View From The Cheap Seats – An Ode To Pickup Hockey
Since there hasn’t been much action in the last week or so, and with Kovalchuk’s contract still under review from the league, even yappy bloggers like myself are running out of things to discuss while waiting for the rest of the free agents to sign. In a nice change of pace, however, I got to experience some good old fashioned pickup hockey at its finest the other night in Boston. Now, I’m only 22, not too far removed from my days of club hockey glory and I still play about once a week, so when I was invited to a skate in Boston, I didn’t expect much more than the usual collection of late night warriors.
Most pickup games, as any player who refuses to hang em up will tell you, have a very similar makeup. There’s usually a couple of kids, like myself, a step or two quicker than the rest of the pack, only because decades of beer and aging haven’t quite kicked in yet. Then there’s at least one or two guys that were probably pretty good back in their heyday, and just can’t let it go, so they treat the 10 pm post-peewee practice time slot at the local barn like it’s Game 7 of the Cup Finals at the Air Canada Centre (In my sweet dreams, I know). There’s always a couple of guys who picked up their love of the game a bit late, and are still workin’ on fundamentals. Throw in 7 or 8 older guys that can still move and handle their twigs and, if you’re extra lucky, they’ve found two poor goalies that they’ve suckered into hanging out between the pipes for an hour of nonstop offense and no defense. Put that all together and you’ve got yourself a pretty decent skate.
What I found when I walked into one of the oldest indoor rinks in the country was something much more than that. Personnel aside, the rink itself was like stepping into a time machine. The Skating Club of Boston was built in the early 1900s, so it’s coming up on 100 years old, and you feel it the second you touch the ice, because the lack of insulation meant that playing on a hot July night was like skating through a Florida swamp wearing a pair of overalls and work boots. In the winter time, I’m sure it’s not much different than playing on a pond in the middle of January. At first glance, you don’t really even notice that there’s no glass on the boards, since the rink’s primary use for much of its existence was for figure skating, but when I wired my first shot in warmups over the net like a cocky young prick and had to go pick the puck out of the netting, I quickly realized this wasn’t gonna be a night for top corner snipeshows.
As the game got going, I immediately noticed the fact that, unlike most pickup games, these guys were actually playing defense. Again, I looked like quite the genius when I got caught deep in the offensive zone, while I was supposedly playing left D, and some 45 year old rocking a Kelly Buchberger bucket beat the Patrick Roy-lookalike I was supposed to be protecting. Now normally, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal in a pickup game, but when my 6’4, 220 lb. 50-something year old defensive partner that I hung out to dry came over and quietly remarked that defensemen play D, I again realized this wasn’t the usual late night danglefest.
I started asking some of the older guys how long they’d been skating together, and was awed to learn that about 3 or 4 of the guys had been playing together, at the exact same time and place, since at least the mid-’70s. Most of the other guys had been there for at least 10-15 years, and there were a few younger guys that had only been coming out for a year or two. The oldest guy there, who I only know as Doc, was a tiny little guy who had to be at least 60, but what he lacked in speed, he more than made up for with the quick slash to the wrists you’d get if you didn’t get by him fast enough. Coming from a guy who probably modeled his playing style after Tim Horton and Bobby Clarke, I guess it’d be dumb not to expect it.
The best part of the entire experience was that not only did these guys keep score, but they were obviously playing for bragging rights that I’m sure would be used to the fullest extent over the next week until they laced em up and did it all over again, so there was an added urgency to the evening. After the good guys took the first game 5-3, we came out a bit flat in the 2nd game and were forced to hustle through a rubber match in the last 20 minutes of our ice time. Thankfully, I was able to redeem myself with a breakaway pass that set up the game-winner just before the horn blew, so the night ended on a good note for me and the rest of the white jerseys.
I’m not really sure where I was going with this whole story when I started, but I can honestly say it was one of the better skates I’ve had in a long time, and I guess it was just refreshing to know that, in a summer where players can’t decide which 9 digit contract offer they’re going to accept, there’s still places out there where the true nature of the game is still intact. While there’s no denying the immense talent and skill that is showcased across the continent in arenas packed with thousands of screaming fans, some of the best hockey is sometimes played in quiet, lonely arenas, where the only sounds are blades cutting the ice, sticks slapping the boards and the occasional obscenity directed at that uncooperative rubber disc.
That’s all for now, feel free to share your own tales of pickup hockey legends, and as always, thanks for reading.