Picks and Sticks Read online

  “Little mouse named Susan came by the house. Had a very persuasive young man with her.”

  “Bobby Orr — ”Al mouthed.

  “Al Leblanc, get over here!” Bobby enthused. “I met your son today!”

  The cameraman found the story. He turned his machine upon Bobby as Jonathon Keegan thrust a microphone in his face. “You responsible for this, Al?” Bobby asked. “Great thing you’re doin’ here, giving these girls an opportunity to play. ‘Bout time they got the chance.”

  Al choked on his hotdog.

  “You coaching these boys tonight, Al?” Bobby continued. He gave Al a hug. Hotdog came unstuck. “Oh. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Wouldn’t miss it, eh?” Al emitted. “I, uh, better git out there.” Al froze a smile at the camera, and stood there for a few more seconds, a deer in the headlights.

  “Your son tells me that if these girls win, you’re going to give them equal access to some ice time,” Bobby persisted. “Very generous of you. You’re a good guy, Al Leblanc. This is the face of women’s hockey, folks!” Bobby said to the TV audience. Al stared at the camera, mouth opening and closing like a fish’s, no words coming out.

  “And I hear if the girls win, Al will give their coach a job!” Bobby continued. Jonathon Keegan cut in, “There you have it, people, a small town man with a big city heart.” Bobby Orr tried to pull Jane into the camera’s glare and engage her, but she eyed Leonard and stepped away. “I’d better go, Mr. Orr. Put my equipment on. The girls are waiting. Amazing that you’ve come. Thank you.” She scurried past her reddening, tongue-­tied, figure skating coach as Bobby threw his arm around Leonard and began to interview him. Jane walked backwards with her equipment, not wanting to miss anything.

  “You’re the figure skating coach here? Tell me, what do you think of these hockey girls taking over the arena?” Bobby asked for the benefit of the camera. Jane had always heard he was so shy … Maybe he was being outgoing for their sake. Or Susan’s.

  Bam. Jane bumped into someone. Instant apologies died on her lips. The person had uttered what sounded like a curse in a foreign language. The man was tall, with piercing blue eyes that reminded her of Irina’s. He wore an enormous fur hat on his head, and his hands were in the pockets of his very black, very long winter coat. “I’m so sorry. Excuse me,” Jane stammered. The man ignored her and moved closer to his place at the corner glass.

  The dressing room was pandemonium. Girls were still taping sticks wrecked by the bad practice ice at the school, tying skates, and adjusting gear amid a forlorn-­looking group of young figure skaters. When they had all donned their new blue and yellow jerseys and were lined up at the door, Jane felt like crying. They were a team. A real team. The Parry Sound Trackers. A brilliant logo of a girl skating on a path — her ponytail flopping, hockey stick in hand — adorned the front. Studying it on Tina’s jersey, the image struck Jane as being perfect, proof that the path she had embraced was her true one.

  Jane rummaged into the depths of her bag and took out her Kelowna Packers puck. How could Mayor McCallion have known that the name she had chosen for their team rhymed with that of Jane’s father’s? As Jane went down the line, each girl brushed the puck with her fingers, a holy artifact. Susan even kissed it.

  “Let’s go get ’em, girls,” Jane said.

  Susan paused. “Just a second,” she said.

  The girls gathered round. “We wanted to give you this,” Susan continued. She held out a ‘C’ cut roughly out of bright yellow felt material. Jane’s eyes misted over. “I don’t have time to sew that on,” she laughed. Susan flourished some safety pins. “Thank you,” Jane choked out when Susan had securely placed it over her heart.

  “No,” Tina said. “Thank you.”

  They went out the door.

  The team took to the ice, the warm-­up a raucous affair. Ivan was total energy, encouragement personified. But when Jane pointed out the mysterious figure in the corner, he blanched, a dent smashed into his happy demeanour. He tried to cover it up with more encouragement to the girls, but Jane could see that the man’s presence bruised him.

  The referee blew his whistle, and Bobby was on the precarious ice in his boots, making the teams line up on their respective blue lines. He likes ceremony, Jane thought, grateful for the respect the great hometown hero was showing them. Jane skated to the centre of her team, opposite her brother. As the opening strains of the Canadian anthem filled the arena, Jane’s heart exploded with happiness, and she sang to her heart’s content.

