Sam’s appearance was vociferously hailed by a knot of boys at the edge
of the ice. Some of the younger fellows had started a fire there and
were scurrying around, far and near, for fuel. Joe was introduced to
seven or eight chaps, many of whose names he either didn’t catch or
promptly forgot. Those he did recall later were Arbuckle, Morris and
Strobe. Arbuckle proved to be the coach, although he was apparently no
older than several of the players, and Morris was the captain. Morris,
whose first name was Sidney and who was universally called Sid, was a
handsome chap, lean, well-conditioned, and a marvel on skates. He was
of about Sam Craig’s age. Arbuckle was a heavier fellow of eighteen
and bore signs on his upper lip of an incipient mustache. Strobe Joe
remembered chiefly because his name was unusual, although the latter
wasn’t certain whether it was Strobe or Strode at the time.
They were all far too interested in hockey to pay more than passing
attention to the stranger and Joe presently retired from the group
and donned his skates. By the time he was ready for the ice Steve
Arbuckle had blown his whistle and fourteen eager youths were racing
and twisting about after the flying puck. In front of the First Team’s
goal Sam Craig, sweatered and padded, leaned on his broad-bladed stick
and calmly watched. Then a Second Team forward somehow stole the puck
from under Captain Morris’s nose and, digging the points of his skates,
slanted down the rink, dodging and feinting, until only the point
remained between him and goal-keeper. Behind him the pursuit sped, but
he was due for a shot if he could fool the point, and fool the point he
did. Away slid the puck to the right, the charging Second Team forward
twirled, recovered as the point missed his check, got the puck again
before the coverpoint could reach it and charged straight at goal from
the right.
Sam Craig, still apparently calm and unflustered, refused the challenge
to go out and meet him. Instead, he closed his padded knees together,
held his stick across his body and waited. The Second Team player shot
from six feet away, shot hard and straight. There was a _thud_, the
puck slammed against Sam’s knee and was gently brushed aside as Sid
Morris, skating like a whirlwind, rushed past, hooked it expertly,
swung around behind the goal and set off again down the ice. The Second
Team forward, who had so nearly scored, was already back in line, quite
untroubled by his failure, and Joe identified him as Strobe. Sidney
lost the puck a moment later and the whistle shrilled for off-side. Joe
watched until the First Team had finally penetrated the adversary’s
defence and scored its first goal and then went off up the pond to
skate. Since most of the fellows were watching the hockey he had the
upper reaches of the ice practically to himself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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