Making the Nine

by Albertus T. Dudley

Yet, with all this show of patriotism, the noisy rivalry seemed quite free from bitterness. The gibes flew back and forth; there were cheers and counter cheers and chants, and Montana hoots from the pine tree, but the mood was of frolic, not of fight. For the spectators it was a lark, pure and simple; hardly any one really cared at the outset what the result was to be.

On the ice the spirit was different. Dick looked into John Curtis’s face and, behind the patronizing grin, read very clearly a poorly masked defiance. Todd, the Yank forward end, fingered his stick nervously over the ice as he waited for the call to places, and on his cheeks appeared the telltale white spots which Dick had seen before in the great football games when Toddy had set his teeth and fought for ground by the inch. Bosworth, the Yank coverpoint, leaned scowling on his stick, eying his opponents with sombre malevolence.

“They are fighters, not players,” said Dick to himself, disapprovingly. “They seem to think they’re out against Hillbury.”

And it did not occur to him that his own men looked equally fierce and determined. Sands stood ready at goal, but he had not a word for the boy who was beside him waiting to take his sweater when the game was called. Varrell was moving about with the quiet confidence of a master, which is more impressive to an opponent than noisy display. And as for Melvin himself, one did not need to be told that his whole heart was in the contest. The school knew well that what Melvin did, he did with all his might; a stranger would have read determination in the open face. Little Durand was about the only one of the fourteen who seemed to share the mood of the spectators. He flourished and circled about, chattering gayly up to the very moment of beginning.

The preliminaries were soon arranged. “Ready!” called the captains, and a moment later, at the first sound of the referee’s whistle, the two forwards were scraping and twisting to secure the puck on the “face-off.” Curtis got it, or thought he had; but before he could really call it his, a Greaser blocked his play, and Durand, dexterously picking out the puck, swept it across to Rawle, who dribbled it along, passed back to Durand, received it again, and lost it in the crush at the Yank goal. In another moment it came flying through the air on a lift, far down in the Greaser defence field.

Dick succeeded in stopping it and sending it on toward Varrell. The Greaser captain was off-side; but he allowed his opponent just to touch the puck, and then with a sudden swing to one side he was off down the ice, sweeping the puck with him. The first opponent he dodged. Big Curtis, who was next in order, made him pass; but the exchange gave him the puck again, and after several quick diagonal passes with Durand that brought them near the Yank goal, Varrell gave his stick a sudden hard flourish, and the puck shot like an arrow between the goal-posts, grazing the goal-tender’s knee as it passed.

It was all done so quickly, so unexpectedly, that for a moment the Western supporters under the pines and in the pines seemed unaware that their team had scored. Then as the sticks of the team brandished in air made the fact clear, a confused mixture of cheers, screeches, whoops, and catcalls gave proof that the West was both patriotic and appreciative. On the New England side indifference seemed to prevail.

“One!” said Sands with joy, as the puck came back to the centre.

“The first one, you mean,” returned Dick, in a low tone. “We’re not through yet.”

The next goal came hard. The Eastern team was heavier and generally stronger, but the members could not or would not play together; and if they got the puck down near the Greaser goal, they usually lost it before the goal was really threatened. Once a hard shot close at hand struck Sands in the pit of the stomach, and the spectators cheered and jeered as the gasping lad feebly lifted the puck away from its dangerous proximity to the goal. He had his breath again in a moment, however, apparently none the worse for his experience. Soon after, Curtis and Durand came together as both rushed for the puck at the same time, and the spectators under the trees cheered wildly as the little fellow crouched low for the collision, and the big football player sprawled over him upon the ice. But Varrell was the objective point of the strongest attack. Though he played coverpoint, he had an arrangement with Brown, one of the forwards, to exchange places on signal; and the result was that he appeared now in the defence, now in the attack, apparently scenting the course the puck was destined to take, and always equal to the need.