down.
The winger hit Jimmy Whiskeyjack as he made the blueline. The Wolverines’ captain deftly flipped the puck over Data’s stick and then was all alone, bearing down on Chantal.
Until Nish hit him. Nish simply threw his body at Jimmy, cutting him off and knocking the puck off the stick before, spinning like a top, he tore the legs out from under him. The puck dribbled away harmlessly into the pads of Chantal, who covered up.
“Alrriigght, Nish!” Travis shouted. Good old Nish–he had saved the day.
They lined up for the face-off. The big defenceman moved up tight, hoping for a quick shot. Nish took note and shifted.
“Hey, Moose Nostrils!” the big defenceman called.
“Whadya say, Bear Butt?” Nish called back.
Travis laughed. He knew Nish was here to play. It was going to be a game.
Travis won this face-off. He dropped it back to Nish, who circled his net and hit Dmitri along the boards by the hash marks. Dmitri chopped the puck out into centre, where Derek picked it up and headed for the blueline, the big defenceman backpedalling at full speed.
Derek carried the puck over the line, then left it there while he and the defenceman came together in what looked like, but certainly was not, an accidental collision. The puck sat waiting for Travis, who scooped it up, danced past the defenceman, and put a nifty pass over to Dmitri, who one-timed it off the crossbar.
“OHHH NO!” Travis shouted.
Back on the bench, Muck patted their shoulders. He liked what he was seeing, even though they had no goal to show for it. Travis couldn’t stop his legs from jumping with nervous energy. He sat, anxious to get right back out.
Liz’s line was on now against Rachel Highboy’s. Rachel had the speed, and she also had a big centre with good reach. The centre beat Andy Higgins to a puck and swept it away. Wilson missed it and Rachel flew past him, picking it up and moving in, one-on-one, on Chantal. Rachel deked once and went to her backhand, and roofed a beauty as she pulled around the net.
Wolverines 1, Screech Owls 0.
They flooded the ice between periods. Just like the NHL. Floods, stop time, announcements, goal judges. In the dressing room, Muck seemed content with the way things were going, even though the Owls had failed to score and were now behind in the game.
“Just keep doing what you’re doing,” Muck said. “It’ll come.”
He walked to the centre of the room and paused. “Nishikawa,” he said.
Nish, who had been bending down, catching his breath, looked up, wincing.
Muck almost smiled. “That’s hockey you’re playing, son.”
Travis knew what he meant. Nish was playing the game of his life. He was being double-shifted by Muck and never seemed to stop moving out there. No stupid rushes, no foolish pinches, just Nish at his best: steady, dependable, good on the rush and absolutely perfect on defence.
“You’re playing great, man,” Travis said as they walked down the corridor to start the next period.
“I have to.”
Nish said nothing more. He moved ahead of Travis when they hit the ice, sticking to himself.
Travis’s line was starting again. He won this face-off and got the puck back to Nish, who kept it long enough to draw his check. Nish then flipped the puck back to Travis, who headed down-ice, slowly looping when he made the blueline so he could see where Dmitri and Derek were going to be.
Travis hadn’t even been looking at his stick or the puck when the big defenceman slashed him. All he felt was the jolt.
The whistle blew. And then, when he looked down, he saw his stick was broken. He threw down what was left of it. Good, at least the big guy was going to get a penalty.
“Number 7!” the referee shouted. “Let’s go!”
Number 7? Travis turned and looked at the defenceman, now skating away. He was wearing number 22. Number 7 was Travis Lindsay.
The referee was glaring at him and pointing to the penalty box. “Let’s go!”
Travis couldn’t believe his ears. “What for?”
“Two minutes for playing with a broken stick! Now let’s go! Or it’s two minutes more for unsportsmanlike conduct!”
Travis couldn’t believe it, but he knew better than to argue. He skated to the penalty box, where the door was already swinging open.
He could hear the cheers. He could hear the odd boo from the Screech Owls’ supporters, but it wasn’t very loud or very serious. Everyone knew Travis had made a mistake.
Derek skated across with a new stick. He handed it over the boards to Travis.
“You haven’t got any left,” Derek said. “This one’s Liz’s. They’re almost the same.”
Travis took it. They were almost the same, but there was still a world of difference. He felt the stick. A left lie, but Liz never put a Russian curve in hers. Neither did she tape the handle the same way. He stood in the penalty box and flexed it, but it didn’t feel at all right.
The Owls were shorthanded now with Travis in the penalty box, although it didn’t seem that way. The Wolverines were a good team–they moved the puck well, and they shot well from the point, particularly the big defenceman who’d broken Travis’s stick–but Travis couldn’t believe the way Nish was playing. He was diving in front of pucks. He was ragging the puck and breaking up rushes, and once he even took the puck up-ice and had an excellent shot himself, only to have it tick off the post. When Nish went to the bench at the end of his shift, every fan in the building rose in tribute to him. Nish never even looked up. He sat on the bench, his head down between his legs, gasping for air. From the penalty box on the far side of the rink, Travis could see Muck lay a hand on Nish’s neck as he passed behind him. He knew Nish would feel it. He knew Nish would know whose hand it was and what it meant.
“Hey, Travis!”
Travis turned, not recognizing the voice.
The captain of the Moose Factory Mighty Geese was standing behind him. He was holding up Travis’s stick, the one Travis had given him.
“Looks like you need this back, pal.”
Travis took it, flexed it on the floor of the penalty box. It felt great! Perfect! He looked back at his new friend and smiled.
“Thanks,” he said.
“Get a goal for me,” said the captain of the Mighty Geese.