  The anthem ended, the two teams swirled around each other, and everyone filtered off except the first two lines and the goalies. Bobby had arranged a ceremonial puck drop. “Can you use this one?” she asked, skating up and handing him her puck.

  “Sure,” he said. Mike joined Jane at centre ice. Up in the stands, audience members began to chant: “Mat-­a-­gov! Mat-­a-­gov!” Jane couldn’t tell which Matagov they were cheering for.

  “Don’t hurt yourself.”

  “Same old song.”

  Mike let Jane win the face-­off, and Bobby handed the puck back to her. She snuck a peek at the rowdy crowd. She felt invigorated. The townspeople were showing support; or, at least, they were curious. This would be the girls’ one opportunity to prove themselves. All the practices, the preparation, the sneaking around — all was coming together in this one moment. They had to do well here. They had to prove Al’s ideas and the town’s prejudices against girls playing hockey were wrong. Bobby Orr had said it, “’Bout time they got the chance.”

  Ivan gestured Jane to the bench and Irina took her place. Jane sat down and spotted her mother climbing her way into the stands. Her stomach lurched.

  Deb had heard about it. She had come.

  Jane watched her mother squeeze into a spot just behind Bobby Orr. Leonard was making his angry way up to her. She watched them begin to gesticulate, could almost hear their argument … Jane decided to concentrate on the game.

  Irina, not normally a center, was to take the first face-­off against Mike. To start the game, he lost his mind and hugged her. The crowd went wild. Mike won the face-­off and passed quickly to Trevor. Karen and Katherine broke up their rush. Katherine passed to Lily and the game was on.

  Although clearly out-­muscled, the first shift held its own. The matchup between Mike and Irina was particularly entertaining to Jane as they fell into a rhythm of hustle and chase. Mike squished Irina against the boards, holding her there, her face against the glass. Irina bumped him back with her hips, dug for the puck, and splayed Mike out on the ice. “No fair!” Mike moaned.

  No penalty. Winded, Irina came off.

  “Watch your checking,” Ivan warned his daughter as she jumped over the boards. “They’ll call it next time.”

  “He dove,” Irina said, grinning. “I could not stop this.” As Jane went over the boards, she saw Ivan draw Irina’s attention to the man in the corner. Words passed between the father and daughter, but Jane could not hear.

  She prayed that with her helmet on she would remain relatively anonymous like they had planned, but many members of the crowd were high school students, and they had already spotted her, chanting her name the moment she touched the puck. It gave her energy. But Jane couldn’t get near enough to score. In a moment, Irina was back on the ice, and Ivan’s first line was complete. If she, Irina, and Susan couldn’t score, their chances were nil of winning this game.

  And win it, they must.

  Irina and Susan combated the boys’ quickness and, together, they created good chances, but the Junior C defencemen were fast backward skaters. In her first shift, Jane only managed one shot on goal. Cursing when George stopped it, she stroked off.

  “Give us some strategies, Ivan,” she said, huffing. “They’re too fast for us.” She didn’t wait for his answer. “We need to skate as a team!” she berated Susan. “We need to skate as fast as they are! Lead a littl
e, will you?”

  “You and Irina are the only ones who can keep up!” Susan countered. Jane actually sneered at her, felt her lip curl toward her nose, and ignored the comment. Instead, she encouraged her team, “Keep digging, Trackers! Skate like you are out of your minds!!” In a moment, she had jumped back over the boards, double shifting herself without Ivan’s say-­so.

  For most of the period, the game remained scoreless. Somehow, Tina’s goaltending kept them in it. She was on fire, gloving blistering shots. Then Mike and right-­winger Mark Buchan scored a goal apiece. To Jane, they felt like physical blows. Despite her best example, she couldn’t get her teammates to keep up with the boys’ skating abilities. With a sinking feeling in her gut, she realized that she and Irina couldn’t do it all. Neither could Tina. They were quickly becoming exhausted. Most of the girls’ conditioning was terrible. The boys were dancing around them, toying with them, teasing them with the puck. Susan actually slashed Trevor with her stick as he flew past. She got away with it. Then, with twenty seconds to go, Susan got behind their defencemen and deflected a shot of Irina’s behind a sprawling George. 2–1! Jane, circling the net, screamed for joy. The audience exploded.

