I Was Brought Up This Way - To Play Hockey Because It Was The National Obsession

 

Photos by Suzanne Currie

A Preamble to Today’s Post.

I WAS BROUGHT UP THIS WAY, AND TO MY PARENTS, IT WAS THE CANADIAN DREAM TO PLAY HOCKEY ALL THE LIVE LONG DAY

By Ted Currie

     I have purposely stayed away from penning any more sports related stories, but there are a few, especially at this time of year, that I can’t really avoid because of their significance to everything else. You see, my parents, Merle and Ed, God bless their souls, never gave their young son an option to decline, when it came to being told it was “hockey registration day” at the arena, which was to them, one of the most important days of the fall and winter season. They did exactly what a million other parents did, when in their respective minds, their kid had a chance to make the big leagues one day. Keep in mind, that when I started playing novice hockey when we still lived in Burlington, Ontario, there were only six teams in the National Hockey League, and that meant there was next to no chance of a kid like me making the pro ranks. But it was, I suppose their preference to dream of my stardom, even when I was too young to make it from one end of the ice surface to the other, and not hitting the ice four or five times in a very slow end to end rush.

     I did come to love hockey as a kid but as an adult, with enough aches and pains to remind me just how tough it was to survive in the rigors of the sport, I do at times wonder why the heck I played so long into my adult years, such that my knees and hip, my hands, and fingers, ache every day especially when it gets wet out there, because dampness is not my friend. I was a goaltender for most of my hockey days, and I took a lot of pucks in places that did not have a lot of padding, back in the early days of net minding; when it was more important to stop rebounds from incoming shots, which was easier to do when there wasn’t a lot of defensive plastic on my thin protective gear. My arm and shoulder pads for example, were basically thick layers of cloth padding, with some stuffing or other, but definitely nothing to stop a slap-shot from connecting with bone through a kid’s thin covering of flesh. I played for many years with ordinary hockey skates, and not actual protective goalie skates with iron toes. I had a lot of devastatingly hard shots hit me on the toes, and there was one occasion, while suffering from an ingrown toenail, a direct hit dinted the toe material, and pushed in against my toe such that the nail sliced through the tip, causing a pretty substantial injury and bleeding. But it was at a time when most teams only dressed one goaltender, and if the starter had to be replaced, the back-up was most likely a defenseman who had to retire to the dressing room to put on the goalie gear. The coach didn’t prefer this plan, and it was made clear that despite injury, unless you happened to lose a leg or your head, you had to stay in net until the end of the game. I did this, and nearly bled to death. That was the hockey conundrum I didn’t particularly care for, but like most lads my age, you just did what you needed to, in order to please the coach, and teammates, and your parents sitting up in the bleachers cursing the referees and the opposition players. My parents used to yell at me for letting goals into the net. My coach actually had to ask them to not come to the games any more, because it was distracting me from actually stopping the puck before it hit the mesh. Can you imagine that? Your parents being barred from attending their kid’s game because they were being too critical of their own flesh and blood. Sure it is our national sport, but it has a lot of deficits, some that still rear-up that are quite disturbing.

     If I had been asked as a kid, to offer an opinion about what type of hockey I most enjoyed, it would have been the case I’d have chosen frozen pond shinny, or simply road hockey like we played up on Alice Street in Bracebridge, with our away games up in the Henry’s driveway on Liddard Street, behind the hospital. There was no pressure. No expectations by parents, of a road hockey star going on to play in the N.H.L. Games were played under the street lamplight, and often the goal posts were made from clumps of ice pulled from the snow banks. We’d stand out there, awaiting a few mates to show up from the neighborhood, to even out the sides, and watch the gently falling snow spiral down to our toque-clad heads, thinking to ourselves, this sure is a wonderful life…..in its most uncomplicated, uncompromising roll of hours. It only became impended when cars came up or down our road, which at night was seldom, and my mother bellowed that it was time to come in, which back in those days, was usually nine o’clock. We’d all beg Merle for at least one overtime period, that would last at least another half hour before the follow-up scream that “time was up - it was a school night for gosh sakes.”

