Winter Hawk Star
Sigmund Brouwer
orca sports
Copyright © 2007 Sigmund Brouwer
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording or by any information storage
and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission
in writing from the publisher.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Brouwer, Sigmund, 1959-
Winter Hawk star / written by Sigmund Brouwer.
(Orca sports)
Originally published: Dallas ; Vancouver : Word Pub., 1996.
ISBN 978-1-55143-869-6
I. Title. II. Series.
PS8553.R68467W568 2007 jC813’.54 C2007-903145-5
Summary: When Tyler and his obnoxious teammate, Riley, are sent to
volunteer at a youth program, Tyler finds the strength and passion that
allows him to step up his game on the ice.
First published in the United States, 2007
Library of Congress Control Number: 2007928532
Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing
programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada
through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and the Canada
Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts
Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.
Cover design: Teresa Bubela
Cover photography: Getty Images
Author photo: Bill Bilsley
Orca Book Publishers Orca Book Publishers
PO Box 5626 Stn. B PO Box 468
Victoria, BC Canada Custer, WA USA
V8R 6S4 98240-0468
www.orcabook.com
Printed and bound in Canada.
Printed on 100% PCW recycled paper.
010 09 08 07 • 4 3 2 1
chapter one
The hockey play that made Riley Judd an instant rookie legend began when he was alone against two Spokane Chiefs defensemen.
After all, most times a forward should not be able to beat even one defenseman. The defensemen have too many options. They can knock the puck away, bodycheck the forward, block the shot or move the forward to the side.
Not only was Riley facing two of them alone, but our team was also trying to kill off a penalty. It was late in the game and we were tied at six goals each. The screaming hometown crowd was going wild. A goal for us would be a huge break but next to impossible.
And Riley was at center ice, puck on his stick, trying the impossible against those two Chiefs defensemen.
“Come on, rookie!” Brett Beckham yelled. Brett was the left defenseman and veteran all-star for the Chiefs. The same Brett Beckham that Riley had made look like a fool on an earlier breakaway. “We’re gonna eat your lunch!”
Riley put his head down and pushed the puck up the ice, angling for the opening between the two defensemen. Beckham swung toward his partner, going for a body check that would knock Riley into next week.
At the last second, Riley flipped the puck between them and did a little duck-and-shuffle so complicated I wasn’t sure if I had seen it right. It pretzeled one of the defensemen and left Beckham jumping at open air.
Riley squirted through, calmly picked up the puck and closed the gap between him and the goalie.
Beckham turned and chased Riley, bawling out angry words. “Never again, rookie! Never again!”
Riley paused. It was hardly more than a half-step pause, as if he were considering Beckham’s words.
Then Riley put his head down again and broke across the final bit of open ice toward the goalie. Riley pulled the puck into his skates, pretended he was going to push it out again and yanked it to his backhand instead. The goalie fell for it, sprawling across the left side of the net.
That left Riley the entire right side of the net, with the puck on his backhand, only inches away from the wide-open goal line.
I couldn’t believe it. Riley didn’t flip the puck into the net to put us ahead. He actually held on to the puck and continued around the Chiefs’ net.
It stunned the crowd into silence. Riley Judd had just given up a chance at his third goal of the game.
He came out from behind the other side of the net—still with the puck—and skated back toward our goalie.
It was crazy, unexpected. Everybody, I’m sure, was asking the same question that was going through my head: What was Riley Judd doing?
I’d seen a lot from the players’ bench before but nothing like this. Of course, as a fourth-line winger, I see a lot from the bench. A lot of goals. A lot of penalties. A lot of line changes as players step onto the ice. Unfortunately too few of those line changes include me. What I see most are the backs of the helmets of the guys who get to play while I stay behind on the bench.
Tonight, Riley Judd, playing the center ice position, was one of those guys who stepped past me onto the ice again and again. Only sixteen years old, this was his first game with the Portland Winter Hawks. In fact, it was his first game in the Western Hockey League. I knew it. The fans knew it. The media knew it. Everyone knew it. Half the reason the stands were so full was because of Riley Judd, Superstar.
He hadn’t disappointed anyone either, not with two goals and an assist already. Judd’s two goals had been real beauties, forcing me to agree with the newspaper articles that labeled him a superstar. He’d definitely shown the crowd he was Portland’s new star. All it took was for him to get the puck, and our hometown crowd instantly raised its already deafening volume of yelling and cheering.
Except for now. The silence in the stands was the kind of silence that happens just after a car accident.
What was Riley Judd doing?
He busted hard toward our net, meeting the same two defensemen he had just beaten twenty seconds earlier on his way to their net. Beckham took a swipe at the puck, but Riley skated a wide circle, leaving Beckham to stand and stare in the same disbelief shared by everyone in the rink.
Riley reached their blue line on his way out of their end toward ours. He didn’t stop. Two Chiefs’ forwards moved in on him. Riley faked a move left, sprinted to the right and reached open ice near the centerline.
