Melville team mates glumly consulted one another. It was a shock to have been scored upon since no other opponent had been able to turn the trick. But this Frederick, the whoever he was, would be a marked man from now on! They’d bottle him up and put the cork in.
The puck had scarcely been put back in play than the cyclone struck Melville. It was twisting and turning, taking a zigzag course over the ice, threatening, receding, and threatening again, as a goalie crouched in the mouth of the cage like a Kansas farmer in a storm cellar, afraid any moment that a little round, black object might blow into the net and take the game with it! Such an exhibition of skating and stick handling had never been witnessed as Kirkwood’s substitute left wing put on for the edification of the crowd and one Scotty Lathrom in particular. But Melville, fighting desperately to stand off this tempestuous one-man attack, stopped a stream of shots at the goal, fired either by Frederick or one of his team mates who had been placed in an advantageous position due to his whizzing passwork.
“Half a minute to play—looks like an overtime game!” shouted someone.
A terrific mix-up occurred at centre ice. The cyclone went down, curling up in a heap and with most of the wind taken out of it. Rand Downey grabbed a dazed Frederick up and set him on his feet. The referee’s whistle screeched. It looked like someone was going to be penalized but the official called no foul as Scotty separated himself from the tangle and stood swayingly on his feet to face a rival who had shaken Melville’s defense to its foundations.
“I still think you’re a rotten fancy skater!” he taunted.
But it was Frederick now who did the grinning. And it was Frederick who got the puck on the next face-off, blazing it down the ice on an attempted long shot for goal. The shot was blocked, however, by the Melville left defense but he was set upon almost instantly by Rand Downey and Steve Lucas and Bill Stewart—Kirkwood sending a formation of four into Melville territory in a last second effort to score. So furious was the onslaught, players on both sides went to the ice. In the mêlée the puck was hit into the open between the struggling group and the Melville cage. Scotty and Frederick, near centre ice, set out in a race for the disc. The heaving mass of players blocked the direct path, so Scotty veered to go around it.
“Man, oh man—look at Frederick, will you?...” gasped Don Keith. “He’s heading straight for that gang on the ice. He must be going to pull his airplane dive in order to beat Scotty to the puck ... hey! There he goes...!”
Leaving his feet in a spectacular dive through space, Frederick, the Great, Barker, cleared the heads and forms of mates and foemen, arms outstretched, to land on his chest and go sliding across the ice, skimming directly in front of Scotty who catapulted over him and went skidding into the sideboards. Raking out his stick as he slid along, never for one instant having taken his eyes off the puck, the champion fancy skater made connections, clipping the disc so that it upended and rolled, skimming the leg of Melville’s desperate goalie as it bounced over and into a corner of the net.
Bang!
At the sound of the timer’s gun, Don Keith deliriously hugged Coach Howard and Kirkwood rooters did unaccountable things. They tried mainly to get down on the ice and capture a fellow who had written hockey history with his skates and who was now jabbering about writing something else for the especial benefit of a crestfallen Scotty Lathrom who was sitting dazedly where he had fallen, propped up against the sideboards and staring unbelievingly at the final score which read: Kirkwood, 2; Melville, 1.