WITH THE FIRST TEAM
The second team was made up the following Thursday with Grover Beech
in charge as captain. Toby and Warren were retained as goal-tends
and ten other youths, among them Sid Creel, made up the squad. The
first team squad was cut that same day to fifteen, and about a dozen
unsuccessful aspirants departed to private life, or, in some cases,
to seek glory on their class teams. Toby was delighted with his good
fortune and turned all his thought and endeavors to the task of making
himself first-choice for the position. To that end, he read every
scrap of information he could find on the subject of a goal-tend’s
duties, ransacking the school library and borrowing wherever he heard
of a book that promised information. But it was surprising what a
lot of perfectly good authors had failed to deal with this absorbing
subject. Why, you could drag your finger over card after card in the
library index without finding a thing worth reading! Scott, Thackeray,
Lytton, Dickens, Boswell, Stevenson――not a work of advice as to how to
play goal on a hockey team! Still, Toby did manage to discover a fair
amount of hockey literature, and he read it all avidly and, could the
position of first team goal-tend have been awarded by a competitive
examination, either oral or written, Toby would have won hands-down!
When he had assimilated all the information he had read he took a
blue-book and wrote down what was practically a summary of it. That was
Toby’s scheme for registering indelibly on his brain anything that he
wanted particularly to remember. And it was a very excellent scheme,
too. Perhaps Toby’s summary may be of interest to you. It will if you
play hockey or expect to play it, and especially if your ambition looks
toward the position of goal-tend. Anyway, here it is, just as he wrote
it.
“The goal-tend’s position is probably the most responsible of all. If
he fails the opponents score, but if another of his team fails the
opponent only wins an advantage which may not result in a score. A
goal-tender should be cool-headed, plucky and very quick. Quickness
is very important. He should be quick to see a shot coming, to judge
where it is coming and to put himself into position to stop it. A
goal-tender need not be much of a skater or stick-handler, if he has
those other qualifications.
“The goal-tend must guard a space six feet long by four feet high and
so it will not do for him to stay in one position all the time. If the
play is in front of the net he should stand in the middle of the net,
but if the play is at one side he should stand at that side of the net
and steady his knee against the goal-post. The rules forbid kneeling or
lying on the ice and so if the puck is near the goal he should assume
a crouching posture, thus bringing as much of himself as possible near
the ice. The larger a goal-tend is the less space he has to look after,
because a shot is more likely to hit a fat fellow than a skinny one. He
should wear leg-guards that come well above the knees and the bigger
they are the better it is, because by bringing his legs together he can
then present a considerable surface in case of a low shot. He should
also have his shoulders, thighs and elbows padded, both to protect him
from injury and to increase his size.
“He ought not to use his stick to stop a shot with, unless the puck is
coming to him on the ice and slowly. He should try to put his body in
front of the puck or catch it with his hand. The hardest shot to stop
is one which is about knee-high. The goal-tend should watch the puck
every minute. He must never leave his goal unless he is sure that he
can reach the puck before any player of the opposing team can reach it
and there is no player on his own side to do it. When he has stopped
the puck he should sweep it aside and behind his goal if possible, but
never shoot it ahead of him because a player of the other team might
get it and shoot it before he was in position to stop it. When the puck
is behind the goal he should never take his eyes off of it and when it
approaches one side of the goal he should stand at that side and be
ready in case a player tries to hook it in. If there is a scrimmage in
front of the goal he should turn his skates out wide and keep his stick
on the ice also. In that way he can cover about twenty-four inches of
the goal. But if the puck comes toward him at either side he must be
ready to stop it with a skate or his stick.
“Goal-tend should be warmly dressed because he does not get so much
exercise as the other players. Moleskin trousers are better than khaki
or cotton because warmer. He should wear a light sweater and have
well-padded gloves. A goal-tend’s stick should be short with a broad
blade. Some players prefer a built-up stick, but it must not be more
than three inches wide at any place.”
But memorizing all this didn’t make Toby a wonderful goal-tend. It
doubtless helped him, but it is one thing to know what to do and quite
another thing to do it. Probably a week of practice was worth fully as
much as all his reading. On the other hand, it is possible that his
reading made it easier for him to understand what was wanted of him and
to profit by criticism. Grover Beech, the second team captain, was not
a very good instructor. He played a good game himself at cover point
and knew how the other positions should be played, but he lacked the
ability to impart information. Rather impatient and short-tempered, he
was far more likely to send a player who had performed poorly off the
ice and summon a substitute than attempt to show the offender how to
do better. In consequence, Toby, to a great extent, was thrown on his
own resources when it came to learning the science of the goal-tend’s
position. But he watched the first team goals and tried to fashion his
play on theirs, seldom offended twice in the same way and, when he had
been two weeks a member of the second squad, had defeated Warren in the
struggle for supremacy.
