“Hello? I can’t hear you—hello?” the mayor said into her phone with a shrug, trying to keep in her own giggles. But the call was already gone.
“I didn’t think you’d be able to hear the doorbell with all that noise,” a voice boomed from the driveway.
Lucas whipped his head around to see Mr. Blitz slipping his phone back into his pocket and striding confidently toward the mayor’s front steps. The Stars’ coach had Jared and Beatrice on either side of him . . . and Lars was shuffling behind!
“What’s he doing here? This dinner is only for Ice Chips,” Edge whispered to Lucas.
At that moment, Bond burst through the door of the mayor’s house and launched herself into her father’s arms.
“I don’t quit! I don’t quit!” Bond was yelling at both her dad and Coach Small, crying and wiping her eyes.
As usual, Coach Small just stood back calmly and listened.
“I didn’t . . . I haven’t had a chance to tell him yet,” Bond’s dad stammered at first. But then he started grinning when he realized what his daughter was telling him. He knew what quitting a sport felt like—what it meant—and although he’d respected Bond’s decision, he really hadn’t wanted her to quit the team either.
“I know I can learn to shoot now,” said Bond, smiling. “I want to play! I want to be an Ice—”
“Good evening, all of you,” said Mr. Blitz, interrupting. He now had one foot on the mayor’s front steps and was determined to break up the scene. “Is Ingrid here?”
Lars’s mom emerged from the kitchen carrying a plate of cheeses. She looked almost as surprised as Mayor Ward when she saw Mr. Blitz and the twins standing there.
“Is there something . . . wrong?” she asked, her eyes narrowing.
“Nothing, nothing. Not here to cause trouble,” Mr. Blitz said with a smile as he pulled Lars out from behind him and pushed him up onto the stoop. “I’ve just got a few details to iron out for tomorrow’s game—fireworks, catering. You know, that kind of stuff. Lars was happy when my driver picked these three up from school, but when I said we’d have to go to the rink to fix a few things, he said he’d rather go back to his mom. Apparently, Ice Chips and Stars don’t hang out at rinks together—even when they are cousins.”
At the word “cousins,” Lars turned beet red.
He’s related to Beatrice and Jared? Lucas actually felt sorry for the guy.
“Oh, and I guess I wanted to wish you all luck tomorrow,” Mr. Blitz said as he and the twins turned to walk back toward their car, leaving Lars behind. “You’ll need it.”
Still standing on the steps, Lars looked at Lucas and Lucas looked at Lars, but neither of them knew what to say.
Chapter 18
The Chips couldn’t believe the scene in front of them. Cars everywhere. The parking lot of the new arena was completely full—as though the whole town had come out. At the entrance to the Blitz Sports Complex was a massive banner: “Grand Opening!” There were lights playing off the new building, and a stage had been set up. A rock band was blaring so loudly that people walking by were forced to hold their hands over their ears.
This is bananas, Lucas thought. Mr. Blitz had gone too far. Near the front doors, he even had food trucks, a bouncy castle, and a clown walking around on gigantic stilts!
For a novice hockey game? This is way too wild, but it’s also kind of . . . awesome?! Lucas felt it, but he didn’t want to admit it.
“Stupendus-exaggeritis!” Edge called out as he grabbed his hockey bag from the back of his mom’s truck.
“They think they’re so smart with their fancy new gear,” Swift grumbled. “I want to beat them soooooooo bad.”
“Do you think we’ll be playing on the regular rink or the plastic one?” asked Lucas, already feeling depressed. Mr. Blitz’s new arena was not only amazingly high-tech but also contained two full-sized, state-of-the-art rinks!
“Dunno which one . . . let’s check ’em both out!” Crunch said as he took off toward the doors.
“Oh—wow!” said Swift.
“They’re going to kiiiiiiill us,” said Edge, gasping.
Lucas wondered if Edge’s chin would bounce off the floor. Or if Bond’s eyeballs would fall out of her head. They were all standing in the new arena, staring in wonder. They’d never imagined being at such an amazing place for a novice-level hockey game.
