The Ice Chips and the Grizzly Escape

by Roy MacGregor

  “It’s . . . uh, hold on. It’s 1959,” whispered Lucas, checking his lucky quarter—the one that changed dates whenever they leaped—as he tried to tuck himself behind an equipment bag.

  “And is that white jersey with the squished C—is that the Montreal Canadiens?” asked Shayna, blinking her eyes at the sight of all the old equipment that had been left behind. A game was on—they could hear it.

  “Oh my,” said Swift, swallowing hard. “This is Madison Square Garden. We’re in New York City. This can’t be the game where—”

  “You CANNOT do it! I said no!” a man yelled at another man as they burst through the dressing room doors.

  The man who was being yelled at had a large cut under his eye and thick, old-style goalie pads on.

  “Jacques! Toe Blake said no goalie of his could do it—never in a regular game!”

  Shayna and Swift tried to squeeze themselves into the corner between two benches and accidentally knocked some equipment onto the floor. Luckily, the men weren’t paying attention.

  “Sew me up. I’m going back in!” the hurt goalie said firmly in a thick French accent.

  “Andy Bathgate was steamed,” said the man, pleading as he held a cloth to the goalie’s face. He was working on the cut. “But the New York Rangers won’t hit you again. Not like that. You don’t have to go—”

  “I’ve used it in practices and exhibition games, so why not in a real competition?” said the goalie, searching the bench with his hand while the man applied a bandage to his cheek and nose. “I won’t go back on the ice without it!”

  Swift knew what he was looking for, and she knew exactly where to find it. She was the one who’d knocked it to the floor, without realizing what it was: one of the most cherished, game-changing pieces of homemade equipment the game of hockey had ever seen.

  The very first mask of Montreal Canadiens’ goalie Jacques Plante.

  And this was the very first time he would wear it in a game. Today was November 1, 1959.

  Scrambling in her crouched position, Swift wrapped her glove around one of the fibreglass mask’s white straps and picked it up. It had two holes for eyes and a long rectangle cut out under the nose for the mouth. It looked more like a theatre mask than a piece of goalie equipment. Jacques Plante, tired of getting hit in the face by slapshots, had made the mask himself.

  “Don’t,” Lucas whispered, looking at Swift with panic in his eyes.

  Slowly, she raised the mask and moved it toward where the Canadiens’ goalie was sitting. The moment it touched down on the bench beside Jacques Plante’s reaching hand . . .

  The kids from Riverton vanished.

  * * *

  The blips were back. The glitches. The bumps.

  And the leaping hockey players had no choice but to ride them out.

  “It’s f-f-f-freezing here!” Shayna said, shivering in her summer clothes. They all felt chilly. This time they’d landed outside, behind some snow-covered bushes. Lucas was kicking himself. They should have leaped with their equipment! Just because it was summer in Riverton, that didn’t mean it was summer everywhere!

  “Oh, NO WAY! It can’t be!” Swift said loudly, letting a burst of foggy air escape her lips. She was leaning through the bushes, staring at a small outdoor rink. “I know where we are! This is Lac-Beauport, Quebec!”

  “How do you know?!” asked Shayna, whispering through chattering teeth.

  Lucas, who was more protected in his sweatshirt, put himself shoulder to shoulder with Shayna to keep her a little warmer.

  This probably isn’t her best introduction to time travel, he thought. But there wasn’t time to get her more prepared!

  “What year is this?” asked Mouth Guard, kicking at the snow. “Can we look up the weather forecast? I’m colder than a frozen marshmallow.” He was holding his hand over his reddening nose, trying to breathe hot air into his nostrils. “Anyone have any hot chocolate?”

  “What’s with you and the marshmallows?” Swift asked, but Mouth Guard just shrugged.

  On the ice in front of them, two young boys were taking shots on a petite short-haired girl. The girl was alone in front of the net, brushing snowflakes from her face and swatting at pucks.

  “Gotta be 1976 . . . maybe 1977?” Swift said, her cheeks blushing bright pink from both the cold and her excitement. “See that little kid crouched down in goal? The girl with the short hair and the white figure skates? That’s—”

  “Pascal! Take another shot. That one was too easy!” the girl called out to one of the boys in French. She couldn’t be more than five years old.

