Page:Hockey, Canada's Royal Winter Game.djvu/68

 It is in the attack on goals that a forward's coolness will assist him. For a man to know what to do, when he is near his opponents' defence, requires thought. The ever-varying changes in conditions and positions prevents a man from having any set line of action in an attack. Every rush is confronted by a different combination of circumstances, and a forward must know, on each separate occasion, the play that is best calculated to effect the desired result. This knowledge is the attribute of an experienced player and must go hand in hand with coolness. Practice teaches a man what to do, coolness enables him to do it.

It is singular, but remarkably true that a forward who could not win even a "green" skating race, can excel as a lightning hockey player. It is one of the ingenious paradoxes of the game, that cannot be explained. A man who can beat another in a race is not necessarily a faster forward than that man. Examples on every team prove the contention. Perhaps the possession of the puck, the excitement of the game, the attraction that an assistant has when skating near him, gives to the man who may not claim distinction as a racer, a power, a speed, that a simple race cannot make him exercise; perhaps the superior science of a player who cannot skate as well as another,