The Ice Chips and the Magical Rink

If you could travel through time, who would you want to meet?

Lucas Finnigan eats, sleeps and breathes hockey. With his friends Edge, Swift and Crunch, Lucas plays on his hometown's rink, dreaming of the day when he knows he'll make the NHL. But lately money has been tight at home, and, after a major growth spurt, Lucas is forced to wear hand-me-down gear that doesn't quite fit right. Now he's not sure he'll ever make it to the Hall of Fame like his hockey heroes.

And that's not the only problem. With the community arena's chiller on the fritz, and replacement parts too tough to come by, it looks like Lucas and his friends may be doomed to a season on a plastic rink--or worse, no hockey at all

But with a magical discovery, and some help from one of hockey's greatest players (who was a kid once, too ), their final skate might turn into their first great adventure . . .

ROY MACGREGOR, the media inductee into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2012, has been described by the Washington Post as "the closest thing there is to a poet laureate of Canadian hockey." He is the author of the internationally successful Screech Owls hockey mystery series for young readers, which has sold more than two million copies and is published in French, Chinese, Swedish, Finnish, and Czech. The most successful hockey series in history--second only to Anne of Green Gables as a book series for young readers--it was a live-action hit on YTV. MacGregor has twice won the ACTRA Award for best television screenwriting.

KIM SMITH is the New York Times-bestselling illustrator of several picture books, including Builder Brothers: Big Plans and the Ice Chips chapter-book series. She lives in Calgary.

KERRY MACGREGOR is co-author of the latest work in the Screech Owls series. She has worked in news and current affairs at the CBC, and as a journalist with the Toronto Star, the Ottawa Citizen, and many other publications. Her columns on parenting, written with a unique, modern perspective on today's issues and interests, have appeared in such publications as Parenting Times Magazine.