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Show I Near us was an elderly couple with a pair of kids. Toward the middle of the second period the puck came flying through the' air, lifted clear of the boards and dropped into the aisle near where the elderly couple sat. The two kids made a dive for it, and for I a. few minutes there was quite a lively time. In the melee the -ouck flew out of one of the youngster's hands and dropped at my feet. Grinning I picked it up and was about to hand it back when I noticed something that caused my eyes to bulge. Instead of handing the puck back I gave the kids a dollar, hurriedly excused myself and went down to our dugout. "Call Mort Lobdell off the ice," I told Roy Lacey. Roy looked at me in astonishment, and I repeated the order. There must have been something funny in the way I looked because Roy called Mort in without a word. Scowling as usual, Mort skated in and was about to sit down in the end seat. "Come with me a miunte," I told him. "And you'd better come along- too, Roy." I grabbed ,Mort's stick, "I'll take that..' Mort snarled out a protest and held the stick away. He looked ugly. Folks nearby were watching us. "The jig's up, Mort," I said quietly. "Unless you want to make a scene right here, you'd beter hand over the stick." For a minute Mort and I looked at each other, and I guess ha sensed that I wasn't kidding. He handed over the stick and followed me back to the dressing room. When the three of us were alone I showed Mort's stick to Roy. A half inch of awl was protruding pro-truding from the elbow. Other awls were driven into the wood. Then I showed him the puck, the surface of which contained several sev-eral faint indentations. "Get it?" I said. "This ' cute little hero inserts those awls into his stick before every game. Clamped down on the ribber puck it would take a pretty terrific stroke to get it loose. When -the game's over he pounds the awl way in, so nobody will catch on. The puck being made of rubber, the holes wouldn't be noticeable, and no one ever thinks of examining- a used puck anyway." . . . Oh, sure the papers carried the story, and we had to give Mort police protection to the railroad rail-road station when the boys heard about it. The Nicaragua Republic contains con-tains 57,143 square miles. Rubber Puck... A Short Story By Richard Hill Wilkinson Mort, Lobdell rose from the ranks. The hockey ranks. First he was a mediocre defense on an unimportant un-important midwestern sextet, and then suddenly, over night almost, he became a star. It was uncanny. One of those things you read a-bout. a-bout. Within two months he was playing center for the Bay State Eagles. Everyone who knew Mort hated him, especially his team mates, more especially members of the opposing team. He didn't play clean. He took advantage of every opportunity to slug, to injure an opponent. Fisticuffs and flaring tempers are frequent in hockey, but, in a sense, excusable. Hockey i.s a fast game. A player is active from the opening whistle, and when a man sails down the ice with the puck nestled against his stick, he's generating grim determination de-termination with( every second. Small wonder that he's apt to fly off the handle whQn suddenly Vlthjout warning he iruns full tilt into a man coming from the opposite direction. Mort was boastful, too. Arrogant Arro-gant and contemptuous of lesser figures in the public eye. He had a s flare for being dramatic and spectacular. He went over big, compensating for his ugly dispo- eition by the number of goals he scored. His team mates, those old timers who had plugged along for years with the Bay Staters and weren't at all specatcular, but mighty dependable, took his abuse and held their peace. Oddly they had a sense of Dride and loyalty for th team, and Mort Lobdell was bringing the team plenty of glory. But you knew that bitter passion smoldered in their breasts by the way they looked at him. It was hard to believe. To the close observer Mort possessed no more than ordinary skill. One trick he had that was different. When carrying the puck 'he kept the elbow of his stick clamped down on top of the disc, rather than shoving it ahead. Queer, but he seemed to do better that way. The man must have had an abnormal amount of strength in his wrist which he used w advantage, because thus held, the puck seemed in a vice-like Strip, resisting the fiercest onslaughts. on-slaughts. Others tried it, but without with-out success. The old method of Keeping the disk ahead of the stick seemed best. It didn't occur to me to ig'et suspicious. Not until the Montreal game. That night I had guests and was sitting in the $1.00 seats. |