Snapshots at the Rink

I've been flooded with memories in recent weeks.  One day in particular, I had dropped off Jackson so he could 'chill' (as he describes it) with his buddy Liam.  Bailey was at work and I had nothing to do.  Ok, I had plenty to do, but nothing that wouldn't be too disappointed if I didn't get to it 'right damned now'.

I turned into the parking lot next to the curling club.  In years past, it wasn't a parking lot.  No, it was a cathedral.  Oh, alright.  Maybe not a cathedral, but a hockey coliseum.  Again, maybe not a coliseum, but an arena in the very least. It's been gone now for a few years.  It now provides space for the mill workers to park.

They have a shiny new rink now.  It has a pool, a fitness center, racket sport courts.  I does not though, have the history.  It doesn't have my history.  Here in this parking lot, is where much of my history happened.

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Circa 1976

"Hank, for chrissakes.  I'm not made of money.  "

"Oh c'mon, Pop.  Just a quarter, please?"

This was a ritual that played out every Saturday morning.  Hank would ask for a quarter, Pop would crack wise, then relent, though not before reaching into the pocket of his work pants and digging deep.  It must have been quite the effort since Pop's cigarette would cock up dangerously close to his eye while digging for the elusive quarter.  After coming perilously close to losing his right eye, and flipping the quarter to Hank, he'd turn back to another hockey dad and chat while watching the PeeWee practice.  Hank would be a Pee Wee in a couple of years.  He couldn't wait.  You could finally hit people on the ice.

With quarter in hand, Hank busted for the canteen for a bag of Hostess potato chips.  Danny was waiting for him.  Danny never had to suckhole for money.  Or anything for that matter.  He already had his bag of chips.

"Hurry, eat the chips!" whined Danny.

Hank did so quickly, as did Danny.  It wasn't really the chips, but the bag.  The bags were made of foil, and once they could gather a couple, they could mash them into a light, but surprisingly resilient ball.  That's when the fun began.

Hank and Danny had older brothers on the ice.  They were on the Pee-Wee Select team.  They practiced every Saturday morning and had games on Sundays.  Hank and Danny wouldn't watch the practice, they would have games of "foot hockey" in the lobby of the arena..  That's hockey without sticks, with your feet and the balled-up chip bags. Never once had it occurred to them that a game played with your feet, kicking a type of ball would be called soccer, or even football in the rest of the world beyond Canada and the US.  It did not occur to them because that would just be stupid.

The games were intense but forcibly hushed.  They didn't want Al, the guy who drove the Zamboni to get wind of their shenanigans.  Danny, overly tall and oafish for his age would work around his clumsiness and just mash Hank to the floor or the wall, whichever was easier.  Soon, as it happened every Saturday, any effort of stealth was soon abandoned and Al threw open the door to the Zamboni room and bellowed across the lobby.  As it happened this one Saturday, as Al was yelling at them, Pop came into the lobby.

"Goddammit!  What did I tell you about raising hell at the rink" Pop yelled.  Al returned to the Zamboni room as Pop assumed the duties of Dutch Uncle Lecturer.

"The Arena Rules are right there!  #3 says no horseplay!"

"It's Danny's fault" said Hank?

"What?" Danny and Pop said together.

"Yeah, I was just playin'.  Danny's the friggin' horse!"

Pop did his best to keep up his fatherly, discipline type lecture without a smirk.  It was no use.

"Get in the car!" he said, finally.

To be continued....


Later....

Deaner