Harold M. Sherman

“ He was actually a one-man team. Taber hadn’t lost a game since his advent in school and ice hockey, through his exploits, had become the town’s most popular sport.
“Hit ’em high! Hit ’em low!” sung the Taber rooters, as though they were cheering a football team.
It was the third period of a game in which Taber led, three to one. No necessity for Carl’s tempestuous drive down the ice except that his dynamic nature sent him always on the attack whenever he could get his stick on the puck.
“Worry the enemy every minute of the game,” had been his motto, “and the enemy won’t worry you!” ”

“ Approaching his rival at top speed, Carl suddenly turned his skates sidewise and sent up a shower of ice. He veered to the left, then reversed his direction, shot the puck ahead and followed it like a demon. Whiz, lunging to his right, was unprepared for a double shift and a great cry rang out as Carl, outmaneuvering his rival drove on into Siddall’s defense. He was crouching low as the defense men sought to body-check him. There was a resounding impact and both defense men left their feet, bumping jarringly to ice. ”

“ All the old barns and sheds and display buildings that have been falling to pieces on account of being out of repair make the swellest kind of kindling wood and the flames, helped out by the wind, are leaping high in the air, sucking out for new things to burn. It’s a great sight.
“Some hot!” shouts Rod, backing up. “Say, it’s melting the ice on our slide!”
It is for a fact! The banks of snow are disappearing along the road, too, on account of the heat.
“Old Crabby must have cast a spell over this hill!” says Pete as we all feel a kind of uncanny feeling creep over us. ”

“ An amazing individual performer, Carl had twice split Howard Prep’s defense wide open, charging recklessly in on her goalie to smack the puck into the net. There was nothing he relished more than disconcerting the enemy and the entire Howard sextet was certainly frantically bewildered at his maneuvers. No team had, thus far, been able to keep Carl bottled up. Irrepressible in nature, he defied opposing sixes to stop him—combining daring with superb stick handling and dazzling skating. The tougher the going, the more it stimulated him, Carl possessing the ability to rise to all situations. ”

“ Turner’s high and mighty manner and Ronnie’s yelling: “Dad, look what the fellahs are doing!”
Are we downhearted? You can just imagine! Being chased off old Randolph Hill is like having our sleds and skis taken away from us on account of there being no other decent place. We could understand this high hat business if Mr. Turner was using the hill for anything else but it slopes off for over a mile behind his big house, going down on one side to Mitchell Creek and down the other to a meadow that’s fenced in with an old rail fence. ”

“ It was a crisply cold afternoon with a chilling breeze which swept the rink and caused a fair-sized crowd to stamp noisily in the stands.
“This’ll have to be a hot game to keep us warm!” punned someone.
“It’ll be hot all right,” promised a Hallstead rooter. “We’re going to burn up the ice with Parker!”
Chester Maltby, giant Hallstead centre, and noted as one of the state’s star players, looked formidable as he moved up and down the ice in preliminary practice. Hallstead’s season’s record was marred only by two tie games which was scarcely any mar at all. ”

“ Underdogs, and very conscious of it, Parker’s hockey squad dressed for the Hallstead game. There was little talking in the locker room, each player feeling the tension too much to indulge in the usual banter.
“Remember, fellows,” whispered Hoyt, just before the team was to leave the locker room for the ice, “you’re just as good as Hallstead. They can’t do anything to you that you can’t do to them.”
Fellow players nodded, grimly. They had their hearts set on nothing short of victory. ”

“ It had been the history of Lillard High that when any fellow got too fresh he somehow got acquainted with the watering trough. The water, coming from a well, was about as cold as water could be. One plunge in the trough was usually enough to shrink swelled heads or cool anyone’s ambition.
“I can’t help it if it is mid-winter,” declared Pete Dean at a special called meeting of the Sophs, “We’ve got to put a stop to Freshy rule. It’s the trough for Eddie Summers...!” ”

“ As an individualist, I’m impressed with the fact that, in hockey, skating is secondary to the game and I get no particular thrill out of chasing a puck and banging at it with a stick. Neither can I see any necessity for letting myself be bumped to the ice if I can possibly help it. ”