     It was during the Christmas season that I most enjoyed hockey, even at the arena, but I can’t define why this was exactly. It was just a kinder, gentler period of the hockey season, not because it wasn’t as painfully aggressive, but I think because we had a better attitude about the actual recreational relevance of what we were actually doing; pursuing this Canadian dream thing. I liked the lesser pressure, and I did pay more attention to the fellowship of the sport, and even when we played road hockey, or took to a frozen pond down along Monck Road in the pastures of the old Ball Farm, we seemed much more festive in our resolve, to keep these moments near and dear for the rest of our lives; as having been the communing occasions, where we were simply kids doing what kids should do with their spare time. And “fun” pretty much sums in up. And yes, if given the chance, I would love to start a game of road hockey up there on Alice Street, some time this Christmas season, just to see if any of the old gang might show up. Sadly, we lost one of our most faithful forwards recently, being Don Clement, one of the stalwart movers and shakers of the Hunt’s Hill gang, of which I was a proud member. But I will, on Christmas Eve, hoist a glass of egg nog to that fraternity of neighborhood kids, who made my childhood so fulfilling and always entertaining. Now that was more the National Dream for me, and them, and there was no referee or coach, or bellowing parents, to dampen our contentment; being outdoors and celebrating the Christmas season in a most old fashioned way. I do half expect the lingering free spirits of those faithful participants, still play in the shallow silence of a winter night, those now fabled road hockey games, that meant nothing in particular, but something in enduring reminiscences that still make me feel heart-fully warm when I look out into the lamplight here in front of Birch Hollow.

CHRISTMAS IN MUSKOKA - A WINTER-TIME CONUNDRUM AND THE MECHANIC-WELDER - THE GAME MUST GO ON!

AN ACT OF KINDNESS FOR A KID WITH A BROKEN SKATE

     I HAVE BEEN THINKING A LOT ABOUT OLD-TIME HOCKEY RECENTLY. NO, I DIDN'T WATCH THE MOVIE "SLAPSHOT" LAST NIGHT, ALTHOUGH I HAVE ABOUT A HUNDRED TIMES IN THE PAST. SHORT OF LACING-UP THE SKATES, AND FINDING A HOCKEY STICK THAT DOESN'T HAVE FUNGUS HANGING OFF IT, AND THEN FINDING A FEW OPEN METRES OF ICE ON THE POND ACROSS THE ROAD, SUFFICE THEN, BEING AS WONKY KNEED AS I AM, TO WRITE ABOUT IT INSTEAD. LAST WEEK I PULLED TOGETHER A LENGTHY EDITORIAL PIECE ABOUT THE EARLY CAREER OF ROGER CROZIER, FORMERLY OF THE DETROIT RED WINGS, WHO HAD TO FACE THE GREAT JEAN BELIVEAU, IN THE 1966 PLAYOFF FINAL AGAINST THE CANADIENS. HE ADMITTED IT WAS PRETTY DAUNTING, LOOKING UP THE WING, AND SEEING THE EVER SO SMOOTH, LIGHTNING FAST BELIVEAU, EASILY STICK HANDLING PAST THE DEFENCE, AND BREAKING IN ON HIS GOAL CREASE. THE WINGS LOST THAT SERIES, TO MONTREAL, ON A QUESTIONABLE GOAL BY HENRI RICHARD (AT LEAST IN MY OPINION. AND THE REST OF THE RED WING FANSHIP BACK THEN), BUT ROGER WON THE CONN SMYTHE TROPHY, FOR HIS PLAYOFF PERFORMANCE. IN THE FIRST YEAR OF THE CONN SMYTHE TROPHY, THE YEAR EARLIER, IT HAD BEEN BELIVEAU WHO HAD WON THE TROPHY, IRONICALLY NAMED AFTER THE FOUNDER OF THE TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS. LOSING JEAN BELIVEAU THIS WEEK, WAS A BIG BLOW FOR HOCKEY IN THIS COUNTRY. HE WAS A GENTLEMAN AND WAS ONE OF THE MOST SPORTSMANLIKE PLAYERS IN THE LEAGUE, BACK IN THE DAYS OF THE ORIGINAL SIX. HE WAS MY MOTHER MERLE'S FAVORITE HOCKEY PLAYER. WELL, HER FAVORITE PLAYER BEHIND FRANK MAHOVOLICH, THAT IS. AND THEN THERE IS GORDIE HOWE. WHAT AN AMBASSADOR FOR HOCKEY THEN AND NOW. MR. ELBOWS. IF YOU WENT INTO THE CORNER WITH HOWE, THERE WAS A GOOD CHANCE YOU WERE GOING TO TASTE THE SWEATER FABRIC ON HIS ELBOW. I KNOW ROGER THOUGHT A LOT OF GORDIE, HAVING PLAYED WITH HIM FOR A NUMBER OF YEARS IN DETROIT. THERE'S A STORY TOLD BY A SPORT'S WRITER, AT THE TIME, WHO WATCHED CROZIER JUMP ON GORDIE'S BACK AT A PRACTICE, AND REACTING TO THE GOALIE'S PRANK, GORDIE TOOK HIM FOR A SKATE AROUND THE ICE, AS IF ROGER WAS RIDING A HORSE WEARING SWEATER NUMBER NINE.  I GREW UP WITH POSTERS OF THESE ALL STARS IN MY BEDROOM; SO YES, WE WERE VERY INTIMATE BACK THEN, AND THEY WERE THE INSPIRATION EVERY TIME I HAULED MY EQUIPMENT TO THE ARENA FOR THAT WEEK'S MINOR HOCKEY GAME.

