Panic in Pittsburgh (9 page)

This, of course, was exactly what the smart little Portland defenseman wanted. As Simon came drifting around the Panthers’ goal, Billings clipped a pass to himself off the bottom bar of the back of the net. Simon went flying by, and when he tried to turn to steal the bouncing puck, he lost an edge and went spilling into the corner.

Billings was already at the blue line when Simon regained his skates. Billings floated a pass up to Yantha, who knocked it down with his glove at the Owls’ blue line and, with a quick leap over Lars’s stick, was in clean with the puck. A shoulder deke and Jeremy went down, his pads opening just enough for Yantha to slip the puck in the five-hole.

Travis watched the scoreboard flick up the score: 1–0 Panthers. The scoreboard showed a full replay – they had cameras here, covering several angles! – and Travis had to wonder if it would have been different if he’d been on the ice instead of
Simon. He knew Billings’s little play off the back of the net. He didn’t think he would have been fooled. But who knew for sure? It was unfair to think the goal was Simon’s fault. Maybe it was Lars’s fault for playing the puck instead of the man. Maybe it was Jeremy’s fault for letting his five-hole open up like the Zamboni doors.

Maybe it was no one’s fault. Maybe it was all about credit – credit to Billings for making the play, credit to Yantha for finishing it. What was it Muck called it? Yeah,
puck luck
.

The Owls fought back hard through the opening period. But they had trouble breaking through the neutral zone, as the Panthers coach always had a winger dropping back and only rarely did they forecheck.

Travis had a new vantage point to see Muck at work. He’d always been either on the ice or sitting on the bench in front of Muck. And Muck so rarely yelled or said anything at all that Travis realized he hardly knew what his coach did during an actual game. Now Travis was standing behind the players’
bench with Mr. Dillinger and Muck – and he was seeing his coach in a whole new way.

Muck hated “trap” hockey. He didn’t even like the old saying that good defense was good offense. He liked to say, “Good offense is good offense – period.” He liked to call his style of coaching “attack hockey,” meaning you always pressed forward. You took care of your own end, you lived up to your defensive responsibilities, but you always looked for the moment to attack and score.

Muck wasn’t a numbers guy, and he wasn’t much of a chalkboard guy. “You’re not building a house,” he used to say about coaches who were always diagramming plays in the final minutes of games, “you’re playing a game.” Muck often said that the most important thing to understand in hockey was that “things happen” out there, and much of play is reflex. You know your position, you know your responsibilities, but you must always be ready to take advantage of the unexpected. It could be a lucky bounce. It could be the puck coming off the glass or boards oddly. It could be an opponent losing an edge or making a
mistake. It could be an opposing defenseman joining the rush when he or she should not have joined. You see an opening, Muck would say, you race through it.

The Panthers were doing none of this. Travis could hear the Portland coach telling his players what to do: “
Dump it in!
” “
Stay back!
” “
Stay with your man!
” “
Chip it out!
” “
Don’t let them through!
”

It didn’t make for a great game to watch, and Travis could sense the restlessness of the fans, who had come out in the open air of winter to cheer for a bunch of twelve-year-old hockey players. They expected more, and, as luck would have it, Nish was about to give it to them.

One of the advantages of having the Panthers play this way – staying back, hardly ever forechecking – was that it gave the Owls’ good puck-carrying defensemen, Nish and Lars in particular, but also Sam when she wanted to, plenty of space in which to set up and begin a rush.

And if you handed Wayne Nishikawa opportunities like that, he would seize them.

Travis watched the game slowly turn in the Owls’ favor. First Nish and then Lars would come up over the Owls’ blue line and hit center with the puck, all the while watching for a break play in which they could send a forward in.

Nish gobbled up the puck in the right corner and skated quickly to the back of the Owls’ net. He stood, stickhandling, just as Billings had done on the opening goal, but none of the Panthers fell for it. They stayed back, the closest checker doing figure eights around the Owls’ blue line as he waited for Nish to make his move.

Nish came out on the left, stickhandling slowly and looking far up ice. Dmitri knew the look, and Travis saw him dash, quick as a weasel, across center.

Nish had the puck on his backhand, and it seemed he was about to pass over to Lars, but instead of doing as the Panthers expected, Nish launched a high “football” pass that went right over the heads of the two Portland players backing up at center and landed with a slap on the ice right in front of Dmitri.

Dmitri flew in on the right side, and Travis felt like he didn’t even have to look. Forehand fake, backhand, puck roofed so hard the goaltender’s water bottle spun like a top through the air, spraying water as it slammed into the boards.

Travis looked at Muck, who was leaning in to say something to Mr. Dillinger over the din of the crowd.

“We needed that,” Muck shouted. “Now they
have
to play.”

Travis knew what Muck meant. The Panthers could no longer play the kind of game their coach had them playing – everything geared to defense, just hoping to hang on long enough to win 1–0. With the game tied and the outcome in doubt, both teams would need to score, which meant that the Panthers would have to unleash their offensive skills.

Travis looked across the ice to the Panthers’ bench and swore he saw big Yantha lightly clip Billings on the back of his helmet. Billings nodded, smiling.

How strange, Travis thought. They had just been scored on, and yet they seemed happy. Maybe
they needed that goal just as much as the Owls did – a goal that would make everyone play the game the way it was supposed to be played.

Attack hockey.

Nish had come to life on the Owls’ back end. Beet red in the face, sucking air like a vacuum when he was on the bench, bent over and puffing hard between whistles, Nish was the total hockey player, no longer the buffoon. He was never anything in between, thought Travis. The Owls had either the best player on the ice or the worst, and his name was likely to be Wayne Nishikawa.

