The Goal

Sweat dripped off Scott's youthful face, hitting the ice. The shaft of his stick dug into his thigh, although he couldn't feel it, what with the pads he was wearing. He watched the referee skate over to the circle where his Blackhawks teammate Andreas Badstuber stared down his Boston Bruins opponent. The opponent already had his stick on the ice. The fans kept chanting "LET'S! GO! HAWKS!" along with the organ.

Scot placed the blade of his stick on the ice. He shut the sound of the crowd out as best he could, but he could feel the palpable excitement. The referee waited for a moment while Badstuber and his opponent waited. Then referee dropped the puck. The German Badstuber fought with his opponent for a second before he passed the puck back to right winger Tom Collins.

Immediately the Bruins went into a defensive set-up while the Blackhawks spread out to look for an opening.  Collins passed back to defenseman Brent Logan. Then Logan passed over to Scott on the left side. One of the Bruins moved in to cut Scott off. However, Scott shook the puck up and then juked past the Bruin defenseman.

Seeing no shot, he passed over to Collins again, who had a shot. Collins wound up and FIRED!

BLOCKED!

Scott could see the puck above his head. He reached up, knocked it down to the ice and put it on the blade of his stick. The 22-year-old American skated around and passed to Badstuber in the middle. Badstuber put a shot on goal that missed. Then Scott went back to the net and picked the puck up. On a whim, he let a wrister go on the Bruins goalie,

SCORES!!!

The United Center crowd went insane, mixed in with the blaring horn. Scott could barely hear anything, but he screamed at the top of his lungs, raising his arms in the air as his teammates skated over and hugged him. Now "Chelsea Dagger" filled the arena as they skated off the ice. Scott looked up and saw the score, 2-1 Blackhawks over the Bruins with 5 minutes to go in the second period. He settled on the bench and watched the action unfold with a now confident Blackhawks team and crowd behind them.