  Mike descended on George in a moment.

  “You let that one in on purpose!”

  “Are you kidding me?” George screamed back.

  Jane realized the boys wanted to win as badly as the girls. Competition was competition. Their pride was at stake.

  “Take it easy, Mike,” she said, gliding between them. “It’s just a friendly game here.” Mike’s eyes focused on her and in them she finally saw the fiery, angry, wild edge of their father.

  “Look at that,” she marvelled, and skated away.

  Jane led the girls off the bench, and they strode exuberantly down the corridor, entering the dressing room elated. “Unbelievable!” Ivan cheered. “You are able to stay in game! Jane. Lead in same way. Everybody. Pass, pass, pass! Skate, skate, skate!” The girls giggled, delighted with themselves.

  “Who we takin’ on next, Coach?” Susan called out. “The Boston Bruins?”

  “Got a game booked for tomorrow night. We fly in morning,” Ivan joked.

  “Bobby Orr’s out there!” Jane shouted. “He can organize it!” The girls cheered. Jane thrilled at their enthusiasm. Still, a darkness had descended upon Ivan. She saw it the moment he started to draw a play on his chalkboard. His face was the colour of the chalk.

  Suddenly, Deb and Leonard were in the open doorway. “Jane. We’d like a word with you,” Deb said, calmly enough.

  The girls’ uproarious behaviour dissolved away. Habit made Jane get up and walk toward them. Ivan stepped in her way.

  “No,” he said. “Excuse us, please, Mr. Pratt, Mrs. Matagov. Jane is very busy at this moment. Excuse me. She has no time to talk.” Ivan shut the door. Jane beamed. A huge cheer exploded from the girls, but Jane shushed them and put her ear to the door.

  “Leave them. It — it can’t hurt her, for one game,” her mother was saying, almost bargaining.

  “She could easily get hurt!”

  “You’re not seeing what I’m seeing, Leonard.”

  “Oh, yeah, what’s that, Deborah?” They began to walk away and Jane strained to hear.

  “Happiness,” her mother said. “She looks so happy, Leonard.” Then they were gone.

  Jane turned away from the door, stunned. “My mom just took my side,” she whispered.

  Another explosion of sound. The team formed a circle around Jane. They thrust their arms into the centre, buffeting their captain, and chanted, “We’re girls, we fight, we’re dynamite!” They thrust their arms high into the air and belted, “Score!” They filed out past Jane, hungry for action. All except Irina. When the rest of the team was gone, Jane turned to her.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked.

  “I’m so scared,” Irina whispered.

  “I know. The media. People will know you are here. But, this will force the government to do something now. We can use the press to do something positive … We’ll do something for your mother.”

  “They already know.”

  “Who? Who knows what?”

  Irina couldn’t speak.

  “Get it together,” Jane snapped. “You — of all people — we need you.” She hauled Irina up by the jersey, and together they marched down the corridor and stepped out onto the ice to cheers, whistles, and catcalls.

  Jane faced her brother at centre ice as the referee called the play to order. They crossed their sticks and pushed into one another. They got a warning from the referee. Then Jane leveraged her psychological advantage of smaller, younger sister over towering, older brother. The puck dropped, and Jane played dirty, elbowing him in the thigh, lifting his stick, snatching the puck, and passing to Irina in one fluid motion. He’d been grilled never to hurt her and, as a result, he let her get away with things a male counterpart would never be able to. She checked him out of the way, and the girls took off together. Mike, momentarily flustered, chased her down and weakly demanded, “Play fair.” But Jane was already giggling as she and Irina criss-­crossed their way toward George, who seemed to forget his job completely. Irina scored in a whirlwind of whipping pigtails.

  Mike took another face-­off against Jane, and lifted her stick this time, bumping her with his hips. She landed flat on her butt. She flipped on her stomach and stuck out her stick for the puck. She tripped Mike, pulled the puck to her, and gloved it to Susan. The whistle blew, and they both got penalties: roughing and tripping, two minutes each. She got up and pushed his shoulder. That gleam came into his eye and he almost pushed her back, but stopped himself at the last second. The crowd loved it.

