Going Places by Fran Hurcomb Page A

front of their net. After about a solid minute of passing, Ruby sent the puck across to Fancy, who fired it at the net. Michelle stuck out her stick and tipped it up into the air, over the goalie’s glove. It was 2–2!
    The crowd erupted in cheers. By now, all of our families were sitting together and getting kind of rowdy. The little Beaulieu kids were waving a piece of cardboard with “Go girls” written on it. Not too original, but that was okay. One by one they started clapping until they were all in unison, clapping and stomping and hollering. Wow. It was all for us!
    Between the second and third periods there was a longer break so that the Zamboni could clean the ice.
    This was really big time. We went to the dressing room and flopped on the benches. I looked around as everyone took off their helmets. Hair was dripping wet, faces red. There was no doubt about it, we were playing hard.
    The door burst open, and Mrs. Smithers and my mom came in with a tray of cut-up oranges. We grabbed them thirstily. “Way to go, girls. You’re awesome,” said Mrs. Smithers. We were all talking at once, eating oranges and laughing. Curtis and Tara walked into the dressing room too.
    â€œOkay, girls, settle down. This isn’t over yet. Those boys don’t want to lose, so you’re going to have to keep up the pressure. Can you do it?”
    The room erupted in a loud roar. Can we do it? Of course we could. We left the room feeling much different than we had an hour before.
    The boys started the third period with a huge burst of energy. Their center slipped around our defense and raced in alone on Alice. He deked left and tried to tuck a backhand past her. Alice did the splits and trapped the puck under her pad. What a save! The crowd went wild again.
    Back and forth we went. The boys were tired, but they sure weren’t going to give up. With less than a minute to go, Sarah snuck around Trevor, their last defenseman, and headed toward the net. Knowing he was beaten, Trevor stuck out his stick and tripped her. Sarah fell flat on her face, the puck slowly gliding into the goalie’s glove. The referee’s shrill whistle sounded almost before Sarah hit the ice.
    â€œPenalty shot,” chanted the crowd. “Penalty shot.” Sarah got slowly to her feet and looked at the referee. As Trevor headed to the penalty box, the ref called Sarah over and talked to her. Then they skated together to center ice and he put the puck down. Curtis signaled a time out to the ref. We all headed over to the bench and made room for Sarah in front of Curtis.
    â€œPenalty shot,” she said, looking absolutely terrified.
    â€œThat’s great, Sarah. Don’t worry. I know you can beat him. He’s weak on his stick side. Have you noticed that?”
    Sarah shook her head slowly. She was one of our youngest and smallest players. For her age, she was probably also our best player. She seemed to havea knack for sneaking and stickhandling around much bigger players, and, although she didn’t shoot very hard, she was pretty accurate.
    Curtis smiled gently at his little niece. “Take a deep breath and then stare at the goalie for a while, just to make him more nervous. Take your time, and go when you’re ready. There’s no rush. Try to raise it high on his stick side. He’ll probably go down, thinking you can’t raise it, so you’ll just have to fool him. Can you do that?” With a weak smile, she nodded her head and slowly turned and skated, all alone, to center ice. We all stood along the boards by the bench, watching and waiting. She looked so small. The crowd was dead quiet.
    Sarah stood at center ice, staring at the goalie for what seemed a very long time. Then, she stood up a little straighter, looked down at the puck, up again at the goalie and started to skate. She took the puck with her stick and began to pick up speed. She never took her eyes off the goalie.
    It all