  “Manon! Bonjour! Ça va? Hey, I play goal! I’m here, too!” Swift yelled toward the goalie on the ice. She was smiling and waving, but the girl couldn’t hear her.

  And then with a flash of light, Swift and her three frozen friends were travelling again.

  * * *

  “I found another one, ’Utsoo!” a young voice called out just as the four players from Riverton appeared, rolling onto the muddy bank of a creek.

  Almost immediately, they began slowly—squishily—sliding toward the water below.

  “See what I mean?” Lucas said to Shayna, struggling to grab a handful of long grass. “Try not to fall in!”

  Mouth Guard, who was afraid of water and couldn’t swim, had found a long tree root and wrapped both his arms and legs around it.

  “Come and put it in the bucket with the others,” a woman called back cheerily.

  The Chips, getting slowly to their feet, watched as a boy about their age appeared through the trees to their right, waving a small dark object above his head. The woman he was talking to—maybe his grandmother?—was standing in an area marked off by a white wooden fence with large gaps between its boards. The fence ran beside an old flat-log cabin with a tin roof. On the side of the cabin, someone had hung old hockey equipment on nails: a rusted blue goalie mask, a smaller plastic goalie mask, and several old wooden hockey sticks. Some of the sticks had plastic bottoms, which meant that games of road hockey were sometimes played here.

  “Are you making bows and arrows today, Suchai?” the woman with dark curly hair asked the boy. She was tousling the mane of a horse that had trotted over to her in the fenced-off area. The horse lowered his head and made a friendly snorting sound as she began to brush his side.

  “Nah, I didn’t see any good willow branches,” said the boy, smiling and showing big dimples on both of his cheeks. “I guess I’ll work on my rodeo skills instead—gotta do something before hockey practice.”

  “I’m surprised there are still so many arrowheads over there. I thought you’d have found them all by now,” said the grandmother, teasing. When she giggled, the laugh ran through her entire body like a ripple across a pond.

  “I thought you said this area was a trade centre for volcanic rock,” said the boy, teasing her back. “Who knows how many obsidian arrowheads our people have left in these woods?!”

  Swift gulped. Could this be? She decided she wasn’t going to say anything in case she was wrong—maybe saying Manon Rhéaume’s name had triggered their last leap. If she was right, this was exactly where she wanted to be.

  “Good. Your rope is on the fence,” said the grandmother, offering the boy a warm smile. “Practice is important. One day you’ll get to compete, but practise first. Breathe the air, feel the sun and the wind—the peace that comes with being outdoors—and you’ll get it.”

  “I’m not roping calves yet, ’Utsoo,” the boy said, showing his dimpled smile as he grabbed his rope off the fence and pulled himself up into the saddle of one of the smaller horses in the corral. “I’ll start with some tree stumps or fence posts—at least they don’t move.”

  The boy was raising his rope above his head, ready to throw it, when the hockey players from Riverton, now nearing the white fence, finally caught his eye.

  Chapter 6

  Swift had no idea what she was doing, but she was trying.

  “Don’t worry, you’ll get i
t,” the boy said encouragingly. “I mean, I don’t have it either—not yet—but I’m sure we’ll get it soon.”

  Swift picked up the loop at the end of her rope, held it against the part of the rope that was already in her hand, and pointed the index finger of her right hand down toward the circle.

  “Like this, Suchai?” she asked, lifting the loop above her head and swirling it around with her two hands like she was stretching out some pizza dough.

  “Only one hand up,” the boy said, grinning and demonstrating with his own rope. His grandmother had called him Suchai (pronounced “soo chai”), and he’d simply smiled when the kids from Riverton had started calling him that, too. “Yep—like that. And then you don’t really want to throw the loop—you’re more placing it. Yeah, good.”

  The kid had looked surprised when he spotted the Riverton hockey players along the banks of the creek beside his house, but he’d soon decided that the arrival of these young visitors simply meant he’d have someone to hang out with. Lucas and Swift, who understood how these leaps worked, had said hi, but Mouth Guard started rambling on about how they were hikers who had become lost in the woods—until Shayna elbowed him.

