Frozen Memories of New England
As a native of New England, I grew up playing pond hockey. For
you Californians, that’s playing ice hockey on a local pond that
froze over during the winter months.
Pond hockey is basically Neanderthal hockey at its best. It’s
about getting together as many friends as possible for pick up
games after school. Often, no protective equipment is worn, shoes
are used as goal posts and big rocks are used to check the safeness
of the ice before play.
Frozen Memories of New England
As a native of New England, I grew up playing pond hockey. For you Californians, that’s playing ice hockey on a local pond that froze over during the winter months.
Pond hockey is basically Neanderthal hockey at its best. It’s about getting together as many friends as possible for pick up games after school. Often, no protective equipment is worn, shoes are used as goal posts and big rocks are used to check the safeness of the ice before play.
Goalies, if they are lucky, might, I emphasize might, have a pair of shin guards or an old baseball glove to catch flying pucks with. Since all ponds are different shapes and sizes, the games take place on a number of different shaped “rinks.”
Weekday games are usually won by the team that scores five goals first in order to beat the setting sun. Ten goals is often the magic number on weekends.
As far as play is concerned, anything goes. Sometimes we would make rules that said shots couldn’t be lifted – of course this wasn’t for the safety of the goalie. It was so we wouldn’t have to skate upwards of 1/8 of a mile on a board-less “rink” to retrieve a puck that could travel forever if the ice was fresh.
In this hockey there is no Zamboni machine to clear the ice. The only time the ice cleared was when a heavyset kid would fall and slide. This hockey had no referees and no ice cold drinks to drink.
If you didn’t bring anything to drink and you were thirsty, you’d simply drive an edge of your skate into the parts of the pond that are least safe, chip off a nice colorful piece of ice, and enjoy that as a snack. It’s a wonder none of us got sick.
During this time of year we would play pond hockey everyday after school for a few hours and on weekends from sun up to sun down.
While pond hockey might have been an archaic form of the sport, it did teach me enough fundamentals of the game as well as how to skate well enough to play organized hockey well into my 20s.
I bring this story up because this past weekend I took my 10-year-old daughter to the outdoor skating rink in downtown San Jose, which is next to the Fairmont Hotel and across the street from the city’s Christmas in the Park festival.
Although I had taken Madison to skate before when she was younger, evidently she had forgotten that her dad knew how to skate.
I hadn’t been on the ice since the last time I took her, which, back then, was basically a one-hour session of holding her up and trying to keep her from crying.
This time it was me who felt like crying when she told me how happy she was that I took her to skate and how “I was like a professional, the best skater there and the best daddy ever.”
I’ll never forget that special Christmas-time moment with my daughter, and, in a roundabout way, I owe it all to pond hockey.
John Bagley can be reached at jb*****@pi**********.com.