So far he had not dug into his hockey fund except to the extent of the
price of his new stick. He wore an old pair of running trunks loaned
by Homer Wilkins, a sweater of his own, a pair of ordinary thick
gloves of buckskin, and, for want of a toque such as the others wore,
went bare-headed. Arnold’s second-best skates performed all he asked
of them and an ancient pair of leg-guards, inherited by the Hockey
Club from some former player, answered their purpose fairly well. He
meant, however, to have his own guards and a good pair of gloves, and,
now that it seemed certain that he had won the right to play the goal
position on the second for the balance of the season, he only awaited
an opportunity to journey to Greenburg to purchase them. But on most
mornings recitations kept him busy and every afternoon was occupied
with practice, and so it was the Thursday of Yardley’s third contest
that the opportunity at last occurred. But before that other events of
interest had happened.
There was, for example, the hockey game with Carrel’s School, the
second contest on the Yardley schedule. Carrel’s presented a strong
and experienced seven, of which two members were past-masters in the
gentle art of shooting goals from all sorts of impossible angles.
Dave Henry, the Blue’s goal-tend, was considered rather a competent
youth, but that Saturday afternoon he had his hands full, so full, in
fact, that he couldn’t begin to hold all that came to them, with the
result that Carrel’s School led six goals to one at the end of the
first twenty-minute period and in the last half, in spite of Yardley’s
frantic, determined endeavors to hold her at bay and score a few
tallies herself, quite swept the Blue’s defense off its feet and scored
pretty much as she wanted to. It was a rattling good game, in spite of
its one-sidedness and the audience which lined the barrier, stamping
its feet and blowing on its numbed fingers, yelled itself quite hoarse
before the referee’s whistle blew for the last time. Seventeen to four
was the score then, and although the Yardley players gathered together
and waved their sticks and cheered tiredly for their rivals, there was
a noticeable lack of enthusiasm in that cheer. The wiseacres had to
go back three years before they could find another such overwhelming
defeat. Captain Crowell took the beating somewhat to heart, and even
Arnold, who was not easily cast-down, moped all the evening and refused
to be comforted by Homer or Toby or any one else.
On the following Monday Framer took Flagg’s place at point and Rose
gave way to Fanning at left wing. Also Crowell experimented with the
four-man defense style of play, which, while not so good for scoring,
at least is theoretically a fine style to keep your goal inviolate.
Crumbie was played back with Halliday on defense, leaving only three
men to meet the opposing attack until it was well down toward the
goal. The second team was summoned onto the ice “to be the goat,” as
Sid Creel phrased it, and there was a very pretty struggle. The second
swept through that four-man defense for three goals in each period,
causing Captain Crowell grave doubts as to the value of it. But the
first won, for neither Warren, who played through the first period,
or Toby, who officiated in the second, could stop more than half the
shots of the first team forwards. Sid Creel, slow-moving and apparently
sleepy, was a tower of strength at point that afternoon, and Beech
was as clever as usual at cover, but Crowell and Arnold Deering were
slippery skaters and accurate shots, and the illusive puck went into
the second’s net nine times in all.
The next day the four-man back idea worked better, Crumbie having
by then a better knowledge of his duties on defense and refusing to
be drawn out of position. Beech sought to meet the first team’s new
tactics by adapting the Canadian scheme of playing three forwards
abreast and the fourth behind. Beech selected the part of rover, but it
can’t be said that he made a shining success of it. In any event, the
first regained its old superiority over the scrub seven and won easily.
And, with a few exceptions, every following day witnessed a similar
result until, near the middle of the season, one Toby Tucker willed
otherwise.