   

THE PROBLEM WITH TUBE SKATES!

     The story I'm about to spin for you, is absolutely true. No embellishments for personal glory, or for the gain of the fellow who tried to help me, that day, in the midst of a pre-game crisis. It is, however, a story that reflects on the kindness of citizens when I was growing up, who epitomized what our family was learning about small town life. We had only just arrived in Bracebridge, and were still trying to adjust from the city influences of Southern Ontario. I believe this event happened in the winter of 1970, four years after moving to town, and the Weber apartments on upper Alice Street. I was tending net for three teams back then. I was playing in what was called then, the Town League, then a "B" team that travelled to neighboring communities, like Baysville, Port Carling, Bala and MacTier. Then, on weeknights, I was the back-up goalie to starter, Tim Morrison, for the "All Star" team. So I was at the arena a lot in those days, which was great fun. Here's the hiccup. My parents couldn't afford to buy me goalie equipment back then, so I had to use the badly worn, vintage pads the town owned, which offered very little protection for the new style of slapshot. I was forced to wear a baseball catcher's mask, because there was only one other solid, fiberglass mask, and it would often be in-use by another of the town league netminders. It was okay, but there was no protection on the top of my head, or on the back, and the puck could fit into the openings between the metal bars. I had to have referees remove a couple of them, after stopping shots with my face. I loved hockey so much, I didn't care about getting injured. I just wanted to be on the ice with my team; and I, like every other kid back then, thought about the exploits of Beliveau, Howe and Crozier, amongst dozens of other all star N.H.L.'ers.

     One of the most significant shortfalls, for any goalie, was to play net without proper goalie skates. It might have been okay in the history of hockey from its beginnings, but not in the modern sense of faster player and harder shots. My parents tried the best they could to keep me outfitted, but always gravitated to the bargain skates, just to keep me on the ice. The safety issue, is that regular skates, back in the 1960's, didn't always have the best toe protection or side padding. Goalie skates were designed with metal toes, so that the puck, driven at a hundred miles an hour, wouldn't break the player's toes, if it was a direct hit. My skates had a plastic insert, but nothing that would save my toes from a nasty impact. Now, let me scare you. I had an in-grown toe nail, that had become infected. My parents were of the school of thought, that their child had to be tough, and endure suffering to become a man. I'm not kidding about this. My mother would look at my toe, and rub some ointment from a tube, she presumed would fix me up, and then send me off to hockey. If you have ever had an in-grown toe nail, with an infection, you will then be able to imagine the kind of awful pain, one would experience, taking a blistering shot off the toe, from an incoming forward. I did, many times. The issue was, I couldn't look to the bench for a replacement, because I was, with two out of three teams, the only goaltender, other than my opponent in the net at the other end of the rink. And I couldn't stop the play every time I got hit, which could be three or four times each game. I had to endure the pain, and keep tending "the pipes," regardless of the blood in my sock. It was my coach who finally asked my mother to please get me to a doctor, to get the nail looked after. Well, that's another horror story, but the treatment worked. But I still had to deal with wearing inadequate skates, with no protection on the toes and the sides, where goalies have to make skate-saves.

     One early afternoon, before Christmas, I was skating on a little pad of ice, in the Hillman family's back yard, on Toronto Street, just prior to this particular equipment malfunction. As you probably know, natural ice is much harder than artificial ice, frozen by a network of pipes below the concrete pad in an arena. Natural ice, on this day, was too hard for my skates apparently. On this day, Al and Rick Hillman, and neighbor Don Clement, and I, were playing a two on two, in the afternoon, when I began to hear some strange and troubling creaking from my left skate. I could feel the blade moving up and down. When I'd lift my skate, the blade would spring down, and when I took a stride on my left side, the blade would push up into the tube. I sat on a snow bank, and let Rick and Al have a look at what happening to the blade, and at that point, the back end was buried in the tube part of the skate, with only about a quarter inch of blade exposed to connect with the ice. The rivets had failed, in the back part of the skate. The front was fine, but it was allowing for the pivot of the back, to slide up and down from the tube. I had never seen anything like this before. The big problem that day, is that I had a late afternoon game at the Bracebridge arena, and I couldn't possibly skate the way the blade was moving up and down. Even in net, it would have been hard to move from side to side without tripping myself.