Now Riley was skating in on our defensemen, as if he were a Chiefs’ forward. Two of the Chiefs were chasing him. Everyone else on the ice was moving slowly, staring at Riley, trying to understand.
As he moved toward our blue line and closer to our net, I saw stunned expressions on the faces of each of our defensemen. Were they supposed to try to check their own team-mate?
Riley spared them the need to decide. When he reached our blue line, he spun a tight circle, keeping the puck on his stick as if it had been taped to the blade.
At that moment, I understood.
He was going to take another run at their net. Only now, there were five Chiefs’ skaters between him and their goalie, not just the two defensemen.
Seconds later, as he started up the ice again, the crowd understood the same thing I did.
Their cheers returned in a screaming frenzy.
Riley slowed almost to a stop. He dipsydoodled in small circles as one forward tried to hit him and then another. With each step Riley took, he kept the puck, dangling it like a yo-yo just out of a baby’s reach.
If I had been one of the Chiefs on the ice, I would have gone crazy too. They forgot about playing smart positional hockey and moved in on him, wolves pouncing on hamburger.
Riley scooted through the center ice area and came out near their blue line.
Again, it was just him against two defenseman.
“Never again?” Riley asked in a clear yell. “How’s now?”
Beckham was so mad he dropped his stick and tried to tackle Riley.
Riley stopped, ducked and let Beckham rush past him. Beckham tumbled into the other defenseman. As they tried to untangle themselves, Riley carried the puck toward the goalie—his second breakaway of the same shift on the ice.
Against all logic, Riley made the exact same move he had made on the first breakaway. He was so smooth, so good, the goalie had no choice but to fall the same way, backward into the left side of the net.
Riley stopped, backed up, turned his head to watch Beckham charge and then finally slapped the puck into the open net. The crowd erupted into a roar so loud it would have been impossible to hear a jet take off.
Everyone in the rink gave him a standing ovation.
And when he skated back to the bench, Coach Estleman suspended him for two games. Riley watched the rest of the game sitting beside me.
chapter two
As a fourth-line winger, I’m nearly invisible. Sure, Coach Estleman knows my name. It’s Tyler Watson. He understands my style of play. He knows what to expect from me on the ice. Other than that, I tend to fade into the background for him. There are twenty other players who get more of his time, because those twenty better players have bigger roles in making our team win.
I’m not complaining though. It’s a thrill for me just to be on the Portland Winter Hawks. I mean, someone has to fill in on the fourth line, and it might as well be me. The other guys can dream about making it from the Western Hockey League to the National Hockey League. I don’t. I just want to be able to put in my shifts without making any mistakes.
I suppose I could be less invisible to Coach Estleman if I were one of the guys who joked around in the locker room. Or if I broke curfew. Or if I complained. It’s just easier to not be noticed. That way people don’t expect things from you. There’s no pressure, nothing to fear.
In fact when Scotty, our team trainer, stopped in the dressing room after practice and told me that Coach Estleman wanted to see me in his office, I began to worry right away.
What could I have done wrong? I’d skated hard in practice. During last night’s game against the Chiefs, I’d been on the ice only a dozen times. Not enough time to make many mistakes. For that matter, no one had scored on us during any of my shifts. And we won 7–6, thanks to Riley Judd’s last goal.
I got out of my hockey equipment quickly, showered as fast as possible and dressed in a hurry. I didn’t want to keep Coach Estleman waiting.
I left behind the steamy dressing room, the shouting and the joking as the guys relaxed after practice. I half jogged to Coach Estleman’s office.
He stood when I knocked on his door. He walked over and greeted me with a hand-shake. This was not good. He never shook my hand. Was he going to give me bad news? Was he going to tell me they had decided to let me go from the team?
“Tyler,” he said, “I’ve got a favor to ask.”
I braced myself. Maybe he was going to ask me to understand his point of view. Maybe he wanted me to make it easy on him as he let me go from the team.
“Sure, Coach,” I said. “Anything you need.”
He looked me straight in the eyes, which meant he was six feet tall, just like me. Of course we were different in plenty of other ways. He was forty-something. I was eighteen. He had blond hair combed sideways over the top of his head to try to hide the fact that he was going bald. I had red hair, cut short because I hate combing it at all. He wore a gray suit. I wore jeans, a T-shirt, a leather jacket and cowboy boots.
“Why don’t you sit down,” he said, pointing to a chair in the corner of the office.
Although we did host a few games in the new Rose Garden where the Portland Trailblazers play NBA basketball, we mostly played and practiced in the Memorial Coliseum, where Coach Estleman kept his office. It had thick new carpet, wood paneling on the walls and some art pieces with weird shapes that I couldn’t understand.
I moved across the thick carpet and sat in the chair. He sat down behind his desk.
