Lost but a win

Eleven years of driving to minor hockey rinks, obscure and obvious. I'd never gotten lost - delayed in Waterloo once, maybe - until last night.
We were headed to Lions Park Arena in Brantford last night to make up a game cancelled because of last week's storm. We've never been to Lions Park before - usually we play at the Gretzky - so I dutifully checked and printed out instructions from an online arena finding service. And no, I don't have a GPS.

The bench was a short for the West London Hawks midgets
 in Brantford. They ended the game with seven skaters.

The driving was good and we arrived so early that we stopped at a Taco Bell for a dinner, phase 2, then continued on our way to the arena. Or so we thought. When we reached the city limits, I figured something was amiss. Asked one person, who had never heard of the arena. Asked another who thought it was in Paris. Asked a third who said we were going exactly the wrong way - it's close to downtown Brantford.
As we were getting back on track, the cellphone rings. It's our manager calling from the arena lobby wondering where we were and if we were coming. It was a bit of crisis as we only had nine skaters and one goalie, thanks to travel plans, work commitments and injuries. Fortunately, there was a map in the arena lobby and he guided us in - then pointed out a sale price on a great GPS.
Of course we didn't expect to win the game and a short bench soon became shorter. Our captain re -aggravated his knee and upper thigh early in the first period. One of the four defencemen - OK, it was my son - took a hefty penalty and missed half a period. Another forward took a puck off the helmet. Another defenceman was pushed heavily into the boards on the first shift of the third period and managed only a shift or two after that.
Still, the pucks went in for us - five goals. Brantford hit the post at least four times and scored four, the last with their net empty in the final moments. A 5-4 win and only seven skaters by the end of the game.
A Christmas miracle to be sure.
And if there's a GPS under the tree on Christmas morning, I'll understand why.