  “You kids smarten up” came floating loudly over the cheers and jeers from Deb’s direction. They jawed at each other on their way to their respective boxes, a linesman between them. They argued incessantly through the glass as the game continued.

  Four on four. Out came Rose, Leslie, Jenny, and Patti. Trevor, now at centre, turned up the heat and blasted past the slow Jenny to score. 3–2 for the boys. Jane, freed from the penalty box, skated past Mike, and needled him some more. A minute and a half later, out came Mike, furious with her, but Al called him back and benched him. Instead, Jane faced down a solid block of muscle: Trevor’s brother, David Morgan. Even though he was enormous, Jane knew him to be a softie and weak on speed. She won the face-­off, spun around, the puck glued to her stick, and weaved her way around David and their defence. She bore down on the goal. At the last second, she flicked a pass to Rose who blistered it past George’s shoulder. Jane smirked at Mike as she skated past, and he smashed his stick into the glass behind him.

  Circling around, glancing into the crowd, Jane saw her mother cheer.

  “Didn’t know you could lift a one-­timer,” Jane said to Rose as they congratulated each other on the bench.

  “Neither did I.”

  The period ended 3–all, and the Matagov rivalry of the pond was reignited. As they skated toward the exit, Jane sought out her brother to tease him. She had to unnerve him. It was the only way.

  “You guys haven’t got a chance. You’re too used to being able to check your opponents into submission.”

  “I’m gonna check you into submission in a minute!” he seethed and chased her off the ice. She was too fast for him.

  In the dressing room, the girls were going crazy, all except Irina. Ivan tried to draw some plays on his chalkboard, but his will seemed to fail him. The mood of the Russians brought down the energy of the girls. Soon, the dressing room was completely quiet.

  “What is it?” Jane asked, alarmed.

  “They have come to take me,” Ivan said.

  “What? Who? That man at the corner glass?” she asked, well aware of his foreboding presence.

  “Why would he come only for you, Papa?” Irina said po
intedly.

  Ivan did not answer directly. Instead, he stated, “Either he come for me, or he have news of Ekaterina.”

  “How do you even know he is Russian?” Jane asked, but as she said it, she knew. His coat and hat gave him away.

  “He is Russian.”

  Susan brought things back to bubbling. “Russian Smussian,” she said. “You are Canadian now. They can’t touch you. Are we gonna win this thing or what?”

  The lively girls returned to the ice, their confidence high despite the jitters of Ivan and Irina. They circled their end briefly, more jovial and buoyant than the Shamrocks. Members of the crowd were tormenting the boys, and they were skating with their heads down. Jane watched the Russian man in the corner. He seemed completely harmless. She waved at him. He did not take his hands out of his pockets, but at least he smiled. His bushy eyebrows seemed to have lives of their own.

  Jane looked up to her mother. She and Bobby Orr seemed to be having a deep conversation. Leonard had squeezed into the space beside Deb and looked very put out. He was trying to get Deb’s attention, but she was ignoring him. Jane scanned the crowd for the remote possibility that Gerald Finch had stayed in town, but he wasn’t visible. She decided to travel down to the boys’ end to search the crowd a little better.

  People were yelling things out to the boys and banging the glass. Mike’s head was the lowest. He slapped George’s pads with his stick as Jane skated past.

  “Stop freezing every time my sister comes near you!” she heard him say.

  “You should talk!”

  “Let’s both loosen up,” Mike allowed. “Fer crying out loud, Bobby Orr is here! Let’s not embarrass ourselves, like your dad said in the dressing room.”

  “You’ve already done that,” Jane teased and almost collided with Trevor who stopped up short, his long hair flying.

  “Boys,” Trevor exhaled, “let’s pull ourselves together.”

  “You got that right. But that doesn’t mean try to hurt them!” Mike shouted as Trevor skated away with a fierce look in his eye. Jane thought he might be talking to himself. No sign of Gerald Finch down the boys’ end either. The whistle blew. Jane had to wait at centre ice for Mike to stop hitting George’s pads, using superstition to boost his confidence.