It didn’t take them long to “get it.” With Muck refereeing while Mr. Dillinger worked the Screech Owls bench, the shinny game got under way with number 17 at centre between Sarah and Travis, and with Fahd and Nish going over to give the Sharks’ defence a little depth and Jenny in net to give them a fighting chance.
It felt strange for Travis not to have Sarah at centre and Dmitri flying down right wing, but strange only for the first couple of shifts. By midway through the first period, it felt like he and Sarah had spent their entire lives as wingers for the Wizard of Oz.
Travis had seen talent like this rarely. Certainly Slava, Dmitri’s Russian cousin, had similar skating skills, but this Aussie kid, Wiz, seemed to see the game as well as Sarah herself.
It was almost impossible to get to know anyone in the midst of a hockey game. The three sat together on the bench when their line was off, but they talked little except about plays they might try. Wiz – Travis still had trouble thinking anyone might be called that – was certainly friendly enough, but he was also all business during the game, even if it was a meaningless exhibition match.
“What’s the big D’s name, mate?” he asked Travis at one point.
“Wayne Nishikawa,” Travis said. “Everybody calls him Nish.”
“He’s bloody good, eh?”
Travis nodded, a bit reluctantly. Nish was in full show-off mode, just as Travis knew he would be in an exhibition match. He was lugging the puck, keeping the puck, trying to score the fancy goals. But Jeremy was hot in the Owls’ net, and no matter how much Nish pressed he wasn’t able to beat him.
It was a strange game. The players’ ability varied widely, but the coaches were careful to keep the weaker lines against each other – Sydney players in Owls sweaters against Sydney players on the Sharks’ side – and Travis and Sarah and their new centre against the top Owls lines. Ten minutes into the game, no one had scored a single goal.
Travis couldn’t believe some of the things Wiz could do. He had exceptional speed, but he wasn’t a glory hog. He’d no sooner get the puck than he’d be looking for either Travis or Sarah on a break, and he used the points brilliantly, cycling pucks in the corner until he saw an opening to fire a pass out to Nish or Fahd or one of the Sydney defenders for a good shot. Wiz and Nish were clearly feeding off each other, trying to outdo each other with the perfect, unexpected pass.
Wiz also had a trick that Travis would have given anything to learn. Just like an NHLer, Wiz could scoop up a puck from the ice, bounce it a couple of times on his stick, catch it dead on the blade, and then hand it over to Muck for a faceoff. Even Muck seemed impressed.
Travis couldn’t count the hours that he and Sarah had spent trying to scoop pucks the same way.
Andy Higgins scored first for the Owls on a hard slapper that beat Jenny to the five-hole. Then Simon Milliken scored. Fahd scored on a tip-in, and one of the better Sharks scored on a lucky rebound.
“Well, mates,” Wiz said as they sat on the bench waiting for their next shift. “What say we put on a little show for them?”
“You’re on,” said Sarah, heading over the boards.
They changed on the fly, Sarah racing back to pick up a loose puck that Nish kicked up as a Shark pressed him against the boards behind his net. Sarah turned, reversed directions, and flew around the net and headed up Travis’s side.
Travis instinctively crossed over.
Sarah sent a high pass to Wiz, which he knocked down easily with his glove and kicked up onto his stick. He flew up across centre, looking for Travis on the far side.
Travis rapped the ice for a pass, and Wilson, trying to read the play, dove to block the pass everyone thought was coming.
But Wiz faked the pass, dropped the puck back into his skates, and, kicking it back and forth between his blades like a kid with a soccer ball, danced around Sam and moved in alone.
He came in hard, and stopped dead, throwing Jeremy off completely. Without even a glance, he passed back to Sarah, now driving hard for the net. Sarah stickhandled quickly around Jeremy and threw it back to Wiz for the shot.
But Wiz didn’t even try to take the puck with his stick. He angled his skates so the puck hit his left blade, then his right, and rebounded perfectly across the crease onto Travis’s stick.
The net was completely empty. Travis could have done a math problem he had so much time. He just tucked the puck in and turned to look at Wiz, who was grinning from ear to ear.
“Was that on purpose?” Travis asked as Wiz and the others came to slap his back.
“You’ll never know, mate,” Wiz answered, laughing.
They had an hour to play. The Owls went ahead, the Sharks caught up. Sarah scored a lovely goal on her usual shoulder-fake move. Dmitri scored a typical Dmitri backhander that shot the water bottle off the net.
“What’s the score?” Sarah shouted as they realized time was winding down. The Zamboni driver was already starting up his machine.
“Who knows?” said Wiz.
“I think we need one to win,” Travis said.
“One it is, then, mate,” Wiz said as the coach called their line for the final faceoff.
Wiz won it easily. He shovelled the puck to Nish, who swung back and around his net, hitting Sarah on the far side.
Sarah passed cross-ice to Travis, who chopped the puck into the middle for Wiz, who was already at full speed.
Wiz hit the blueline in front of Sam and did a perfect “spinnerama” move, leaving Sam on her knees while he spun like a top around her, the puck moving perfectly with him.
Wiz moved in behind the goal, holding the puck. Both Travis and Sarah raced for the sides of the net, trusting in a pass.
Wiz passed to Sarah, who rapped it back.
Wilson tried to take out Wiz, but Wiz bounced the puck off the back of the net as Wilson flew by into the boards.
Sam took out Travis. Andy, coming back hard, took out Sarah. Simon Milliken tied up Nish on the point so he couldn’t break for the net and a pass.
Wiz stickhandled so loosely he might have been the only person on the ice. He looked up, smiling.
Travis tried to scramble back, but Sam had too good an angle on him and was too strong for him to break away.
Wiz did his little scoop move, and instantly the puck was lying on his stick blade as if he were about to hand it to the referee.
Is he quitting? Travis wondered. Did the horn blow?
But he wasn’t quitting. With the puck still balanced perfectly on his blade, Wiz skated out from behind the net, looped the stick in a fake that sent Jeremy over flat on his back, and then tossed rather than shot the puck high in under the crossbar.
Muck’s whistle and the horn blew at exactly the same time.
The Sharks – and the Owls who were temporary Sharks – mobbed Wiz, who was laughing at what he’d done.
“No fair!” Jeremy was shouting to Muck and slamming his stick on the ice at the same time. “That’s illegal.”
Muck just shook his head, grinning.
“Never seen a goal like it,” he said. “But there’s nothing in the rule books to say you can’t do it.”