“Which rink is ours? Which end will we start in? Does anyone have any gum?” Mouth Guard asked. He was anxious, so everything was just spilling out of his head. He’d already talked about each item in his hockey bag, told some confusing story about what he’d watched on TV last night, and wondered at length if he’d forgotten to feed his hamster, Potato, before leaving the house.
He was all over the place, but everyone else knew exactly where they were headed: to the rink where their parents were slowly taking their seats—the one with the giant puckhead mascot already dancing up and down the steps, with popcorn and cotton candy for sale, and with an amazing temperature-controlled ice surface already shining in the overhead lights.
The hallway Lucas and his friends were standing in, with their noses pressed against the windows, was really more like a glass-walled bridge. On the right, they looked down onto Mr. Blitz’s synthetic rink, where several young figure skaters were being led around in a chain, all of them holding hands.
And on the left . . . they looked down at their destiny.
The Riverton Stars’ new rink had a huge scoreboard with a massive full-colour, high-definition screen for replays and advertisements, and there seemed to be more seats in the stands than there were people in the whole town.
Wow . . . that ice. Lucas couldn’t get over it. It wasn’t magical like Scratch’s ice surface—it couldn’t be—but it was definitely special. It shone.
“We’re in dressing room three!” Slapper called from the top of the stairs in his big, booming voice.
Lars, Dynamo, and the Face—Matias Rodriguez, the Ice Chips’ second goalie—made their way past and started down the stairs toward the Ice Chips’ dressing room.
“Our old rink is still better,” Lucas said stubbornly, moving toward the stairs.
“Yeah, of course,” agreed Crunch, but Lucas didn’t believe him.
Their dressing room was huge—easily two or three times the size of the one back at the community arena. This one even had showers, just like in the pros.
“Hey, remember when Sid said that life was like one big hockey schedule? That it’s either a game day or it’s not a game day?” Edge asked, looking around.
“Oh, yeah. Forget the Stars’ fancy jackets, I want that printed on a T-shirt!” Swift joked as she slid down the bench and flicked a sock at Lucas’s head.
“Yeah . . . this is definitely a game day,” Lucas said as he unzipped his hockey bag.
Once he had pulled out his skates, he kept them close—and kept his eyes on Lars. Without Mr. Johansen, the skate sharpener, around, he couldn’t risk another sabotage. For this rematch, Lucas wasn’t going to let Lars—or any of his equipment—out of his sight.
Lars says he’s an Ice Chip, but how can he be one when the horrible Blitz twins are his cousins?!
As everyone was tightening their skates and pulling on their Ice Chips jerseys, Coach Small came in carrying a clipboard.
“Listen up,” he said in his normal voice, and the Chips went quiet instantly. They had that much respect for their coach.
“Now, I know we have a lot to work on, and these exhibition games are happening earlier than we’d expected, but this new rink is a big deal for Riverton. Just try your best and I’ll be more than happy. Now let’s get out there!”
As the Ice Chips filed out the door one by one, they were so excited they were bouncing on their skates. Lucas hoped he looked that way, too—like he believed in his team and felt they had a chance of winning. Just in case, he decided to hang back a bit, as he often did and as Sidney Crosby always did—one of their shared superstitions.
&n
bsp; If I’m last on the ice, maybe that will make a difference?
But when Lucas moved for his turn through the door, he realized he wasn’t alone in the dressing room.
“Can I talk to you?” The voice sounded shy, unsure.
And it belonged to Lars.
Chapter 19
Lucas and Lars were almost knocked off their skates by a blast of light and noise as they moved along after the other players, through the gate, and out onto the ice. Music was thundering down from huge speakers, the sound so loud that Lucas felt as if the drums and bass guitar were being played inside his chest.
Coach Small made his way to the visitors’ bench as the Ice Chips lined up along their blue line, with Swift moving into the net.
But they were the only team on the ice.
Suddenly, the music stopped. The arena went dark. Someone in the crowd made a wolf call; a little kid started to cry.
Then the world’s biggest voice filled the rink: “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the amazing Blitz Sports Complex, the state-of-the-art arena that will soon be Riverton’s number-one attraction. Welcome . . . to the home of your Stars!”