Greenburg High School followed Carrel’s and met overwhelming defeat
at the hands of the Blue. But Greenburg was inexperienced and her
players were poor skaters and the result had been expected. The only
incident meriting mention was a fine goal by Arnold Deering in the
second period. Arnold had stolen the puck from a Greenburg player in
front of his own goal, had evaded the forwards, passed to Crowell near
the middle of the ice and had then received the puck back again when
the Greenburg cover point had challenged. The pass, however, had gone
behind him and he had had to turn and take it as it caromed off the
boards. He was not then in position to shoot and so, after breaking
past a member of the enemy team, he skated in, seeking a chance to pass
back to Crowell. Crowell shouted and Arnold slid the puck along the
ice, but at that moment a Greenburg youth charged into Crowell and the
puck dribbled by. Fanning should have rescued it, but Fanning was far
over at the other side and skating hard, and the Greenburg cover point
was the lucky one. But the cover point hesitated just an instant too
long and Arnold, doubling back, swept past him, stole the disc from
under his nose, dodged two opponents and bore down on the Greenburg
point. Crowell, who had sprawled on the ice, tried to get into position
for the pass, but was too late, and Arnold, sensing it, dodged the
point, keeping the puck away from the latter’s swinging stick by a
veritable miracle, circled the net at the rear and then, as he headed
back close to the goal, slipped the puck deftly between the post and
the goal-tend’s skate. As he did so two of the enemy crashed into him,
the net careened, the goal-tend sat down on the ice and in an instant
the air was full of kicking legs and thrashing sticks. But the puck had
gone in before the upset and the goal umpire’s hand had already been
raised when he was forced to flee from the careening net.
Greenburg protested somewhat perfunctorily and the audience cheered.
And Arnold was hauled out of the melee with a two-inch gash over his
left eye that put him out of the contest and gave him a desperate,
piratical look for several days.
Of course, viewed from the standpoint of perfect hockey, Arnold’s
exploit was nothing to cheer for. When a wing player has to skate
all over the shop and finally hook the puck in from back of goal he
naturally suggests to the unbiased mind that there was a lamentable
absence of team-play; which there was. Captain Crowell knew better
than to praise that performance. Instead, he told Arnold that it was
good skating, blamed himself for letting the cover point upset him and
waded into Fanning for being out of position. But the audience liked
it immensely and for some days Arnold’s exploit was the subject of
enthusiastic praise.
I forgot to say that the score of the Yardley-Greenburg High game was
16 to 3. Not that it matters greatly, however.
You are not to suppose that Toby spent all his time and thought on
the enticing game of hockey. On the contrary, Toby was putting in
some good licks at studying about this time. For one thing, he felt
in honor bound to vindicate the faculty’s selection of T. Tucker as
a recipient of a Ripley Scholarship, and for another thing mid-year
examinations were on. “Mid-years” are serious things, and it behooves a
chap to buckle down and get himself up on his studies, and especially
those studies which, all during the Fall Term, he has sort of squeezed
through on. So Toby worked hard and burned much midnight oil――only it
happened to be gas――and did excellently well in everything save Latin
and not so very badly in that. Poor Homer Wilkins came several croppers
and for a time anticipated severing his connection with the school.
But he managed by dint of many solemn promises and extraordinary
application to weather the storm. Arnold, too, had his troubles, but
they were not serious. Only two members of the first hockey team found
themselves in hot water, Henry and Dunphy, and these were barred from
playing until they had removed their conditions. There was said to be
some doubt about Dunphy’s return to the team that season, but Henry’s
absence from the ice was believed to be a matter of only a fortnight.
Orson Crowell accepted the matter philosophically. After all, things
might have been worse. He recalled one occasion, in his third class
year, when exactly six of a hockey squad of fifteen had been put on
probation after mid-years. Remembering that, he concluded that the
temporary loss of Henry and the possibly final loss of Dunphy were not
worth worrying about. Frank Lamson took Henry’s place at the net and
tried very hard to fill Henry’s shoes. He never succeeded, however,
even though, the week after the Greenburg game, an old-boy and former
hockey captain named Loring, patriotically responded to the call for
aid and put in five days of coaching, paying a great deal of attention
to the goal-tend. But even Alfred Loring could not make a perfect
net-man of Frank Lamson, although Frank did improve quite perceptibly,
and it was thought advisable to draw on the second team for a
substitute pending Henry’s release from probation, and the choice fell
naturally on Toby, who, by that time had plainly shown his superiority
to Warren.
And so, one cold and bleak Thursday afternoon, Toby found himself
practicing with the first, sliding from one side to the other of the
south goal while Stillwell and Gladwin and Casement and Rose rushed
down upon him, passing the puck from stick to stick, and finally
whanged the disk at him. He didn’t make a very brilliant showing that
afternoon, although he tried harder than he had ever tried, for the
first team substitutes had unusual luck in lifting the puck and time
after time it sped past him, knee-high, to nestle in the folds of the
net.
But his lack of success didn’t make him downcast, for he had formed a
wonderful resolution. It was to play goal better than Frank, so that
they would have to keep him on the first. I am afraid that the vision
of Frank Lamson being relegated to the scrubs had something to do with
Toby’s cheerfulness. But then, Toby didn’t pretend to be fond of Frank,
and he was quite human.