[legendsport]

Ottawa, ON: December 23, 1919:

Jack Barrell had finally made it back to the Toronto Dukes. This time, he was confident, it was permanent. No more Montreal City League for him. Unfortunately, from what he'd seen before the puck had been dropped for the very first game of the season, this might not go too well.

The team had met in Toronto in late Novemeber for pre-season workouts. Jack was a new face, but he wasn't the only one. The man Bert Thomas had hired to be player-coach, Burr Knowles, was a big, strong defenseman who had never actually played in the NAHC. Jack knew him from amateur circles where he had played into his late 20s. Knowles was surly - he had been one of the better players everywhere he'd played before Toronto. Now he was probably the worst at his position on his own team.

Then there was Jack's main competition at right wing: Hank Lucas. Lucas was 5'8" and while not tall, he was 180 pounds of muscle and nasty attitude. His once-handsome face scarred by cuts he'd received in retaliation for his own slashing tactics, Lucas had been playing for Portland in the western loop. In the 1918-19 season he'd been well on his way to again leading the TCHA in penalty minutes. With two games left in the season Lucas had been banned by the Transcontinental Hockey Association's President, George Yeadon, after a vicious crosscheck broke the jaw of Vancouver's Malcolm Cummings. Cummings was still out and was unlikely to play the 1919-20 season.

Bert Thomas promptly signed Lucas. To be fair to Thomas, this occurred while Jack was "retired" from hockey, so in a way, Jack only had himself to blame. But now he had to try to win the nod as the starting right winger against a guy who would quite literally fight tooth and nail to keep it.

"Stay away from me, rookie," is what Lucas told Jack at the team's first meeting.

The Dukes did still have Cal Oliphant and Ben Scheer, two extremely gifted players who could score seemingly at will. The Dukes would score goals - their problem was defense. Toronto, like the other NAHC (and TCHA) clubs, employed two pairs of defensemen. Unfortunately, Coach Knowles put himself on the top pairing with Jimmy Leary. Leary was the team's best defender, but Knowles was the worst, and it made the Dukes top-line defense weak on the left side.

The club's first game of the 1919-20 season was in Ottawa against the perennially championship-caliber Athletics. Jack had a feeling this wasn't going to go well.

He was right.

With the Ottawa Athletic Arena packed to a standing-room capacity for the opener two days before Christmas, Jack had chills that had nothing to do with the ice surface.

Before the game, Cal Oliphant approached Jack and told him, "Nothing's changed from the first time: this is just hockey. You've played, what, hundreds of games? Treat it like any other. You're good enough to be here." Then he patted him on the shoulder and started trudging towards the tunnel.

Cal's brother Charlie skated for Ottawa. Though the two chatted amiably before the puck was dropped, it was all business thereafter - Charlie flattened Cal with a check less than a minute into the game. Cal grinned as he got up.

Watching Lucas, Jack was impressed. He was a pest on the ice, pushing, slashing and hitting anyone he could reach. But he had skill too. He beat Ottawa's Pete Vandenburg, one of the best defensemen in the game, in a breakaway race and whipped the puck into the top-left corner of the net to score the first Toronto goal of the season less than three minutes into the game.

The groaning fans weren't unhappy for long as Simon Kouger tied the game and Charlie Oliphant put them ahead 2-1 going into the first intermission.

The highlight of the second period was a fight between Lucas and Vandenburg with both players bloodied before the referee could separate them. As far as hockey fights went, that was the nastiest Jack had ever witnessed. With Lucas in the box, Jack got onto the ice after playing only sparingly in the first period.

The score was 3-1 Ottawa. After Dukes goalie Addie Manor slapped away a shot and directed it to Knowles, the player-coach started to head up ice towards the Ottawa end. Jack was on the right wing as Knowles came up the left side.

Jack had his eyes on the puck and saw Knowles staring him down. Virtually everyone in the arena could see that he was going to pass the puck to Jack. Sure enough, Knowles tried to thread the needle with a cross-ice pass towards Jack, whose eyes widened as he saw Ottawa's Harry Bernier, the Athletics' other top-notch defender, read it and instantly shoot forward. Jack turned towards the puck in what he correctly saw was a futile effort to beat Bernier to it. The Ottawa defenseman stuck his stick out, caught the puck neatly on the blade and transitioned into a one-man rush that ended with a wrist shot into the net against a helpless Addie Manor. 4-1, Athletics.

Jack was furious. This guy was supposed to be their coach and he had made one of the most boneheaded plays Jack had ever seen.

Ultimately, the Dukes lost 6-3.

Afterwards, back at the hotel, Jack wandered into the bar. Cal Oliphant had invited Jack to join him and his brother for a drink. As he entered he saw Burr Knowles leaning on the bar, a glass of whiskey in his hand.

Cal waved from a table in the corner.

"What is he doing? Drinking his cares away?" Jack asked as he approached the table and hooked a thumb over his shoulder.

Cal shrugged and said, "Don't be too tough on him. This was his first game too, remember."

Charlie leaned forward and muttered, "I heard he's a bit of a souse. So... this might be normal, win or lose."

Jack looked back. His coach was tapping the bar for a refill and there was a definite slur to his speech as he shouted to the bartender. Jack sighed as he sat down. This was not the way he'd hoped his first day was going to turn out.