Do/Did You Play Hockey?

[ofos]

AIB zMan's post about lacing the skates up again, how many current or former hockey players do we have out in Cyburbia? We didn't have hockey leagues or school teams in rural SW Michigan where I grew up but I did learn to skate (sort of). In and after college, I really got into the sport and played in intermural and public senior leagues as well coaching kid's hockey. I coached a number of PeeWee and Squirt house league teams with one city championship in Ann Arbor. Also helped coach a Squirt travel team team that played all over SE Michigan and into Ontario for tournaments including the Silver Stick. I hung up, but still have my skates, although I passed the pads on to a younger guy.

[zman]

I played roller hockey for the University of Northern Colorado my first year before the team folded.

In high school, I played on club teams in south Denver as high schools in Denver did not have ice hockey as a sport since the 1970s (I think it is making a comeback north of Monument Hill though)

During the summer months in college, I would play in Denver on a team of friends. The first season was at a rink that was in a converted aircraft hanger on the closed Lowry AFB; the second league was in a new arena near my area of town where the Colorado Avalanche practice.

Since I graduated college, I haven't found a group that wanted to play and play at my level (not having skated in 6 years, my level has dropped), but I think I may have found a good group (although I don't know anybody).

Man, I am excited now!

[michaelskis]

What is this hockey you speak of...

Says the guy with the full mask, big pads, and fat stick. Shame I have not been on the ice in quite a while.

[Bear Up North]

This Bear's "wonder years" (teens) were spent living a block away from The Riviera Marina. We lived in a house in a 60s sub-division called The Riviera. It was adjacent to north Toledo's Ottawa River. The marina itself always held on to thick ice late in the season. Hockey was often played there.

That said, I was a lousy skater. Very little hockey time for me. I was busy making fake city streets and roads in the snow.

Bear

[Zoning Goddess]

Sorry, we were busy water-skiing down here...

[Coragus]

When I was a senior in high school, a group of guys decided to try to start a varsity hockey team. I took skating lessons, but before I could buy the equipment I needed, the school board reviewed the request. It turned out that I was the only guy that signed the petition to start the team who was academically eligible.

So went my hockey dreams.

[Gedunker]

Proud member of the tripod squad here.

For the unitiated, the tripod squad are such bad skaters we literally need the stick on the ice at all times to maintain an upright position. Not exactly conducive to the fastest sport on ice.

[WSU MUP Student]

When I was in high school our district was one of the few in the area without a hockey team but we had plpenty of guys who played on other leagues not associated with the schools. I was not one of them, but I did play in many pickup games on ponds behind various houses in the winter.

Our senior year we decided that our efforts to get an organized high school hockey team were not going to work so we settled for the next best thing: Working the results and statistics from our ficticous games against other schools into the daily announcements and wearing shirts that we had made up saying "Anchor Bay Hockey" on the front and our numbers and names on the backs during our gamedays.

[Maister]

Mostly pickup games at the neighborhood rink (a seasonally converted tennis court with the net posts removed), but never on a formal team.

[Tranplanner]

I'm Canadian, and I'm a hoser. What do you think?

This year is the first year in a while that I haven't played...and I feel awful.

[Tide]

Club Roller Hockey for 2 years in college and I played in a summer league that played at 9 PM on weeknights.
Right wing or Right Defense, goalie on 2 occasions.


Hockey is the most grueling sport there is to play. At least in football you get to rest for 30 seconds after every play and baseball is more about sheer power and talent than endurance.

[Cardinal]

Half-Canadian. I was born wearing ice skates, but I don't play or even skate much anymore.

[DetroitPlanner]

No one played league from my neighborhood, but we would skate at Rouge Park or make rinks on empty lots or backyards. I've not been on skates since the roller blade craze of 10-15 years ago and that hardly counts.

In high school I played on the intarmural floor hockey league.

[Mastiff]

I played up through Bantam in Maine, and even went over to New Brunswick for a tryout on a Junior team. I was too young for it, but it was fun!

When I moved to Philly... well, I didn't play well in rec leagues. The only team I didn't get tossed from was my High School team. And I was only suspended once!

I also played adult hockey a few years back, and I was much slower for some reason, but I could check quite a bit harder. Hmmm...

Oh, and I was always the guy in MSkis crease giving him the business!

[CCMNUT39]

NICE! I knew there was a reason I could relate to alot of the weeble wobbles on here....we have some actual hockey folks on here....

Started late in life...ran Cross-County and Track in North Idaho and when I moved back to Vermont, my friends got tired of me kicking their ass running, so they thought it would be funny to put the 5'6", 125lb kid on the ice. Can we say, turkey bowling?

But, I stuck with it!! Played two years of High School Hockey (4th line) and played two years of Division II Club Hockey for a smaller college here in Washington.

Still play tons of hockey, all of it on a rec league level, 3-4 times a week, coach pee-wee and bantams, and love it.

If y'all want a good laugh..go to youtube...type in Clark the Baseball Goalie, and tell me that's not the funniest thing you have ever seen!!

Cya on the ice!

[Gotta Speakup]

I learned to play hockey when I moved out here to Boston to go to school. I played in an adult league for a couple of years. I wanted to be the first Mexican hockey player but Scott Gomez beat me. I could have made the NHL, if only a lack of size, no talent, and a dislike of practicing had only not got in the way!

[ofos]

Half-Canadian. I was born wearing ice skates

I never knew that the C in C-section stood for Canadian.

[mgk920]

Nope, and I've got the teeth to prove it!

I have always been very uncoordinated and could never figure out how to skate backwards.



Mike

[Zoning Goddess]

Wow this such a testosterone thead. Isn't hockey like soccer in the south, where both females and males play?

[ofos]

Wow this such a testosterone thead. Isn't hockey like soccer in the south, where both females and males play?

PWI? Incredible as it may seem, there are women's hockey leagues and some coed leagues even in this part of the south.

[craines]

Too busy surfing as a kid, I have never even Ice Skated though I have always wanted to learn to skate and play hockey.

[TexanOkie]

Roller hockey doesn't count, does it?

[ofos]

Roller hockey doesn't count, does it?

I'll give partial credit for those who live in an ice deprived climate.

[zman]

Took inventory of my hockey gear last night. The skates need sharpening, and my old CCM helmet doesn't not fit any more (and the adjustment screws are rusted tight) so we'll be getting a new helmet.

And the stick? Need a new one... wooden is the only way to go!

[ofos]

my old CCM helmet doesn't not fit any more (and the adjustment screws are rusted tight) so we'll be getting a new helmet.

Head gotten too large? Or have you gotten too many lumps from the public?