On the following Saturday afternoon House and Day met in the first game of the series to settle the school hockey supremacy. The Day Team was credited with being better than the House. Last winter it had won two straight games without much trouble and borne off the pewter mug which Mr. Crane and Mr. Folsom had donated as a trophy two years before. The mug was to go finally to the team winning two out of three series, and so far both Day Team and House Team had one win to its credit and the present series would settle the ownership of the trophy.
There were three star performers on the Day Team: White, who played center; Grimshaw, who played cover-point, and Morgan, who was the goal-tend. Billy Spooner, the captain, was an excellent skater, but was not a very certain performer with the stick. The rest of the Day Team were only fair players. For the House, Ben Holden was the star performer. Ben played center and was truly an adept with the hockey stick. Dick Gardner, at goal, was another brilliant player, and Pierce, rover, and Lovell, point, were capable of good work. Cupples, at right wing, was rather weak, and the same may be said of Waters, on the other end of the line, and of Perkins at cover-point.
On the whole, the day pupils had rather the better of it as regards material, and if they failed to carry off the coveted trophy it would be largely because of lack of practice. They had as much right to use the school rinks as the house students, and Spooner tried his level best to get his team to remain after school and practice. But it was hard work. Every day one or more of the day pupils deserted for some reason or other, leaving the team short. Sometimes Spooner conducted practice with only four players out of seven!
It was right there that Ben and his House Team had the advantage. His fellows didn’t have to run home after lessons were over and he almost always had enough players at hand to make a full team. Crandall, who was a poor skater but a hard worker, was usually on hand as a substitute, while Lanny looked on enviously from the side of the rink and almost daily petitioned Ben to let him play.
Mr. Folsom and Mr. Crane acted respectively as referee and timekeeper. The audience consisted of a handful of boys from the village, several of them day students, the four juniors and Nan. Kid, first indicating Small and then himself, declared that the gathering was “small, but select.” Lanny, dressed for play, but at the moment impersonating a spectator, deftly introduced some particles of ice down Kid’s neck and warned him against punning. During the subsequent confusion Mr. Folsom tossed the puck onto the ice and blew his whistle and the game began.
“Which side do you want to win?” asked Nan of Bert.
“Our side, of course.”
“Yes, I suppose you do,” she sighed. “But I’m in a very difficult position because, you see, both teams are made up of Mt. Pleasant boys, and I ought to be—be strictly impartial.”
“I don’t see how you can be,” replied Bert, leaning over the boards to watch Waters try a shot at goal. “Besides, I don’t see what difference it makes.”
Waters made a miserable shot and the puck skimmed over the barrier and into the snow, and Small dug it out with a spare hockey stick.