BOOM!!!
A spotlight flashed on, blinding the Ice Chips where they stood nervously along the far blue line.
BOOM!
The music pounded down from the speakers and then faded as the huge voice came back on to introduce the Stars, now skating out one by one,
“Stars’ forward, number 13, Beatrice Blitz . . . ”
“At centre, number 9, Jared Blitz . . . ”
The audience applauded for the players as if they were NHL greats. And then when the Stars were finally all on their blue line, the rink exploded with indoor fireworks! There was flashing and booming until the whole arena filled up with pink, white, and yellow smoke.
Soon, Lucas was skating to centre ice.
And coming toward him was Beatrice Blitz.
The Ice Chips hadn’t chosen a captain yet for this year, but Coach Small had waved his hand at Lucas, telling him to take the first faceoff. Lucas didn’t feel like a captain, but he kept reminding himself that back in Halifax, Sidney Crosby had told him he was good—and that must say something about his game. At least, he hoped it did.
With a huge C on her chest, Beatrice approached the circle with a laugh, dismissing Lucas before the puck had even dropped!
“I guess I don’t have to touch your skates this game,” she hissed, “now that we all know how bad you Chips stink.”
Lucas scowled. Lars had been telling the truth! When he’d pulled Lucas aside on his way out of the dressing room, Lars had sworn he wasn’t the one who’d sabotaged his teammate’s blades. He’d said it was one of the Stars.
“If we end up on the same line today,” Lars had said shyly, giving Lucas an unexpected smile, “I don’t want you coming after me—I mean, we are on the same team.”
Beatrice, however, was definitely coming after Lucas again. Her twin, Jared, probably was, too.
“Loser,” Beatrice sneered as the ref leaned in between them, ready to drop the puck.
Lucas tried to breathe—to block her out.
Luckily, he had a trick, and he used it. He watched the referee’s hand, not the faceoff circle, and the moment the hand released the puck, Lucas swept with his stick, catching the puck in mid-air and sending it back to Bond.
Beatrice elbowed Lucas in the helmet as she pushed past, chasing the puck. Lucas fell, scrambled back onto his skates, and waited for a whistle—but there was none. Beatrice had made it look like an accident, so the referee, who had to have seen the play, let it go.
The Chips moved the puck up, and Edge got off a shot that struck the Stars’ post and rebounded back to Mouth Guard.
“Shoot!” Lucas yelled, but Mouth Guard was already moving to pass it on.
As Edge skated around behind the net, Mouth Guard drew his stick back and shot the puck over to him. But he didn’t shoot it to Edge—he shot it to where Edge had been. Jared Blitz picked up the puck in full flight, slipped past Edge, and spun quickly around Lucas as he burst up the ice. Beatrice was skating hard, but Jared never even looked to pass. He tore over centre and swept so fast around Bond that she fell trying to turn and stay with him.
Jared then moved in on Swift, who stacked her pads to make the stop . . . but he didn’t shoot! Instead, he just waited, with Swift down and out and sliding helplessly to the side. Almost as if joking, he slid the puck as slowly as a curling stone into the net—copying the only goal Lucas had made in their horrible exhibition game.
Jared then turned to skate back to the Stars’ bench, laughing.
“What was that?” Edge asked Lucas as they sat on their own bench.
“I don’t know,” Lucas said. “But I think he’s making fun of me.”
Next, it was Lars’s line.
Dynamo took the faceoff. He sent the puck back to Blades, who leaped at it with the grace of a figure skater and fired it over to Lars.
Moving the puck smoothly back and forth, Lars crossed centre and found himself smack in between the Blitz twins—and both were now coming for him. Blades and Dynamo moved as fast as they could down either side and were soon banging their sticks on the ice, but the moment Lars pulled back his stick, he found himself in the middle of a Blitz-twin sandwich.
The three cousins tumbled over onto the ice, and Lars cried out as the wind was knocked out of him.
“Last night you said you were an Ice Chip,” Beatrice nearly spat at her cousin as she got back onto her skates. “At least now you look like one.” Then she yelled out for everyone else to hear: “Sorry! Accident!”
