Sports & Recreation
Chapter 1
Cody Powell picked up the puck off the boards at centre ice and flew towards the opposing net. His skates pumped hard, shooting ice shavings into the cold air, and his stick handled the puck expertly, as if the puck were somehow magnetized to the blade. Beneath his blue and red Jets jersey, his heart pounded with the excitement of the goal he could sense he was about to score.
At the blue line, Cody spied a defender looming tall in a yellow Penguins jerseyRyan Miller. Instantly deciding to try a tricky deke, Cody sliced the blades of his skates sideways into the ice, came to a split-second stop directly in front of Ryan, twirled around in a tight backward arc, the puck still on his stick, and took off in the opposite direction, leaving Ryan with his legs tied up in a knot.
This is going to be a play for the highlight tapes, Cody thought, smiling to himself. He swayed his hips from side to side, once again building up momentum, and in a second came face-to-face with the goaltender, Ernie Gaines, who had slid out of his crease to challenge Cody. Cody faked to the left with his shoulders, then poked the puck with his stick to the right, sending Ernie sprawling onto the ice face-first, lifting his glove in a last-ditch effort to make a save.
Cody measured up the puck on his backhand and with the force of his powerful wrists raised the puck towards the net.
The puck zoomed past Ernie's outstretched glove and crossed the line.
A goal!
As his teammate, Mitch Porter, patted him on the back, Cody threw up his arms in celebration. Closing his eyes tightly, he could almost feel the applause of the fans wash over his body.
Meanwhile, Ernie kicked his goalpost in frustration, sending up a tinny clang that jarred Cody from his reverie.
In an instant, Cody was no longer in Winnipeg Arena, having just scored a picture-perfect goal in front of a crowd of thousands of cheering fans. He wasn't even, he admitted to himself, in Lord Strathcona Arena winning a game for the Transcona Sharks in their twelve-year-olds' community club league. Those were mere fantasies. No, he was on a crummy outdoor rink two blocks from his home, and the only sound in the air other than the reverberating clang from the kicked goalpostwhich was actually an aluminum garbage can dragged onto the ice from the adjacent back lanewas the clatter of train cars switching tracks at the nearby CN rail yard.
"I'm freezing my butt off," Ernie grunted as he retrieved the puck and slid back to the other boys. Ernie was wearing winter boots. Playing goalie all the time, he'd never learned to skate. "Can we call it quits already?"
"Yeah, let's get going," Mitch agreed. His breath turned to vapour in the cold December air. "I have some math homework to do."
The four boys were using only half the ice surface of the outdoor rink. They had a net set up along the centre lineCody and Mitch's goaland two garbage cansRyan and Ernie's goalin front of the rickety boards at the end facing the CN yard.
"It is getting kind of late," Cody put in, figuring maybe it was best to just go home. As much as he loved playing hockey, what was the use playing two-on-two pickup games all the time? The Transcona Sharks, in their official turquoise and grey uniforms with the players' numbers and names printed across the backs, were the real thing. They hosted games in their own arena and travelled across the city and even the province to play other community club teams. They had been the City East runners-up last year. If only his mother were willing to put up with the cost of letting him sign up! But she wasn't. She kept reminding Cody that there was only so much money to go around now that she and his dad had divorced. Cody whacked his stick against the ice at the thought. It just wasn't fair.
Just then Ryan skated back to the other boys, joining them in a huddle around Ernie and his garbage-can goalpost.
"Let's play just a little longer," Ryan begged, even though he lived farthest from the rink, in a new house in the east end of Transcona. "I'm still having fun." His parents wouldn't let him play organized hockey, either. They had a different reason than Cody's mom, though: they were afraid their son might get injured. As a result, Ryan also had to satisfy himself with these after-school pickup games, which, at his parents' insistence, he played wearing all the necessary equipment.
"But I can hardly see the puck it's so dark," Mitch whined.
"Next goal wins, then," Ryan suggested, readjusting his shoulder pads. Tall and thin as a rail, he was always making sure his equipment was on right. Cody had a feeling Ryan was just as afraid of injuring himself as his parents were.
"You've got to be kidding!" Mitch answered. "The score's thirty-three to twenty-six. We're ahead by seven goals."
Sometimes it seemed to Cody that what Mitch enjoyed most about these games was keeping score. He'd make a great sportscaster someday, that was for sure.
"So what?"
