If you want on or off, just ask!
Posted on 01/20/2008 5:55:19 AM PST by rhema
The call came from the mother of a kid in the MacGroveland neighborhood. She said the kids were going to play hockey on the neighborhood rink and if I was any kind of man at all, I would find my skates and get over there.
I knew where my skates were, trusty old CCMs. A guy at George's on Grand Avenue told me they were classics because they featured a bit of kangaroo leather in the heel.
"I don't have a stick,'' I told the little guy's mom.
"There's a barrel full of sticks,'' she said.
"I'll be right there.''
The little guy was waiting for me on the sidewalk in front of his house. He had a sawed-off stick with about 3 pounds of electrical tape to make a knob. He carried his skates over his shoulder on the shaft of the stick. He looked like a boy in the winter. I was so instantly taken back to a different time that we might as well have walked to the caboose warming house. Ray Rolling would be inside next to the stove, pounding his fist into a three-fingered baseball glove. I would have to tell the kid about all that.
We set off for the rink. It was three houses down. One of the dads in the neighborhood made the rink, a backyard rink. I tried to make one once, but the water ran into the alley and we ended up skating round and round a tree in the back yard where the water froze in the flat spots at the base of the tree.
"Pretty neat rink,'' the little guy said.
"I'll say.''
Two other little guys were cutting about on the rink. They looked pretty good. Another neighborhood mom was pulling a couple of little girls on a plastic toboggan. We laced up our skates. I couldn't think of the last time. I really couldn't. But everything clicked into place, the smell of the cold air, the hollow thump of the puck on the boards; the rink was framed by boards about 8 inches high, just enough to keep the puck in play. "I feel sorry for you guys,'' I said. "You're in for a thumping.''
The little guy beat me to the ice, and he took off in the longest strides I had ever seen. He had a unique style. I stood up on the ice and selected a stick from the barrel. I slapped the stick on the ice a few times and again threatened the three little guys with a thumping.
They gave themselves names, Sidney Crosby, Marian Gaborik, Wayne Gretzky.
"You will call me Maurice,'' I said, "the great Maurice Richard.''
The mom pulling the little girls on the plastic toboggan looked at me and said, "You're a lot like them - intellectually, I mean.''
"Yup,'' I said.
It became evident that I would defend the rink's one real goal, at the alley end of the ice. To score at their end, I had to hit an overturned yellow plastic bucket. They had never been exposed to the crossed-stick face off, where you and the opponent lift your stick off the ice three times, touching them, and then go for the puck. I taught them that, and the game began.
I went up 2-0 in a New York minute. If you thought I was going to let the Lilliputians beat me, you've got another thought coming. The dad whose yard was being sacrificed stuck his head out the back door and informed us that San Diego was beating Indianapolis.
"An upset,'' I bellowed, tearing around the rink.
The little guys announced that the period was over, and they said they were going into their locker room. They collected themselves in a snow bank and appeared to be plotting. When the second period started, they took turns minding the bucket. But they sprawled in front of it, effectively taking away any shot unless I carved in there and somehow tucked the biscuit against the bucket. I didn't have that carve move like I used to. In the meantime, they were scoring goals in bunches. They went up 5-2, then 7-3, then 9-5, then 10-8.
This time, I called an end to the period, and I went to my locker room, a picnic table bench. I was huffing. My knees ached. I think my right hip had slipped out of its socket.
"Let's go, Maurice,'' they called.
I wobbled out to center ice. They seemed to sense I was ready to be taken down, like some beast out on the plains. I got one good rush and a shot that shattered the bucket, but they won, 13-9. They lifted their sticks in the air and punched each other's fists.
I took my skates off, and even that brought back a different time, the way your feet feel in shoes after being on skates.
"You got anything to say, Maurice?''
"Yeah. I want a rematch.''
Joe Soucheray ping
I grew up in northern Michigan where we skied and nobody played hockey. When I was about 12 my dad and step-mom sent me a pair of hockey gloves for Christmas. When I opened the present I had absolutely no idea what they were for, I thought they were some kind of new padded ski gloves.......LOL!
What is "hockey"??
--- Wings from GA...
*******
Even our local "AA" NHL franchise....
(I think they are called the Atlanta Thrashers...)
....have yet to instruct us poor, deprived, warm-climate dwellers on the meaning and answer to such a basics-of-life question....
For the record... it's 21 degrees --- wind chill 9...
In the SOUTHERN suburbs...
But alas...
We're on drought-based water restrictions....
(No rink in the yard!)
More coffee for the old guy please...
A peaceful Lord's Day to all...
Probably the reason that I still have all my front teeth is that we moved from Minnesota to Colorado when I was eight years old and nobody played hockey. There were hardly any places to even skate.
The closest we came was when I was in college and we would play broom ball (or "broom brawl" as we called it). Played on ice, but without skates and using sawed off brooms and and ball.
My 16 yo son is presently playing in the Silver Sticks tournament in Sarnia, Canada. We live in Northern VA. His travel team, the Northern VA Ice Dogs, beat two of the top ranked Michigan teams in the tournament. Lost to a Canuck team, though. The Michiganders were more than a little shell shocked by their loss to a SUTHREN team : )
Please tell him....WELL DONE!!
thanks! : ) always amusing to hear the reactions of the northeners.
“The closest we came was when I was in college and we would play broom ball (or “broom brawl” as we called it). Played on ice, but without skates and using sawed off brooms and and ball.”
That’s just so sad!
I noticed this morning the scar on my right knee I got 50 years ago on a back yard rink just up the street; sharp spot at center ice! :)
We skated every day after school until supper, then after supper “under the lights” someone’s Dad had put up until it was time for homework. We lived on our skates on weekends and listened to the Canadiens’ games in French on the radio. Good times! I doubt I could last 5 minutes out there on the ice now.
After my dad passed away we were going through things at the house and we found my dad's old hockey skates (which I had worn a few times as a teenager before my feet outgrew them). They are now hanging at my brothers house on a peg on the wall and I smile every time a see them. Dad was an excellent skater, even did some barrel jumping in his day.
My son played School hockey in a pair of ‘Old School’ skates I bought on line from Hockey monkey. He used them for 4 years until he wore them out and ‘took over’ my ‘Mission’ skates. (Son, have you seen my skates? Sure Dad they are in my bag, I’ve been using them all season!)
Talk about name brands like CCM and the make great skates, but off brands are pretty good as well.
The way I skated (not good enough to make any hockey team, any age, any level in the state of Minnesota, off brands were the only kind I ever bought. If I could skate forward and reasonably straight with them, they were good enough for me.
If you want on or off, just ask!
Lot's of hockey being played in the South these days.
I play every Sunday night................in Miami, Florida.
(Only four more hours till we drop the puck!)
Thanks for the ping
I grew up in L.A. My best friends dad owned a hair salon where a lot of the Kings went. So I got to go to a lot of games pre-Gretzky. I started playing in a rec league when I was 20, after he convinced me it would be fun. It is by for the hardest, most satisfying sport I have ever played. I can’t imagine there are better athletes than hockey players.
My friend now sells executive suites for the Ducks, as close as he can get to what he loves.
i know! i love watching hockey!
A good pair of skates, sharpened professionally, could actually have made a difference.
Accept my trade...gimmie Roberto!!!!!!!!!!!!
All in all, I think I'm slated to be on the ice about 6 days out of the next 8.
To be sure, there's hockey here in the South. We just need to grow it MORE.
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