Again, the ref let it go.
Lucas couldn’t believe it.
Everything that could go wrong did go wrong for the Ice Chips. Swift had trouble controlling her rebounds, Mouth Guard’s passes kept missing their marks, and Bond was unable to stop the end-to-end rushes of the Stars’ big new forward—it was almost as though she was afraid of the puck. The Blitz twins both scored in the first period, and the big guy scored, too, making it 3–0 for the Stars.
At the bench, Mr. Blitz grinned and gave his new assistant coach a fist bump.
The Ice Chips were being humiliated. It looked as if it was going to be another blowout.
Chapter 20
When Lucas and his friends came back to the dressing room for the fresh flood that would split the game into two periods rather than their regular three—Coach Blitz wanted the flood for the TV cameras—Lars was already there, smacking his stick so hard against the wall that it broke in half. He looked like he was almost in tears.
“They did that on purpose! Jared and Bea . . . they didn’t even want the puck! They just wanted me to look like a loser!”
“Cut it out,” Swift said. “They’re cheaters—get used to it.”
“I won’t!” Lars shouted. He’d never been on this end of Beatrice’s cheating, and he’d never realized how horrible it felt—how unfair. But the other Ice Chips knew, that much was obvious. Still red in the face, Lars took a deep breath, wiped his cheeks, and went to get his second stick from the pile.
Coach Small came in behind the players, noted the broken stick lying on the floor, looked over in Lars’s direction, and lifted an eyebrow that said far more than any words would have. Then he took a deep breath, too.
“The Stars might not play the way we do,” Coach Small said, “but this is the team we’re playing out there today—think about that. We have to play to their weaknesses. And we need to tighten up our defence.”
“I tried to stop Jared,” said Bond, starting to cry. “But I was afraid he’d take the puck from me—I almost didn’t even want it!”
“If you’re afraid, that is exactly what he’ll do,” said Edge. “But, Bond, you can crouch lower, protect the puck . . . don’t forget the sandbag.”
“The what?” asked Slapper, who was fixing the tape on his stick.
“I said don’t forget the handshake. They’ve got a secret h
andshake now. It’s for luck,” Crunch said, trying to sound casual. He was a smooth talker when it came to parents, but when he talked to kids his own age, he was the worst liar ever.
Lucas shook his head—this was going nowhere.
Swift, who’d taken off her skates, got up and left the room.
“All you’ve got to do is try your best,” said Coach Small. He had an interview to do with a TV crew out in the hallway, but he’d been trying to avoid it. Now they were banging on the door. “This next half will be better. I’ll come and get you when the flood is done.”
“Sid . . . er, a guy showed me a trick,” said Mouth Guard, trying not to use Sidney Crosby’s name. “He said that if I want to pass to somebody, I should look at some other player. Fake the other team out. I haven’t been doing that, but I should.”
“We did some of those in practice last year,” said Lucas.
“Sure, but you need to be able to actually pass the puck for it to work,” said Bond. She was being hard on herself, and she couldn’t stop herself from being hard on Mouth Guard, too.
“We’ve only got ten minutes left in the break,” said Swift, bursting back though the door with her arms full. “We’d better get moving.”
Lucas’s mouth dropped open—he was instantly blown away. Swift had run upstairs and borrowed some juggling pins from the clown outside! And although she hadn’t found a sandbag, Lars’s broken stick had given her an idea: limbo!
When Coach Small came back to tell the kids that the flood was finished, it looked like a circus had taken over their dressing room. Mouth Guard was juggling the three coloured pins, and Bond, the Face, and Crunch were all duck-walking their way under Lars’s broken stick. Swift and Edge were each holding on to an end of it, chanting, “How low can you go?”
“Guys, come on!” said Coach Small. “Focus on the game.” Of course, he had no idea that was exactly what they were doing. “Let’s go, Chips—the ice is ready!”
“So are we!” said Bond, her cheeks now flushed with excitement.
The Ice Chips and the Haunted Hurricane Page 8
