“Beech,” he said finally, “take some shots from about five yards away, please. You don’t need to skate. Work right around in a half-circle shooting from the different angles. Let’s see what Tucker’s weakest point is.”
It developed that Toby’s principal weakness was in meeting shots made from that arc of the circle lying to his left. In other words, as Mr. Loring pointed out, an opposing right wing would stand a better chance of scoring through Toby than a left wing would. “You’re right-handed, Tucker,” he said. “You can’t afford to be. Learn to use your left hand and the left side generally as easily and quickly as your right. Try it again, Beech.” And then, after Toby had stopped the puck none too cleverly, he followed with: “See what I mean, Tucker? When the puck comes at you from your right or from the center you meet it nicely, but when it comes to you from where Beech is shooting you have trouble. You don’t cross as naturally from right to left as you do vice versa and you don’t handle your body as well. To-morrow you’d better pay a good deal of attention to shots from that side. Practice swinging across from the right post to the left. If you keep your knee against the post and push out with it when you want to cross you’ll get a quicker start. Try it now. That’s pretty good. But you favor your right too much. A good goal-tend mustn’t know one side from the other. It wouldn’t take long for an enemy to discover your weakness, Tucker, and they’d pound you from the right—that is, your left—till the cows come home. Look here, what about those gloves? Didn’t you say you were going to get some decent ones?”
“Yes, sir, but I—I haven’t had time yet.”
“Well, get at it, man! Those things aren’t fit to wear. Your fingers would freeze numb on a cold day. Better attend to it to-day if you can. It’s five minutes to twelve, fellows. You’d better stop now. Can you come again to-morrow, Beech?”
“Yes, sir, to-morrow and Thursday, but not Friday; nor Saturday either.”
“Never mind about Saturday. We’ll leave Saturday out. I’ll take your place Friday, unless I have to run back to New York that day. What I want to do, Beech, is to make a real corking goal out of Tucker. He’s got a sort of natural style of playing it that looks good to me. Notice it?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Loring,” responded Beech doubtfully. “But I know that Tucker can certainly stop them in good style. He’s had me skating my head off, sir, before you came.”
“Stopping them when there’s only one man against you isn’t so hard,” said Toby, tugging at the straps of his leg-guards. “It’s when three or four are skating down on you that the trouble begins!”
“Only one of the four can shoot, Tucker. Remember that. Keep your eye glued to the puck, my boy, and it won’t make much difference if there are twenty at you. It’s the last man who counts.”
They walked back to the gymnasium together and there Mr. Loring left them. As Toby and Beech hurried into their street clothes Beech said: “Some of the fellows think Loring doesn’t know his business, but I don’t see what their kick is. I guess he knows as much hockey as he needs. I like him, don’t you?”