"Joe, skating down the ice, defence men closing in, to the left, to the right, hes in the clear, shoots, and scores!" "Get off that dang game Joe and get back to your work!" I wished that moment was real, but nobody besides me and a few friends play hockey, I wish hockey was in my town I thought. The teacher never had respect for sports. We only have about 850 people in our small town in Arizona.

The bell rang,"Man, that was that was the worst class sense the maps testing day last month." I said to my best friend Billy. "Are you going to skate tonight Joe?" "Na man, it just isn't that fun shooting pucks around at the rink, we need people to play so there can be real games." I whined "...... Well, ok let's ask some people to join in the hall.... It's not like we tried that before." Billy mocked in a mumbling tone.

Just as I expected, In the hall nobody wanted to play hockey or even try, baseball was the big sport here, a bunch of seed munchers with caps so low on their head, that they covered their eyes. Until at practice, Billy called Joe and said "Ummm, somebody new is here, and he wants to talk with you about his friends joining", "I'll be right over" I half mumbled.

John was already on skates, struggling to stand, he was beside the net, just as I got there billy took a slap shot and hit John rite in the face, John, by now having a cut lip and a ruined day told us he would tell everyone never to join us. "Billy! We're never going to get anyone to join here for sure now!"

The next day at school, John told everyone how horrible his experience was, the puck in the face and all. Instead of people not wanting to join though, because of the fact everyone at school loved danger, John did the exact opposite of what he intended. People actually wanted to play because of what he said!

At the rink I was shocked, "Man Billy, we could make a team with all these people that want to play!" I exclaimed, "Well, its settled then, were gonna make a few teams!" Billy blurted out. I was thinking how fun it would be when, oh man, I thought of something, "Billy, let's hold tryouts tonight before practice." I couldn't wait, the clock seemed so slow but finally, the school day ended and we went to the rink.

"Ummm, wow Billy, these kids can't even skate worth anything!" For some reason Billy's parents kept about ten pairs of skates at the rink so at least the kids could get on the ice. "Before we even think about teams Joe, we will need these kids to well, get some gear and on top of that, even learn to skate! We need to tell them, ill do it." I just thought to myself how bad it was going to be when Billy told them, but I didn't talk. "Hey.... Listen up guys, before we get any teams together, we will need to learn to skate and get some pads." Billy said worriedly. The next instant though, everyone was gone.

After that disaster though, there was an even bigger disaster, because of the fact that Billy's parents payed to keep the rink running, they told Billy it was too expensive to keep it running. Unless people payed in some way, they couldn't support the rink alone. So he called me and broke the bad news.

I was upset, "Billy, we can't just keep on trying to get people to play, it's too much of a waste of time." I said sadly, "Yeah, let's just find something like football to do...... We could be great." Billy said with very little enthusiasm. But I didn't stop, I was on my computer till it felt like ten at night, but it was only 5:30, oh man, this day has gone on forever I thought, I felt like a fox trying to catch a rabbit deep in its burrow, knowing there was very little chance of reaching my goal. Then I found something, a website that may have help.

I called Billy, he sounded very sleepy when he got up. "Billy, don't you know the website that gives gear to organizations or people in need?" I asked "Oh yeah, can you get gear from them?" Billy very sleepy sounding asked. "Yeah, I sent them an email and they said it will be at my house by 5:30 in the afternoon tomorrow, but um, can you pay $100.00 for shipping?" "Ok fine I'll get my parents to pay as long as you let me sleep."

"Billy, what if the people still don't want to play and we have all this gear leftover...." I murmured, "Well, we will find out at school what will happen." Billy said with some hesitation. What Billy did not say, was that his parents were cutting the funding tonight if there were no people signed up.

At school I was so happy, most everyone wanted to come back, even though they needed to learn to skate. Everyone said it would be fine with their parents if there was free gear, but the final problem, Billy's mom. Billy called his mom at lunch, "Mom, could we organize a learn to play/skate program at the rink after school? Everyone said that they were oked by their parents." Billy shyly asked, "And they all offered to pay tonight!" I blurted intending for Billy's mom to hear. "Well, ok as long as its ok with everyone and you are safe, its fine with me." Billy's mom said. I called everyone together and Bill told everyone loud and clear, "Ok, first learn to play/skate starts tonight!" "Wow Billy, looks like we got ourselves some sort of teams, we can play real games now, we could be stars!"