I've written previously that my high school hockey coach was a man named Dave Bowen from Peterborough. A fabulous coach. A student of the game and someone who just dripped passion for it, he really made it fun for me and was one of those people who, looking back, pushed me to be more than …
Category: Early Days
Tape Balls (…no, not that kind)
Did you ever make a tape ball? I’m not sure if the tape ball is a sporting artifact unique to hockey but I cannot think of any others that could actually produce such a thing. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, hockey players wrap tape around their shins and sometimes ankles to keep …
How To Pick Players In A Play-off Hockey Pool
In 1981, the Habs played the Oilers in the first round of the play-off's. The fading dynasty from the 70's against the dynasty to be of the mid-late 80's. I was in high school at the time and we had a hockey pool. Gretzky was good, we all knew that but the Hab's …
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The Brooklyn Islanders
I'll admit it - I'm a former Islander fan who gave up on his team along time ago. As a kid, and several years before they ran off four straight cup wins, I was a big fan of the Islanders. In the years following those cups, when Pat Flatley was captain (a player I actually …
Clink
The Grand River Industrial League was where I played when I first moved to Kitchener in the late 1980's. Decent hockey, as good as I was capable of playing, and a great thing to look forward to each Sunday night out at the Grand River arena. For the most part, the league had evenly matched …
I Never Once Played Goalie
If you played organized hockey as a little kid, chances are decent you threw the pads on for at least one go in the cage. It might have only been for a practice, or a scrimmage or even a mother-son, father-son game. I never did. I had aspirations of doing so. I was all queued …
Why Is That Buzzer Ringing?
I don't know the exact date of my first real hockey game. However, I was eight and that would have made it the fall of '72, which in hindsight is a pretty cool time to have begun playing hockey in this country. My first team was St. Anne's in the Peterborough Church League (there …
A Stick Too Long
Here's a story that's both funny and sad. When I was a kid, (I think I was around Pee-Wee age), there was a guy on my church league team who was by far the weakest on the team. A bit of a loner too outside of hockey. Anyway, he shows up early in the season …
Car!
As I drove down the street yesterday, I approached two boys and a girl playing ball hockey on the street a few houses down. They had a net and one was playing goalie and the other two shooting. I could read their lips as they called "Car!" Ah, one of the great battle cries of …
Training
I was never much of a fitness buff. I'm still not. Some people get enjoyment out of exercise on its own but not me. As a kid, there was really no need to train for hockey because let's face it, kids as a rule are pretty fit. However, there was one summer where I did …
Rink Tales 