“You kids deserve this,” the keeper said. “The Pittsburgh police told me all about what happened this morning. If not for you, we wouldn’t have been able to have that ceremony at Heinz Field with the Panthers. A couple of the players on the Panthers asked me if I wouldn’t mind bringing this over to the hotel so you could have your pictures taken with it – how’s that for sportsmanship?”
Travis didn’t have to ask who. He knew. Billings and Yantha.
Travis felt the blood rise in his face, but this time there was no dizziness. Just happiness. Pure happiness.
“So, in appreciation of the Screech Owls saving the Stanley Cup at the Winter Classic,” the keeper said, “the Hockey Hall of Fame would like to allow each of you to have your picture taken holding the cup.”
“Up?” asked Fahd.
The keeper stared at him, not following.
“Like, over our heads?” Fahd repeated.
“Of course,” the keeper said, smiling.
“But I thought only winners were allowed to do that,” Fahd persisted.
“You are winners,” the keeper said. “Every single one of you. But especially the four Owls who set the trap for those thieves. Where are you four?”
Sheepishly, Travis, Sarah, and Sam stepped forward with their hands up. Travis knew he was blushing. His face burned.
“Where’s the fourth? The big kid?” the keeper asked, looking around.
Travis also looked around. Nish was still nowhere to be seen. How badly was he taking this loss, anyway?
Suddenly, the doors to the ballroom burst open, and in flew a strange apparition that seemed to stun the keeper of the cup.
It was a heavy little peewee hockey player, wearing nothing but a goalie mask, a bed sheet with a huge black line down the middle … and his underwear.
“The Iceman!” the apparition screamed, then bolted across the room, once around the Stanley Cup, and flew out through the far doors.
Sarah turned to Travis, her face dancing with delight.
“He’s back!”
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ROY MACGREGOR was named a media inductee to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2012, when he was given the Elmer Ferguson Award for excellence in hockey journalism. He has been involved in hockey all his life, from playing all-star hockey in Huntsville, Ontario, against the likes of Bobby Orr from nearby Parry Sound, to coaching, and he is still playing old-timers hockey in Ottawa, where he lives with his wife Ellen. They have four grown children.
Roy is the author of several classics in hockey literature. Home Team: Fathers, Sons and Hockey was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award for Literature. Home Game (written with Ken Dryden) was a bestseller, as were Road Games: A Year in the Life of the NHL, The Seven A.M. Practice, and his latest, Wayne Gretzky’s Ghost: And Other Tales from a Lifetime in Hockey. He wrote Mystery at Lake Placid, the first book in the bestselling, internationally successful Screech Owls series in 1995. In 2005, Roy was named an Officer of the Order of Canada.
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Panic in Pittsburgh Page 8