  “It’s almost like goaltending, Swift. You gotta read what’s going on, what’s going to happen—at least that’s what I’ve been told. Well, I guess that’s more when you’re roping an animal that’s running around,” Suchai chuckled. He was wearing a kid-sized black cowboy hat, and whenever he made a joke, he blushed and adjusted it.

  “And you do this in teams?” Lucas asked, surprised that anyone could ride a horse and play a sport at the same time.

  The Chips’ centre was standing on the bottom board of the white fence and had his elbows resting on the top with his butt sticking out—the best seat in the house. He watched as Swift flung her loop close to him, trying to hook one of the fence posts, but she missed again.

  “Ugh!” Swift grunted, determined to give it another try.

  “Remember, he said it’s like setting a trap,” Lucas said, trying to be encouraging.

  Swift looked at him with a smirk and said, “You think you could do any better?”

  Lucas didn’t step down from the fence. He didn’t think he could do better, but maybe he could still help?

  “Missed!” yelled Mouth Guard when the rope hit the fence and fell again. He was keeping score by yelling that word every three seconds. No one had roped a post yet.

  Lucas couldn’t figure out how Mouth Guard was even paying attention, since he was doing this while rolling his way along the fence in front of the house. He’d touch the fence with his back, then his front, back then front, tapping the top of each post as he went along.

  “Yeah, we do this event in twos,” said Suchai, trying his rope again. “It’s always more fun to work in a team. The event I like is called team roping. There’s two riders: a header and a heeler. Those are the positions. I’d like to be a heeler when I grow up, I guess.”

  “Healer as in doctor? Or vet?” Mouth Guard asked.

  “No, heeler as in foot,” Suchai said, laughing again. “The header gets the steer by the head or the horns, and the heeler gets him by the back legs.”

  “Looks really hard,” said Lucas, thinking he’d make a better coach than a cowboy.

  “It’s just not part of your culture,” said Shayna, closing her eyes and raising her face toward the sun. “Everybody’s got their own traditions. I think it’s cool that Swift is learning.”

  “Now who wants to saddle up?” Suchai asked as one of his horses—the small one he’d mounted earlier—walked over and nudged him with his nose.

  * * *

  Shayna couldn’t believe how amazing it felt to travel through time. The actual trip had been bumpy, but now that they were here—now that their adventure had begun—she felt very lucky that the Ice Chips had invited her along.

  “I’ve got a few more sandwiches for you guys,” Swift called as she walked from the cabin to where Shayna was standing with Mouth Guard, beside a table they’d set up in the driveway.

  “Thanks,” said Shayna, who was packing a picnic lunch for the little fishing trip Suchai had suggested. “But we might need some more water, too.” She motioned to Mouth Guard, who was finishing off his third bottle, guzzling the water like he’d been lost in the desert for more than a week.

  “Wha-ut? What?!” asked Mouth Guard, taking a break to smile. “You have no idea how hard that was!”

  When Suchai had asked who wanted to ride, Mouth Guard had got so excited that he’d launched himself straight over the fence, startling two of the smaller horses. In under a minute, the Chips’ energetic forward was up in the saddle Suchai had secured—and had immediately started goofing around.

  “Suchai said you shouldn’t try any tricks!” Lucas, still trying to coach, yelled as Mouth Guard whizzed past him on his horse, leaning dangerously to one side.

  “I’m not doing any tricks!” Mouth Guard protested as he grabbed the neck of the horse and slipped even more to the side, almost scraping his head against the fence as he blew by.

  “Just sit up and hold on to the saddle horn!” Shayna called as the horse circled back. On her family’s remote First Nation territory in Ontario, Shayna had ridden horses many times. She’d never done any rodeo riding, but some of the ideas were the same.

  “Is it possible to slide right under the horse?” Lucas whispered to Shayna as Mouth Guard, still not sitting up, seemed to slip even more.

  “It is. And if he does,” said Shayna, looking concerned, “he could get hurt—badly.”