Chapter 1
"Good save," Victoria Hayley yelled as her friend, Sylvia Kingma, deflected the puck away from the net into the mounds of snow on the side. Victoria, Tori to her friends, grabbed the rebound and headed for the other side of the improvised rink. Sean and Tyson, the Paterski twins who lived next door to her, were right on her heels, poking at the puck, getting in her way. She had to do some fancy manoeuvring to keep hold of the little rubber disk. She saw Sylvia streak past, blonde hair flying. Suddenly Tori braked hard, twisted around, and shot the puck to her friend. Sylvia caught the pass. Before the twins had a chance to rush up to defend their goal, she had fired off a shot on their empty net.
"Goal!" the two girls yelled.
"We're even! We're even!" twelve-year-old Tori shouted with glee. She looked at the older boys triumphantly while high-fiving Sylvia. The four of them were having a friendly game of two-on-two on the frozen lake in front of Tori's home during the Christmas holidays.
"Aw, we just let that one go," Sean said dismissively.
"You did not," Tori argued.
"Did so. We know how girls get when they're losing."
"Look who's talking," Tori shot back. "I know you, buddy. You'd never give a goal away, not even to your own mother."
"Oh, all right. Have it your way," Sean laughed. He loved getting a rise out of Tori.
"Time to quit, guys," Tyson said, skating up with the puck. "It's getting too dark to see properly."
Sylvia quickly checked her watch. "You're right," she said. "I didn't realize it was so late. I've got to fly home, Tori."
"All right. Home it is. Thanks for the game, guys. See you around."
"Right, see you."
The boys picked up their net and skated away along the shoreline toward their house. Tori picked up her net and followed Sylvia toward the shore. She stored the net in the boathouse, then looked back across the lake. Amazing how quickly it got dark once the sun had set. Already it was hard to make out where their patch of cleared ice was. Vaguely she saw the humps of snow bordering it, but she wasn't sure if she was really seeing it or if it was just her imagination. Lights flickered from distant shores. Oh, she loved this time of year. Once the lake was frozen over, she loved being able to lace up her skates whenever she wanted to and just skate away.
"Are you coming?" Sylvia called. She was waiting impatiently halfway up the path toward the house.
"Coming," Tori answered and rushed up the hill awkwardly on her skates. From the snowy lawn outside, the girls stepped onto the cork flooring in the garage. Years earlier, Tori's dad had installed a bench along one side of the garage with a strip of the special floor alongside. "No sense getting dull blades from the cement," he'd said. Sitting on the bench, the girls quickly removed their skates and shin pads.
"Do you need a ride home?" Tori asked. Sylvia was slipping on her boots and bundling up her stuff.
"No, I can run. I'll be okay. Bye." And with a quick wave, Sylvia was gone.
Tori wiped down the blades of her new skates. Her dad had bought them for her at the end of the last hockey season. She'd always worn her brothers' castoffs before. Her first brand new pairshe pampered them like babies. With care she hung them on a hook. Her stick joined a dozen others in a barrel at the end of the bench. Then she turned off the lights, closed the door, and went toward the house.
Tori's home, an old cottage that her dad had renovated over the years, stood on the shores of Lake Couchiching, a finger of water off Lake Simcoe, pointing north. Once considered the back of beyond, their area was now part of Orillia. It was a wonderful place to live. The Hayleys had the joys of living beside the lake in summer with swimming, fishing, and all kinds of boating activities. Winter brought a whole new roster of fun. As soon as the lake froze over, there was sledding, skating, hockey, ice fishing, and even ice sailing, although Tori herself had never done that. Perhaps this winter her brothers would let her try.
The house was dark. Tori grimaced. So her mom still wasn't back from work. Probably working overtime again. She had been putting in long hours, even taking on extra shifts, to make those extra bucks, ever since Tori's dad had lost his job last October. Even this morning, half sick, she had gone off to work. "I can't stay away today," she had argued when Pete, one of Tori's older brothers, had suggested she call in sick. "They gave me Christmas off. They're counting on me."
"Mom, you're almost dead on your feet," he had protested.
"By the time I'm at work I'll be okay. I can't afford to stay home."
"We'll catch some fresh fish for supper tonight," Tori's dad promised. "Dinner will be waiting on the table when you come home."
But here it was close to dinnertime, and no sign of her dad or her brothers. No sign of fish either. Should she get meat out for a batch of spaghetti?
Just as Tori opened the door of the fre