I didn’t know where to put my hands. I didn’t know where to look. I didn’t want to look directly at him and make him think I was being disrespectful. I didn’t want to keep staring around at everything in his office and make him think I was rude.
“Tyler,” he began, “you study the game. You understand the plays. You work hard.”
All of it was true. I hoped though, he wouldn’t add the other stuff about my game. Like I couldn’t skate quite as fast as the guys on the first, second and third lines. That too many of my shots floated toward the goalie like plump marshmallows. Or that when I had the puck I got flustered and never seemed to make a great pass. To me, it seemed as if time sped up on the ice, and I never knew quite what to do as the play unfolded around me.
He frowned. “It’s like you have all the tools, but you just don’t want to use them.”
“Sir?”
“I’ll tell you the straight goods,” he said.
I felt my stomach go into a knot. This was beginning to sound like a bad-news situation.
“Yes?”
“You know the situation in this league with most eighteen-year-olds.”
I did. Sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds— unless they were superstars like Riley—spent their first years in the league developing their skills. At eighteen, they were expected to be team leaders and good solid players.
“Since day one, Tyler, it’s been obvious to this organization that you have potential. In your first year, we thought things didn’t go well because you were a rookie. Last year, we told ourselves that any game you would start to prove yourself. That game never arrived. We’ve been waiting and waiting for you to do something, but it seems you’re happy to just fill a uniform.”
Where was this going?
“Well, I—”
“We can’t afford to keep an eighteen-year-old who doesn’t perform.” He shook his head sadly. “Tyler, we’ve even put out feelers to see if anyone will take you in a trade. No one has been interested. They’ve all said the same thing: Tyler Watson doesn’t contribute.”
“Well, I—”
“We’re not going to cut you, Tyler. Not just yet.”
Was this good news or bad?
“You’ve got another month. Maybe six weeks. If you don’t start playing like you want to play, we’re going to have to let you go.”
“I’ll do my best,” I said. I began to stand.
“Not so fast,” Coach Estleman said.
“There’s a string attached. I’m going to ask a favor. It’s about Riley Judd.”
Coach shook his head. “Here’s a kid with as much talent, maybe more talent, than Wayne Gretzky. But he’s heard that ever since he was six years old. Unlike Gretzky, Judd believes he should be treated like a star.”
Now I really wondered where this was going.
“Riley Judd is the best player this league has seen in twenty years. I’ll never coach someone this good again. Almost by himself, Judd can take our team to the championship finals. Even with his bad attitude.”
Coach managed to grin. “Hey, how many coaches would kill to have this kind of problem?”
I squinted. The question mark must have been all over my face.
“Yes,” he said, “a problem. Hockey’s a team game. It involves discipline. That stunt he pulled last night is unforgivable. What if it had been a play-off game? What if he hadn’t scored? He might be the best player in the world, but I can’t let him get away with what he did. It will hurt the team. And, in the long run, it will hurt him. When he hits the NHL, he’s got to have more than just talent.”
Coach Estleman paused and tapped his desk with a pencil. “Tyler, you’re a lot smarter than you think you are. So tell me—what’s my problem?”
“Judd’s a million-dollar player. You’re not a million-dollar coach.”
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“Obviously you read the sports section of the newspaper today.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you heard the fans scream for my blood last night when I refused to let him play for the rest of the game. Unhappy fans mean an unhappy team owner.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What this creates is a power struggle: Riley against me,” Coach said. “Unfortunately, if it comes down to it, I think the owner would get rid of me before getting rid of Judd.”
I nodded. Riley Judd was that good.
“Even if I could trade him away,” Coach said, “I wouldn’t want to. The kid is a joy to watch.”
I really, really wondered where this was going and why I was in the coach’s office hearing this.
“Fortunately the owner does agree with me on one thing. If Riley Judd doesn’t make an attitude adjustment, it will hurt the team. And it will hurt Riley Judd. He’s got to learn that the world doesn’t revolve around him just because he’s a star hockey player.”
“Coach?”
“This year, the public relations people have gotten us involved with a group called Youth Works. It’s an inner-city organization that helps kids from disadvantaged backgrounds.” Coach Estleman shrugged. “The owner knows someone on the board of directors of Youth Works. One night they had dinner together and came up with the idea of sending a couple of players from the team to help the kids.”
Coach Estleman pointed at me. “You’re one of the players. Riley will be the other. Maybe that way Riley will learn something about real life. You’re both going into the inner city to do some volunteer work on behalf of the Winter Hawks.”
“Me, sir?” This didn’t sound like I was volunteering.
“Look, Tyler. You’re a sensible kid. That’s why I’m explaining all this to you. Which, by the way, you’re not going to repeat to Riley Judd. Right?”
“Right, sir.”
“Your job is to make sure he actually spends time with the kids. We’ll even give you gas money for driving him there and back. Your job is to make sure he doesn’t get in trouble. Your job is to be a good influence on Riley Judd.”
“Yes, sir.”
Winter Hawk Star Page 1
