Hockey Token

In the city of Quebec, where the sky is always gray and damp, lived a boy named Nick. Nick was on a travel hockey team. Nick loved the sport so much that he would walk through the snow-covered city for practice every night. Nick loved the sound of the scraping ice as he skated across the rink, the cold air blowing oh his face, and the crowd’s cheer when he scored.

But then one day, his coach got sick and couldn’t coach anymore. Nick didn’t like his new coach. Nick even thought about quitting, but he realized that hockey was his sport and no one could take that away from him.

Things for Nick just kept getting worse. He was cut from the team a week later. Nick wished his old coach could come back. Nick had wanted to see his coach ever since he got sick, so his parents decided to take him to the hospital. Coach Tom was very surprised to see Nick. He asked how Nick was doing on the team, and Nick told him everything.

After a long silence, he asked, “How could that happen?”

Nick just shrugged.

Coach Tom pulled a puck out of his bag and said, “You should have this.”

It was the puck that Coach Tom had scored his first goal with!

Two months later, Nick signed up tot try out, and Coach Tom’s words echoed in his head. When Nick was skating, it felt weird. He hadn’t skated in months. The drills were tough and the coaches were loud, but Nick still felt confident.

The next morning, there was a letter in the mailbox for Nick. It read:

Dear Nicholas Milner,
    You have been accepted to be on the Quebec Huskies.
From,
The Youth Canadian Hockey League

If it weren’t for Coach Tom giving Nick the puck, Nick would have lost confidence and quit. That puck had bee a token of Coach Tom’s love and affection for hockey, but he gave it to Nick as a token of confidence in Nick.