The Ice Chips and the Magical Rink
Page 8
Now that was magical!
Lucas’s dad often read him stories about great hockey players—sometimes from books, sometimes just from the backs of hockey cards. And Gordie Howe, “Number 9,” was one of the greatest! He was called “Mr. Hockey,” and he’d won four Stanley Cups—four! He’d set tons of records and he’d played more than a thousand NHL games. Even Wayne Gretzky had admired him!
Lucas had looked up to him, too—even when Gordon had had just one skate, out on the slough!
* * *
But the lists . . .
Lucas swallowed hard—the pterodactyls were back and they were going nuts!
If only his luck would help him out . . .
Sadie said she wouldn’t tell them—she didn’t want to spoil the surprise. They’d have to look for themselves.
Lucas looked at Swift. They did a fist tap for luck, and then all four Ice Chips—they hoped they were still Ice Chips—joined the other anxious kids flooding into the hallway to get a look at the arena’s bulletin board.
Lucas went at it backwards. First he scanned the list for Mr. Blitz’s Riverton Stars. No “Lucas.” Deep breath. Beat back the pterodactyls.
Then he came to the list that meant everything: the Riverton Ice Chips, coached by George Small.
Swift’s name was at the very top as the goaltender of the Ice Chips. And Edge was there, right below her.
And . . . Lucas!
The crocodiles and pterodactyls—and that very angry ape with the sliver in his butt cheek—vanished instantly.
But then they roared back . . .
Halfway down the list was a name neither Swift nor Lucas nor Edge had ever for a moment expected to see—one they wished they hadn’t seen.
Lars.
* * *
“Dylan and Tianna made the Ice Chips, too,” said Edge, trying to cheer up Lucas. “That means lots of new players, not just—”
“The bully,” said Lucas, looking worried.
Most of the players who were now leaving the arena were pounding fists and congratulating each other—talking, shouting, cheering. Others seemed disappointed. One or two looked like they might cry when they got home.
Lucas needed a distraction. That much was obvious to Swift, Edge, and Crunch (the Chips’ science genius had made the team too!).
“Hey, Lucas, on the night of our last skate, where do you think Dave the Iceman was going?” Edge said quickly, as though the thought had only just occurred to him.
“Home to get that towel?” Lucas answered.
“No, I mean . . . he was going to flood the rink for himself, wasn’t he? To go where? And do what?” Edge loved a good mystery, and he knew Lucas did, too.
Lucas just shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t know. All he was thinking was: Lars is going to be an Ice Chip!
“If this bonkers time-travel story is true,” said Crunch, sounding doubtful, but also like he was enjoying Edge’s game, “then who do you think Quiet Dave’s met already? Bobby Orr? Wayne Gretzky? Mario Lemieux? Who?”
“Who would you want to meet?” Swift said to Crunch. Then, turning to Edge and Lucas with a quizzical smile, she asked, “And if you could leap again, would you?”
Edge raised one of his eyebrows and smiled. Yeah, of course I would.
Lucas was about to say that Dave had made him promise not to, but he paused when he saw that Swift had extended her arm toward him.
In the palm of her hand—shining, almost winking at him—were Mr. Bertrand’s rink keys.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Suzanne Sutherland for her careful guidance in editing and shaping our journey from Riverton’s magical ice rink to a slough in Saskatchewan; to Maeve O’Regan in publicity; and to Jennifer Lambert for her support. And thanks to the rest of the wonderful team at HarperCollins, who made this time travel possible: Janice Weaver, our keen-eyed copyeditor; Stephanie Nuñez, our patient and well-organized production editor; and Lloyd Davis, our proofreader. Thank you also to Bruce Westwood and Meg Wheeler at Westwood Creative Artists for their guidance and friendship.
Thanks to the many friends and new acquaintances who lent us their stories so we could shape the characters on the Ice Chips team: Manmeet Singh, who grew up with Kerry; Jagdeep Mann and his son, Himmit, for their stories and photos; and Harnarayan Singh, the host of Hockey Night in Canada: Punjabi Edition, who helped us get in touch with some young Sikh hockey families, including Gurinder Singh Marwaha and his son, Jeevan, and Rumnik Chana and her sons, Hazoor and Nihal.
Thank you also to Kim Smith, whose beautiful illustrations were possibly the most magical part for us.
And thank you to our families, who made it possible for us to keep our heads in the snow clouds all year long.
—Roy MacGregor and Kerry MacGregor
Many thanks to Roy MacGregor and Kerry MacGregor for writing about this fantastic team of characters; Suzanne Sutherland, who brought everything together; Kelly Sonnack, my amazing agent; and my husband, Eric, for answering my many hockey questions.
—Kim Smith
About the Authors
ROY MACGREGOR, who was the media inductee into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2012, has been described by the Washington Post as “the closest thing there is to a poet laureate of Canadian hockey.” He is the author of the internationally successful Screech Owls hockey mystery series for young readers, which has sold more than two million copies and is also published in French, Chinese, Swedish, Finnish, and Czech. It is the most successful hockey series in history—and is second only to Anne of Green Gables as a Canadian book series for young readers—and, for two seasons, was a live-action hit on YTV. MacGregor has twice won the ACTRA Award for best television screenwriting.
KERRY MACGREGOR is co-author of the latest work in the Screech Owls series. She has worked in news and current affairs at the CBC, and as a journalist with the Toronto Star, the Ottawa Citizen, and many other publications. Her columns on parenting, written with a unique, modern perspective on the issues and interests of today’s parents, have appeared in such publications as Parenting Times Magazine.
KIM SMITH is an illustrator from Calgary. She has illustrated several children’s books including The Great Puppy Invasion and storybook adaptations of Home Alone, The X-Files, and E. T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Her favourite hockey team is the Calgary Flames. Go Flames, Go!
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at www.harpercollins.ca.
Copyright
THE ICE CHIPS AND THE MAGICAL RINK. Text Copyright © 2018 by Roy MacGregor and Kerry MacGregor. Illustrations copyright © 2018 by Kim Smith. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Cover illustration by Kim Smith
Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
FIRST EDITION
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication information is available upon request.
EPub Edition FEBRUARY 2018 ISBN: 978-1-44345-230-4
Print ISBN: 978-1-44345-228-1
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