“ In practice the presence of Carl Hemmer brought back the old snap in the team. The puck skimmed from player to player as they swept up and down the ice in formation.
“I want to see these plays click in the Winston game,” called Coach Corcoran. “It’ll be our last chance to brush up on ’em before we hit Siddall!”
“They’ll look like a million!” promised Lank.
Thirty cents is as far from a million as the earth is from the moon. That Lank’s enthusiastic prophecy was not fulfilled was due not so much to Winston as to the fellow who had been Taber High’s spark plug. ”

“ Hoyt cried as he got to his feet and skated to the penalty box.
It was a deliberate foul which had obviously saved almost a sure goal as Chester had been on top of the net. The puck was faced-off not far from the cage and a furious mix-up resulted. It was now five men against Hallstead’s six and Parker’s entire attention was devoted to the defense of its goal. Rudie, in the thick of the fight, felt an elbow thud against his stomach and wondered whether it was accidental. ”

“ A swell defense man you are! Snap into it! You’re playing too safe! Cut loose!”
Hallstead team members were grinning. They could make a shambles of the contest if they wanted. But what was the use? Parker was no opposition in this sport at all. Might as well tease their rivals along. Putting on a dazzling exhibition of pass work, Hallstead had her rooters howling with amusement as she forced Parker to chase her all over the rink, trying to gain possession of the puck. After five minutes of this superb team play, Hallstead slipped through with intentions of scoring another goal. ”

“ There’s a sickening feeling comes in the pit of my stomach as Ronnie suddenly disappears over the brow of the hill and shoots down. Say—have you ever ridden in a roller coaster? Well—you zip down a steep hill on skis and tell me which gives you the biggest heart throb. In a coaster you can at least hold onto the rod and sit tight. On skis you’ve got to hold yourself just so or you may find yourself flying through space and landing hard enough to jar your wisdom teeth. ”

“ Champion Sam Hartley’s first jump gave early evidence of his superb form when he broke his own record with a leap of one hundred and eleven feet. He mounted the hill, grinning jubilantly and eyeing the fellow from down South who was about to take off on his second try, as much as to say, “Beat that, if you can, you beginner!”
“He’s good all right,” Reed conceded. “This gliding through the air and keeping your balance without wings of any kind is no small trick. When you land it’s usually harder, too.” ”

“ Hoyt finished, defiantly. “Every team that plays us roughs us into the boards and stick handles us all over the ice. They get away with murder because Coach has never taught you fellows how to take care of yourselves. Why, where I used to play...!”
“You were brought up on dirty hockey!” accused Rudie, his face flushing. “We don’t play that kind of hockey here. We’d rather lose than...!”
“Oh, yes?” cut in Hoyt, bitingly. “That’s the trouble with this school. You’ve always had the idea that hockey’s a parlor game when it’s really one of the most rugged sports there is. ”

“ He had readily agreed to Coach Howard’s declaration that Kirkwood High possessed few really good skaters although he was not so sure that his addition to the team would have the bolstering effect predicted.
“I’ll do the best I can,” had been his promise.
“You’ll be a whiz,” the coach had encouraged. “A man as fast on his feet as you? Why, say—when you get this hockey game in your blood, you’ll burn up the ice!”
Thus far, however, Frederick’s participation had only succeeded in burning up his fellow players. ”

“ The first period ended with Melville leading, one to nothing, and Rand Downey, whose contempt for the fancy skater exceeded that of his team mates, had certain things to say to Frederick in the locker room.
“You let that baby talk you out of a score,” he branded. “He got you so up in the air you didn’t know whether you had a puck or an egg at the end of your stick.”
“He won’t get the puck away from me again!” Frederick replied.
“He won’t have to,” snapped Rand. “All that Melville bunch has to make is one goal to win their games. Here we are, playing our fool heads off and you...!” ”

“ It’s twice as funny as Ronnie’s high dive what with Mr. Turner sitting in the creek, with the water up to his neck and one ski still clamped to his foot. He doesn’t stay there long, though. He flounders about till he can stand up and wades ashore, climbing up into the snow which must feel warm to him in comparison to the icy water.
“Ha, ha, ha!” laughs Ronnie. “Dad didn’t do as well as I did, did he?”
Man, oh man! Is this a surprise? Here we’ve just begun to feel bad for laughing outright at Ronnie’s father and Ronnie busts a rib himself. That makes us feel better ... ”

