Nish was dead!

One moment he was screaming “I’M GONNA HURL!” from the seat behind Travis Lindsay–who was desperately hanging on to the bucking, slamming, sliding monster beneath them–the next he was airborne, a chubby twelve-year-old in a red crash helmet, a black rubber wetsuit, and a yellow life jacket, spinning high over the rest of the Screech Owls and smack into the churning whirlpool at the bottom of the most dangerous chute of the long rapids.

Nish entered his watery grave without a sound, the splash instantly erased by the rushing, tea-coloured water of the mighty Ottawa River as it choked itself through the narrow canyon of wet, dripping rock and roared triumphantly out the other end. Screaming and spinning one second, he was gone the next–his teammates so terrified they could do nothing but tighten their iron-locked grips on their paddles and the rope of the river raft.

Nish was dead!

Travis closed his eyes to the slap of cold water as it cuffed off the dripping rock walls and spilled in over his face. Would any of them get out alive? Would it be up to him, as team captain and best friend, to tell Nish’s mother?

“Did my little Wayne have any last words?” poor sweet Mrs. Nishikawa would ask.

“Yes,” Travis would have to answer.

“What were they?” Mrs. Nishikawa would say, a Kleenex held to her trusting eyes.

And Travis would have to tell her: “‘I’m gonna hurl.’”

 

The Screech Owls had come to Ottawa for a special edition of the Little Stanley Cup. Instead of in January or February, it was being held over the Canada Day long weekend and was going to honour the one hundredth anniversary of the Ottawa Silver Seven–hockey’s very first Stanley Cup dynasty. It was to be a peewee hockey tournament the likes of which had never been seen before. The Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto was bringing up the original Stanley Cup that Governor General Lord Stanley had given to the people of Canada in 1893, there was going to be a special display of hockey memorabilia from the early 1900s, and the Governor General herself was going to present the cup to the winning team. The Sports Network was going to televise the final, and special rings–“Stanley Cup rings!” Nish had shouted when he heard–would be awarded to the champions.

But it was unlike other tournaments for more reasons than that. Muck Munro, who always said he had little use for summer hockey, wasn’t there to coach. Muck had told them he couldn’t get off work, but the Owls figured he hadn’t tried all that hard. If Muck took a summer holiday, he preferred to head into the bush for a week of trout fishing. Muck’s two assistants, Barry and Ty, hadn’t been able to get away either. The team was essentially under the control of good old Mr. Dillinger, who was wonderful at sharpening skates but didn’t know much about breakout patterns, and Larry Ulmar–Data–who was great at cheering but not much for strategy. Right now, Data was waiting for the Owls at the end of the ride, deeply disappointed that the river guides hadn’t been able to figure out a way to strap his wheelchair into the big, bucking rafts.

Nor were the Screech Owls staying with local families for this tournament. Instead, they were camping, along with most of the other teams, at a church camp farther down the river, within sight of the highrises of Ottawa. It was an ideal location, and the tournament games were deliberately spaced out to allow for day trips. The teams were booked to go river rafting, mountain biking in the Gatineau Hills, and even off to world-famous Algonquin Park, where they hoped to see moose and bear. The tournament final itself was to be played in the Corel Centre, where the Ottawa Senators had played only the winter before. Nish had said it was only proper that he win his first Stanley Cup ring on a rink where NHL stars had skated.

But now Nish was lost overboard, bouncing, spinning, bumping along the bottom of the Ottawa River, snapping turtles pulling at his desperately clutching fingers, leeches already sucking out his blood.

It had been the guide’s suggestion that one of them join him at the back of the raft and help steer. Nish, of course, had jumped up first with both hands raised and shouted out that the seat was his. The new player, Samantha Bennett, had also raised her hand to volunteer, and Travis was quick to notice a small flash of anger in Sam’s green eyes when the guide gave in and picked Nish. Sam, who’d only moved to Tamarack two months earlier, was Data’s replacement on defence. Big and strong, she was as competitive off the ice as on, and almost as loud and just possibly as funny as Nish himself. Andy Higgins had even started calling her “Nish-ette,” though never to her face. Nish, to her, was a rival as top Screech Owls’ defender, not an example for her to copy.

The waters had been calm when Nish went back to sit with the guide. Once, Travis thought he had seen Nish unbuckle his safety harness while the real guide–“Call me Hughie”–pointed out the sights along the river. Travis hadn’t worried about Nish’s harness until, around the next bend in the river, his ears were filled with a frightening roar, and the water, now rushing, loomed white and foaming ahead of them.

It hadn’t seemed possible to Travis that a rubber raft could chance such a run. What if it was punctured on the rocks? But the guide had sent them straight into the highest boils of the current, and the huge raft had folded and sprung and tossed several of them out of their seats as it slid and jumped and smashed through the water. They turned abruptly at the bottom and rammed head-on into a rooster tail of rolling water, the rush now flinging them backwards as if shot from a catapult.

Nish had held on fine through all that–despite his undone safety harness.

Down the river they went, the water roaring and thundering between tight rocks as the runs grew more and more intense. But always the big raft came through, the Screech Owls screaming happily and catching their breath each time they made it down a fast run and shot out the other side into calmer, deeper waters.

But this last time had been too much. The big raft slid into the channel, snaking over the rises, and up ahead Nish saw Lars Johanssen, Wilson Kelly, and Sarah Cuthbertson being bounced right out of their seats. But they had their hands looped carefully around the rope, as instructed, and fortunately they came right back down.

Travis had also left his seat, the quick feeling of weightlessness both exhilarating and alarming. He held tight and bounced back down, hard, and was instantly into the next rise.

That was when he heard his great friend’s famous last words–“I’M GONNA HURL!”–and the next moment he was watching, helpless, as Nish slipped into that horrifying watery grave.

Nish, lost overboard.

Drowned.

His body never to be recovered.