Sarah put the Owls ahead 2–1 just before the end of the second period, when she swooped up the ice, slipped around a backpedaling defender, and cranked a slap shot in off the far post. The crowd at Heinz Field erupted with a roar that was almost deafening. Travis had to cover his ears as he watched the replay on the big screen and heard again the roar of appreciation. It was one of Sarah’s prettiest goals ever.

Between periods, no one in the dressing room said a word. The Owls were exhausted. Nish’s face was completely out of sight as he leaned forward and pushed his face into his shin pads. His hair was soaking wet.

Travis walked around the room touching the shoulder of each one of his teammates. He didn’t have anything to say, but he wanted to show he was with them. Lars looked up and smiled and nodded. Nish never moved; his face stayed buried.

A whistle called them out for the third period. Muck went to the door, and instead of opening it, he held it shut tight and turned to face the players, all of them getting to their feet and strapping their helmets back on.

“This game is already a ‘classic,’ ” Muck said. “Enjoy it.”

Nothing more. Nothing else was needed.

The Owls stormed out onto the freshly flooded ice with shouts of joy and determination, but their shouts were lost in the roar of the crowd, now fully into this great game in which the Owls had come back so wonderfully.

However, the Panthers weren’t finished. Yantha and Billings looked like soldiers heading into battle as they took their positions for the opening face-off: eyes straight ahead, jaws clenched, set.

Midway through the third period, Yantha and his right-winger tore up ice on a two-on-one, Sam the only Owls defender back. Fahd had been caught pinching at the Panthers’ blue line, and little Billings had been able to chip the puck out off the boards so that Yantha, in full stride, was able to pick it up.

Sam played the two-on-one perfectly. She knew Yantha would keep – he had the good shot, the winger not so good – and so she stayed between
the two forwards until Yantha made his expected fake to send a saucer pass over for the one-timer.

Sam never went for it. She gambled and slid in front of Yantha, who was already into his shot. The wrist shot was hard and accurate, headed for the top corner of Jeremy’s net, but Sam had it first and blocked the shot perfectly.

The puck spilled out toward the middle of the ice. Andy Higgins, coming back hard, reached to take it.

But he never found it.

Little Billings had been coming up just as hard to join the rush, and he was able to lift Andy’s stick from behind so that Andy, turning sharply to go back the other direction, found himself leaving the Owls’ end without the puck. Billings now had the puck on his stick.

Billings faked a pass to the other winger, then fed to Yantha, who drilled a shot high on Jeremy’s blocker side and into the net.

Tie game.

The Winter Classic was going to overtime. After Yantha’s pretty goal tied it – Andy punching himself on the bench as he watched the replay – the two teams both had chances, but no one could put the puck in.

There would be no flood. They would play five minutes overtime, four-on-four. And if there was no result, they would go to a shootout. Whichever team was ahead after five shooters would win. If tied after five, they would shoot until one team held the lead.

Muck sent out Sarah, Dmitri, Nish, and Lars to take the first shift. Travis ached to be with them. He looked down the bench and saw little Simon Milliken and realized Simon was aching just as badly to be out there.

There seemed twice as much ice with four skaters a side rather than five. Sarah and Dmitri, with their fabulous skating, were all over the ice, but they couldn’t break through the Panthers’ defense.

Nish had one good rush and cranked a shot off the crossbar that went up over the glass and so far out of play it almost landed in the football
stands. They replayed the shot on the scoreboard, and the cameras followed the puck right to its final resting place, the crowd roaring and cheering with delight.

Travis looked at Nish as Nish watched the replay, the big defenseman’s tomato face twisting in agony as he saw how close he had come to winning the championship.

Yantha had an equally good chance for the Panthers, getting off a quick one-timer that Jeremy somehow snagged just as it was heading into the top corner. When they replayed the save on the scoreboard, Jeremy received a standing ovation – and from what Travis saw in the replay, it was well deserved. It was a spectacular save.

The horn went all too soon. No one had scored. They would go to a shootout.

Muck hated shootouts. It wasn’t team play, he said, and it wasn’t hockey. “May as well decide by throwing horseshoes,” he liked to say. “Or darts.”

But the Screech Owls loved them. They loved to practice them at the end of workouts. They
loved to watch them on the
NHL
highlights. They liked to try trick shots like spinneramas or between-the-skates or even picking the puck up off the ice and trying to throw it, lacrosse-style, into the net.

Muck and Mr. Dillinger filled out the card for the shootout. Travis was close enough to see the names being scribbled down.

1. Sarah Cuthbertson

2. Dmitri Yakushev

3. Lars Johanssen

4. Samantha Bennett

5. Wayne Nishikawa

Travis wondered if he’d have been on the list if he’d been playing. Of course he would, he told himself. He would have replaced Sam, perhaps even Lars. The other three were a given. That Muck wanted Nish last showed that, despite all Muck’s mutterings about the ridiculous Iceman, he still had faith in Nish’s ability to come through when everything was on the line.

The referee called for a coin toss, and the Panthers won the right to choose first or second. Their coach chose first. Muck would have done
the same. If you could score that first goal, you might panic the other side.

Yantha, to no one’s surprise, was tapped to go first for Portland. He was the one most likely to score, and his goal would put pressure on the Owls.

Yantha came down the ice fast, then stopped hard in a spray of snow as Jeremy went down. Yantha used his long reach to sweep the puck around Jeremy and into the net.

The Panthers were 1–0 in the shootout.

Jeremy pounded his stick on the ice and took a shot of water as they replayed the goal on the scoreboard. Travis saw Muck shaking his head. These weren’t real goals in Muck’s opinion; they were trick goals, with no place in the game of hockey. The trickier the better, thought the Owls. Travis wondered if he would have had the guts to try the Finnish-lacrosse shot if he’d been playing. Not likely, he thought – too embarrassing if he missed.