Boarding schools -- Juvenile fiction; Hockey -- Juvenile fiction; Teenage boys -- Juvenile fiction
Pæans of delight arose from around the barrier and the blue blades of
the Yardley sticks waved in air. The Rock Hill goal was telling the
point just how it had happened and finding comfort in explaining. Then
they were off again, Rose having the puck along the boards. A pass to
the center of the ice went wrong and it was the Rock Hill cover point
who became the man of the moment. But his reign was brief and ended
when Rose sent him sprawling into the barrier. A Rock Hill forward
stole the disk and skated desperately, but there was no one to take the
pass and ten yards in front of the Blue’s goal Halliday got it away and
fed it down the ice. And so it went for the rest of that first period,
with no more scores for either side. Twice Rock Hill threatened
dangerously and eight times she shot, but only three attempts reached
Toby and those were stopped without difficulty. For her part, Yardley
only once came near to scoring and then the puck struck an upright and
bounded away and Crowell’s attempt to cage it only sent it over the
barrier into the snow.
On the whole, Toby had a fairly easy time of it during that half of the
contest. It was in the second period that he found his work cut out for
him, for, after the rest, Rock Hill showed that she could play hockey.
Halliday was hurt in the first minute of play and Stillwell took his
place. Five minutes after that Crumbie was sent off for tripping, and
it was then that Rock Hill almost snatched a victory. That she didn’t
was only due to the fact that Toby, looking ridiculously small but
making up for his lack of bulk by his quickness, played his position
like a veteran. Stillwell was not Halliday’s equal on defense, and,
with Crumbie off, Rock Hill kept the puck around the Blue’s goal for
what seemed hours to the goal-tend. Shot after shot was made, knocked
down and brushed aside. The applause from the audience was almost
continual and the shouting of the contenders made a babel through
which Toby, inwardly in a wild ferment of excitement but outwardly as
cool as the ice he stood on, slid from one side of the cage to the
other, crouched, straightened, kicked with his skates, thrust with his
stick and watched all the time with his blue eyes, never losing sight
of the puck. Time and again, having shot, Rock Hill secured the disk
the instant Toby thrust it aside. Yardley, minus one player, slashed
and sprawled and shouted helplessly, with Crowell commanding them to
“Get it out of there!” That was a wild and strenuous two minutes for
Toby, but he came through with a clean slate. The scorer credited him
with seven stops in that busy space of time, but Toby is still of the
opinion that the scorer missed some thirty-five or forty! And then,
finally, just as Crumbie tumbled over the barrier again and rushed to
the rescue, Arnold pulled the puck from a Rock Hill forward and got
free with it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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