Jack
Straight from the Gut
Chapter One
Building Self-Confidence
It was the final hockey game of a lousy season. We had won the first
three games in my senior year at Salem High School, beating Danvers,
Revere, and Marblehead, but had then lost the next half dozen games,
five of them by a single goal. So we badly wanted to win this last
one at the Lynn Arena against our archrival Beverly High. As
co-captain of the team, the Salem Witches, I had scored a couple of
goals, and we were feeling pretty good about our chances.
It was a good game, pushed into overtime at 2-2.
But very quickly, the other team scored and we lost again, for the
seventh time in a row. In a fit of frustration, I flung my hockey
stick across the ice of the arena, skated after it, and headed back
to the locker room. The team was already there, taking off their
skates and uniforms. All of a sudden, the door opened and my Irish
mother strode in.
The place fell silent. Every eye was glued on this middle-aged woman
in a floral-patterned dress as she walked across the floor, past the
wooden benches where some ... read full excerpt from Jack: Straight from the Gut ebook
