Page:Hockey, Canada's Royal Winter Game.djvu/51

 that he cannot elude certain of his opponents, is a factor of success for the opposing team. Care should be taken, however, that confidence may not be exaggerated. Over-confidence is a greater fault than confidence is a virtue. While each team should feel that it can probably defeat its opponents, it should also bear in mind that until the game is ended, its own goals are in danger, and act accordingly.

Pluck is an essential to a man who aspires to perfection in the game, and is as indispensable to him as it is to a footballer or a soldier. The calculating player often saves himself by avoiding unnecessary dangers, but occasion demands, at times, a fast rush through a "bunch" of fighting players, through swinging, smashing sticks that, in noise and movements, resemble a threshing machine,&mdash;a desperate jump, or a block of the puck, at the expense of a sore punishment, to score or save a single goal, and the risk must be run.

The cringer, the man who waits outside of a scrimmage until by chance the puck slides to him, the man who fears an opponent, is not a hockey player. It is, of course, scientific play on certain occasions, to wait until the puck is shoved out of a crowd, or from the side, but