  “Mouth Guard, hold on! Sit up, stay calm, and she’ll stop for you,” said Suchai. It was obvious that he knew how a horse moved and could adjust his balance as the horse galloped along. He’d grown up around these animals.

  “Okay, but it’s hard to pull myself up. I’m going to have to push—” Mouth Guard said, trying to kick his way onto the back of the horse.

  The horse, scared, galloped even faster. Mouth Guard’s eyes widened as he slipped. Desperate, he pushed his foot against the horse’s side, hard, accidentally startling her again. The horse made a loud, panicked noise and bolted so fast that Mouth Guard could no longer hold on. When the dust cleared, the other kids could see that he had been left lying on his back in the dirt with the wind knocked out of him.

  With quick but even reflexes, Suchai was soon riding up beside the horse and calming her down. Lucas and Shayna were at Mouth Guard’s side immediately, grateful that he hadn’t been crushed by those powerful hoofs.

  This is why Mouth Guard was now drinking all their water. He’d started crying right after the wind was knocked out of him—he was more scared than hurt—and he was now convinced he was dying of dehydration because of all his sweat and tears.

  “You weren’t up on the horse for that long,” Shayna said, giggling. “Do you think that’s how NHL players drink water after a big game?”

  “I could ask my cousin Shane,” said Suchai, who’d come out of the house with some veggie snacks. “He was drafted by the Winnipeg Jets two years ago. Well, the Phoenix Coyotes, actually—the team was moved to Arizona last year.”

  Wait—the team that’s now the Arizona Coyotes? Is he talking about Shane Doan? Lucas stole a quick peek at his quarter: 1997! He looked at Swift, his eyes wide, but the Ice Chips’ goalie just looked away. She was still afraid to talk about her hunch.

  “That beading your mom and sister were doing inside was pretty cool,” Swift said to Suchai, trying to change the subject. “The eagle feathers they’re using are so beautiful.”

  “The feathers are part of our band logo,” said Suchai, again adjusting his cowboy hat. The band that his family belonged to, he explained, the Ulkatcho First Nation, had quite a few symbols. “The beading they’re doing—well, the beading we’re doing—is for decoration. We’ll probably hang one on the rear-view mirror of the truck. And maybe one in the Piper Ch—”

  “Ohhh! Hey, do you think we can cook our fish over a
campfire?! Can we?” Mouth Guard asked, excited. He’d been moving around the outside of the house, trying to flick a road hockey stick in the same way he’d seen Jack do at hockey camp. Beside the cabin, he’d found a small area where the family’s campfires were held.

  “We can if you gather up some wood first,” said Suchai with a smile.

  “Then we’ll have to catch some fish!” said Lucas with a laugh. He was nervous about fly fishing, but at the same time, he couldn’t wait to try it.

  * * *

  “No, no, the drive isn’t so bad,” Suchai was saying as he and the leaping hockey players gathered up twigs and kindling near the chopping block around the side of the house. He’d been telling the Riverton kids how he and his dad drove four and a half hours each way so that he could play house-league hockey in Williams Lake. For years, this kid had played road hockey in Anahim Lake and skated on the creek and lakes in winter. His dad, who was a goalie, had helped him practise and learn, and when the boy was nine, he called someone in Williams Lake to see if his son could play in a league with other kids. The coach had said that if Suchai wanted to play, he’d have to really play—to show up for both practices and games—even if it was just house league. That was the only way he could be part of the team.

  “That’s so long to be in a car!” said Lucas, breaking apart a dry branch and folding the twigs under his arm. He couldn’t get his head around driving more than nine hours a day, just for a practice or a game. And he was the Ice Chips’ biggest hockey nut.

  “It’s okay,” said Suchai, rubbing the neck of one of the dogs that had come with them to gather wood. Lucas had counted three dogs running around on the property, and all of them seemed devoted to their young owner. “Anyway, I sleep most of the time in the car,” Suchai continued, tossing a stick for the dog. “Sometimes I do my homework. And it is time with my dad—that’s cool. We listen to hockey games on the radio.”

  “What does your dad think about all that driving?” asked Swift. She was committed to both track and hockey, but her parents had never given up that much time to either of her sports.