     I went home and phoned my dad at work, to ask him if he knew anyone who could fix the skate. He was working at Building Trades Centre at the time, but he knew hundreds of people from the town, from clerking at the store. I suppose I had wanted him to offer to buy me another pair in time for the afternoon game. Couldn't do that, he said. He suggested I take them to one of the area gas stations, to see if one of the their mechanics could weld the blade back in place. As I really hated to miss a game, I pulled on my winter gear, and ran all the way back to the main street. I went to the Uptown Garage first, where Ted Smith told me he couldn't fix it right away. Across the road, at Muskoka Garage, they were behind in their shop repairs, and advised that it would be the next week, before they could make the welding repair. I even went to Ecclestone's Hardware, to see what they would recommend, and the clerk that day, pointed me at the skates they had on sale. I didn't even have a quarter for a pop, and I really needed one.

     I'll tell you, I was feeling pretty down-hearted, when I came down the Thomas Street hillside, and met Al Hillman again, who suggested I should go and talk to his dad's business partner, Art Crockford, at the Downtown Garage. I don't know why I hadn't thought of this earlier, seeing as I had to pass it on the way uptown. I went into the dark old-time service station, with its dim lights, and found Art looking through a parts catalogue. He asked me politely, as was his manner, what he could do for me that fine winter day. He must have sensed my deep desolation, because he closed up the book, and took the skate from my hand. I told him I had to play in a game at the arena, in an hour, and was without a skate. On this day, I was to be the only goalie to dress. I didn't want to let my team down.     He looked at the skate, and I thought I had explained the situation pretty well. He studied the placement of the blade, and noticed the missing rivets. "I think I can fix this for today," he said. "But it looks like you're going to have to get some new ones (skates) pretty soon, because the other rivets are going to let go eventually." I was so darn pleased I'd met Al, at the entrance to the garage, and that Art was willing to do a spot-weld, to get me through the afternoon game.

     Art didn't charge me a nickel. Not a cent to do the repair. After he handed me back the skate, and warned me not to touch the blade, because it was still hot, I ran out the door, nearly got hit by a car, and trotted merrily all the way back home. In a flash, I was bounding back down the icy Hunt's Hill sidewalk, and soon climbing through the back alleys up to James Street, for the short trot up to the community centre. I was feeling pretty good. I made it to the dressing room a little late, as most players were dressed, but I was pretty efficient donning the pads. A few minutes before our warm-up, I stood up to adjust my pads, and check that all the straps were away from my skate blades; this was a good way to kill yourself, stepping on a leather strap at full stride. While I was standing in the dressing room, the coach asked me why I was off-kilter. I felt off-kilter as well. My left skate was the problem. The one welded by the kindly Mr. Crockford. When the coach looked down at the skate blade, he asked me to sit back down for a minute. He lifted my leg, to study something about my skate. "Did you have someone fix your skate blade Teddy," he asked. "Yes," I responded. "Art Crockford welded the blade so it wouldn't slip up into the tube." "Well son, this is going to be a problem for you today, because he didn't pull the blade out, before he welded-it in place." It was my fault you see, because when I handed him the skate, I didn't make sure that the solid blade was pulled all the way down, before being welded. So there it was. My left skate blade was higher at the front, than at the back, which made for some interesting on-ice adventures. I had no choice but to use it on that day. As my parents financial situation didn't improve for the rest of that winter season, I kept using the wonky skate, but I'll tell you one thing, the blade stayed in place until I finally retired the pair the next hockey season. Bless Art for helping a kid out of a jam. I guess, when he skated as a kid, the blades were solid iron without any tube structure whatsoever. He didn't study them close enough to see how the blade was uneven in slope. We won that game. I didn't get a shut-out, but I made some pretty good saves.     My coach couldn't believe I was able to stand on the skates, let alone tend the net successfully. When I tell my sons, about "getting by," and "making do," I always spin the Art Crockford story. It was a memorable Christmas gift from a very good neighbor. Whenever I write stories about the town I knew back then, I always have folks like Art Crockford in the back of my mind; as small town role models, unsung, but always willing to help someone down on their luck. On this day, I was the recipient of his act of charity. I didn't have any money that day to pay for the welding job. I think he saw it in my eyes, that I was penniless, and heart broken about not having a pair of skates to wear for the big game. Thanks to Art, I was able to play that day, and the weld held secure for the rest of that season, playing at least three games each week, plus one practice. I can't remember thanking him that winter day. I must have, but it bothers me that I don't remember.

    I know this is a simplistic overview of Bracebridge in those days, but I was a needy kid back then, so I tested the good neighbor thing many times; and got everything from free pie freshly made, to hamburgers right of the backyard barbecue, and even bikes when my parents couldn't afford to buy me one. My parents didn't like it much, when I was afforded these treats, through sincere generosity, but I had no problem accepting the kindnesses of strangers.