As a team, I think we could sense the game was ours if we just pushed a little harder. Our first break happened two minutes later. I hit Mancini up the middle with a pass, and he and Burnell broke free for a two-on-one against their remaining defenseman. Mancini faked a pass over to Burnell and flicked a shot to the right side of the net. It bounced off the post, almost to Burnell’s stick, and the defenseman dove into Burnell to keep him from shooting. The result was a two-minute penalty. Jason scored on a slap shot from the blue line less than twenty seconds into our power play.
It left us down by only one goal, 6–5.
Our second break was even better than the first. On the next shift, Jason dumped the puck in around the boards. The Hurricane goalie stepped behind his net to block the puck. But it hopped over his stick and continued around the boards to the other side. Burnell was there. He knocked their defenseman off the puck, took a step toward the face-off circle and took advantage of the wide-open net with a powerful wrist shot in the top right corner.
Six to six!
I was screaming as loudly as anyone in the stands.
The Hurricanes dug in. For the next ten minutes they bumped and checked us into a stalemate. The clock ticked down to the final three minutes of the game.
Down to two minutes. Down to one minute.
Then down to the buzzer, which ended regulation time. Sixty minutes of hockey finished. Ten minutes of overtime remained. If the Hurricanes could keep us from scoring, if the game ended in a tie, the Hurricanes would get that last playoff spot. We would be out.
This time, when we filed into the dressing room, the air was filled with shouts.
Coach Blair raised his voice. “What a comeback!” he shouted. “Boys, I’m all out of fingernails. Let’s end this overtime real quick before I chew my fingers down to the bone!”
We responded with loud cheers.
I sat on the bench, smiling at the players around me, saying little but trying to enjoy the moment. It was a lot more fun than worrying about making a mistake in overtime.
When the buzzer called us back to the ice, I was ready. So were all the Rebels.
Unfortunately, so were the Hurricanes. They stalemated us as badly as they had for the last half of the third period. The seconds on the game clock drained like sand from an hourglass, and we couldn’t do anything to stop the flow of time.
Again, down to three minutes—maybe the final three minutes of our season. For some of us, it could even be the final three minutes of our junior hockey careers.
The crowd screamed in frenzy, and we pushed the Hurricanes hard. But we couldn’t score.
Down to two minutes. Down to one minute.
With forty-five seconds on the game clock, I took the puck over the centerline and fired it into the Hurricanes’ end. Shertzer skated in on the Hurricane defenseman so fast the defenseman’s only choice was to fire a slap shot all the way down the ice.
That meant an icing call, which meant a face-off in the Hurricanes’ end. Which meant Coach Blair pulled our goalie. We had an empty net at our back and six skaters to attack the Hurricanes.
Mancini lost the draw. The Hurricane defenseman took the puck behind his net and came out the other side. He was desperate to get the puck out of their end, and he pulled his stick back to pound a high slap shot into the open air between Jason and me as we guarded the blue line.
Probably because I had stopped being afraid, I had one of those moments when instinct takes over. I found myself moving in the right direction at the right time without thinking about the what and why of my actions. I was off my feet and diving like a shortstop almost before the puck left the Hurricane defenseman’s stick.
Jason told me later I was almost waist-high off the ice, stretched out completely flat, my stick ahead of me as far as I could reach.
I was not aware of my position or of how I looked. My eyes were on the puck and I was straining to reach it. In one of the sweetest moments of all the hockey I’d played, I managed to knock the puck down with the blade of my stick.
I thumped back to the ice, and my dive took me in a heavy slide toward Jason. But the puck stopped, wobbling on the blue line. Our sixth man, Burnell, managed to reach it before a Hurricane forward, and he flipped it to Mancini.
Although I was still in a face-first body slide, moving away from the play, I turned my head to watch.
Mancini fired the puck across to Shertzer.
I slid into Jason.
Shertzer took the pass in his skates, kicked it ahead to his stick, and slammed the puck between the leg pads of the surprised goalie.
Jason tumbled on top of me. His skates kicked my shoulder, and his full weight knocked the breath out of me. The pain didn’t matter.
We’d scored.
Sudden-death overtime and we had scored the goal to end the game! We’d scored the goal it took to begin our playoff race!
Within seconds I was part of the mob around Shertzer and Mancini. The crowd was so loud I couldn’t hear a word, not even my own shouts.
The rest of the team flooded out of the players’ bench to join us in our celebration. Coach Blair and Assistant Coach Kimball trotted across the ice to where we were jumping and screaming and pounding each other’s backs.
Coach Blair waded into our celebration. He managed to get close enough to me to grab my hand and shake it.
“Thanks, Mac,” he said.
I just grinned. He didn’t owe me anything.
I knew I owed someone, though. I owed her for support and help. She was up in the stands somewhere, and I’d be looking for her smile as we skated off the ice.
I’d have to tell her how I had learned what she meant about the importance of hockey. How I had lost the fear and found the fun. And how I’d try to be less afraid of other things too. Like my mom. Or like liking Cheryl or even letting her know how much I liked her.
But I wasn’t sure how much of all this I’d tell her that night over milkshakes. A guy can’t just rush into these things.
Sigmund Brouwer is a prolific, best-selling author of books in a number of genres. He lives in Red Deer, Alberta, and Nashville, Tennessee.
Sigmund enjoys visiting schools to talk about his books. Interested teachers can find out more by e-mailing [email protected].
For more titles in the Orca Sports series, please click here.
Rebel Glory Page 9
