Chapter 49

• We lost seven of our nine games in October, most of them in our home rink and our spirits were low. Coach was threatening us with everything from benching to replacing us with the reserve team. Things between me and Madison hadn’t really progressed any further and so far, I’d gotten a penalty in every game.
• I was frustrated with myself and with the team. We had had such a good season last year and we had gone into this season as the favorites and now we were the underdogs. No quit in New York. That was our slogan but somehow, we weren’t playing like we should.
• In November, we won nine out of our fifteen games and things seemed a little better. December saw us winning seven out of fourteen and we weren’t feeling all that positive anymore. I couldn’t go home for Christmas since we played against the Flyers in Philadelphia on the twenty-third and then we had a game against the Hurricanes in New York on the twenty-seventh.