Everything I needed to know I learned from hockey.

Okay… maybe not everything. But I read somewhere that if you don’t catch someone’s attention quickly, while talking or in writing, then their mind drifts to erotic thoughts in about 19 seconds.

But oh, since the age of six our national game has taught and filtered much of what has gone into and been retained in my admittedly sometimes foggy and deficient mind. And even that gray matter has been affected by the concussions that happened while playing the game. I’d tell you how many…. but, I’ve forgotten.

And it’s not as if I stepped out of my diapers and into a pair of skates. The early sixties didn’t have parents with delusions of grandeur or dollops of dollars coming to them through their offspring’s future NHL contracts. A lot of NHLers in those days sold beer or drove trucks in the summer to help pay for their bungalows in the suburbs. Organized hockey did not start for boys in my town until they had reached the age of eight and actually knew what they were getting into.(Sorry girls, your interests, other than as figure skaters, were not even given any consideration at that time.)

I caught my first break (and probably my first concussion) at the age of six during a pickup tackle football game on a vacant lot in my old neighbourhood. Back then no one played a wussy game like touch football and Ultimate Frisbee had never even been thought of.. All the other boys in the game were at least two and three years older, some even more than that, and I didn’t even know the rules of the sport. But I was soon instructed to run into any fellow who had the ball in his possession, which I did with the fervour of a dog giving chase to a squirrel. An interested spectator at the game was Mr. Brian Roy who was the President of Minor Hockey in my town and he must have taken note of my enthusiasm because he called my home that night, offering to let me play in the youngest division, the Mosquitos, even though this age group served the eight and nine year old set.

My father took the call. I was sitting right there at the kitchen table and followed the one side of the conversation that I could hear. (And to tell you the truth I was still feeling a little woozy from the football game. Get used to it, fella.)

To my disappointment, my dad explained that he thought I was maybe too young at the time. Perhaps he didn’t want to stand on a snowbank beside the outdoor rinks, guzzling hot chocolate while he chain -smoked. But Dad’s refusal only bought him one more year.

It couldn’t have been the expense. Our town didn’t have an arena and even the highest-level played their home games on the outdoor ice. They would come into the ‘shack’, as we called it, between periods to warm their hands and feet while the above-mentioned Mr. Roy would rip into them, castigating them one-by-one for their mistakes and poor play. It was a public shack so I would often be warming my feet after skating on the ‘pleasure’ rink, rubbing my feet and listening in awe. Maybe one day I too could receive a tongue-lashing like that. Today’s parents’ chat rooms would have Mr. Roy shamed out of coaching after one period’s tirade.

So the 1963-64 season actually started after Christmas in 1964, when the outdoor rinks were fully frozen. The only mandatory equipment back-in-the-day were skates and a stick. Oh… and a helmet.

What passed for helmets in those days was a piece of plastic at the front of the head and a similar small pad at the back. This state-of-the-art protection was held in place by nylon straps which of course covered your scalp. This whole protective apparatus was covered over by a toque, our last line of noggin protection and which of course prevented our ears from being completely frozen. Probably what concerned us the most.

We would receive our team sweaters from our coach at the rink’s shack a few minutes before the first game. My mother was advised to send along along one of my father’s undershirts as well, just in case the other side’s uniform was indistinguishable from ours’. Seriously, folks. The whole season’s registration fee was $35.00/family, no matter how many kids you had. And remember, this was the freakin’ Baby Boom generation.

To prep myself for my Hall of Fame career my mother bought me a stick and a puck and allowed me to shoot it at the wire grate which shielded our fireplace in the living room. She knew that no damage would ensue.

So the following Saturday morning I found myself on the blueline, and not in the starting lineup. My father had driven my older brother and me to the game, leaving my mother at home to look after our younger brother and newborn baby sister. Michael, my elder brother by two years was no athlete, but always informed me that he was the brains of the family. Which he probably was, and then proved it by earning an Engineering degree from McGill and then an M.BA from the University of Toronto. But that never impressed me none. I got back at him by imitating the uncoordinated manner in which he threw a ball, which always made me fall down in giddy laughter at my own brilliant humour. Ah, I’m so glad that no one else is interested in researching and writing my freakin’ life story.

To the day he died and even on his deathbed, my father insists the only play he remembers from my whole hockey career was me shooting the puck at my own net in that first game. To tell you the truth I can’t recall whether that is true or not. The only memory I really have of my inaugural season was that of my parents buying Michael and me our first pair of long woolen hockey stockings and hockey pants which we put on in the back of our station wagon on the way to play our championship game at the McGill University Arena. The stockings were red, white and blue and I remember breathing in the strong woolen smell. I couldn’t have been more excited than if I was going off to the Montreal Forum to play in the Stanley Cup final.

We won that championship game and to tell you the truth I never won many more championships after that. At our season-ending banquet I was named M.I.P.- Most Improved Player. I don’t have a trophy to prove it in case you ask- it was 1964, remember.

This nearly-end-of-life rambling of my so-called hockey career will take at least another blog session to finalize. My own children never seem too interested, so you, my dear readers, will have to grin-and-bear-it. All nine or ten of you.

So please stay tuned. I can always get a laugh out of a neighbour by promising to describe to her at our next street party a goal I scored while playing Midget hockey.

It just gets better all the time.