“ The three chums laughed, directing their glances toward the town of Centerville, a black and white patch three miles below them. Their shack commanded an even better view, located as it was upon a ledge just beneath the brow of Mountain Ridge.
“Let’s get on to the shack,” urged Bill. “I’m cold. We could stand a good fire in that makeshift fireplace of ours.”
“Hold on!” cried Max, excitedly. “Did you say a minute ago that we were standing on the road?”
“Well, I should have said we were standing some eight feet above the road,” corrected Bill, “the snow’s sure filled in this bank here.” ”

“ Skiing, as the boy from the land of no snow was to discover, was not the easy sport he had imagined. Old Steve Turner, recreational director of Seldon Prep, had smiled as he had listened to Reed’s “confidential” proposal.
“But why do you want to learn how to ski when the other fellows aren’t around?”
The Southerner’s face flushed. “Because I’ve been laughed at enough,” he retorted, and felt sorry that he had even brought himself to speak to the Coach. Northerners were all alike—old or young. ”

“ Rod shakes his head.
“Less hope than ever,” he comes back. “Fellows, we might as well put up our toboggan and go in for ice skating. As long as Crabby’s on this hill, we’re sunk!”
It’s a wise army that knows when it’s defeated because then it doesn’t waste time fighting for lost causes or suffering any needless casualties ... and, in our case, we don’t have to do any more scouting to know that our one-man enemy will be on the warpath with double vengeance from now on. ”

“ The great Maltby cut across the ice with the idea of heading him off. Rudie saw him coming out of the corner of his eye.
“I’ll try another Hoyt stunt,” he thought. “Maltby’s going to try to jam me into the boards. If I can only stop dead and let him shoot past, then shoulder him...!”
Rudie set his skates in the ice; Maltby almost on top of him, hurtled past, smacked up against the sideboards, rebounded and was hit jokingly by the man he had pursued. Maltby went down in a thudding heap and Rudie recaptured the puck, continuing his dash down the ice with Parker rooters going crazy. ”

“ Team mates had to give him credit for an aggressive, unrelenting style of play. He was always diving into the midst of mêlées, slashing his stick about madly and bumping opponents right and left. Occasionally he made trips to the penalty box as the referee fouled him for tripping, hitting or illegally checking a rival but Hoyt was soon back on the ice as scrappy as ever. His willingness to mix it with the opposition had established him as the most colorful player on Parker’s sextet. ”

“ There’s a familiar figure sitting on a fallen log and waiting for us when we climb over the fence and sneak up the hill behind the Turner house. Ronnie jumps up when he spies us, as tickled as a kid, who’s about to try something he’s never done before. ”

“ Hoyt Dale’s secret hockey lesson proved something of a sensation. It was Coach Hogart’s practice, at the finish of the daily session on the ice, to hurry off to attend to his professorial duties, leaving the players to take their showers and change back to street togs. This particular afternoon, the squad loitered on the rink until the coach had departed when Hoyt took charge.
“First thing you guys want to learn,” he snapped, importantly, “is how to guard against being spilled. You can’t play good hockey flat on your back and that’s where most of you are a good many times each game. ”

“ We’re not so sure that even Ronnie’s being there will help any in case...! In fact, Eddie suggests that maybe Mr. Turner would blame us for inveigling Ronnie into skiing and using the forbidden hill. Inveigle is a terrible sounding word and, while we’re crazy to ski, we’re not wild to ski into any more trouble.
“Besides,” points out Carl, “if Ronnie should get a bump like we all do, once in a while, we’re the guys who’ll have to answer for it.”
“It’s quite a responsibility all right,” admits Mack, “but I say it’s worth the risk. We certainly can run as fast as Mr. Turner.” ”

“ Frederick swallowed, miserably. “Then I really don’t know what I can do about it,” he said, hoarsely. “I’m so used to doing things by myself that I don’t feel at home with other fellows. I guess you’d better call it ‘quits’, Coach. I wouldn’t want to lose the Melville game for you ... almost anyone would be better in there than me ... no matter how good a skater I am....”
“Nonsense!” decided Coach Howard. “This game means the championship—but if it meant a chance for you to win out over yourself, I’d rather play for that. ”