Remember Your Very First Skates and Stick?
ClarkKimble
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Joined: 28 Aug 2003
Posts: 5494
Location: Southern California
Location: Southern California
Post subject: Remember Your Very First Skates and Stick?
Posted: 07 Nov 2009 16:31 pm
When the Blues opened for business and captured my heart in the late '60, I was dying to learn to play hockey, but couldn't afford lessons.
I bought my very first stick, a Northland Pro, at Famous-Barr (Northland store, appropriately) for $3.50. I understand the prices have gone up since. I greated that baby like the Ming Vase. No street hockey with THAT bad boy!
Because I idolized Jacques Plante and Glenn Hall, and was a hopeless skater, I made several goalie masks for myself by cutting out cardboard, soaking it to shape it to my face, then gluing and padding it, and attaching straps. At a pickup game at Winterland one Sunday morning, that homemade monstrosity saved me from a broken cheekbone and stitches.
Dad got me a pair of hockey skates for Christmas, but didn't know good from bad, bless his heart, and the skate's blade rivets started coming out during my first skating session, so we took them back and he opted for a good pair of Bauer skates that lasted me a decade.
They lasted through every Sunday at Winterland and dozens of midnight madness sessions (midnight to 5 a.m.) at Ice Chateau in Spanish Lake. However, you can't learn to play hockey by just public-session skating, though it does make you very good at left turns.
Fortunately, my hockey-lovin' cousin, who played at Temple U., took me to a frozen pond at Florissant Valley Community College and handed me his stick, and tossed a puck out there. Instead of worrying about "Stride...stride....stride", now I just lit out after the puck, using his stick the way Karl Wallenda used a balance beam (except, of course, for that unfortunate day in Puerto Rico).
Just like training a new puppy to climb the stairs. You don't stand there and tell him what to do. You put a meatball on the top step. He'll find a way to get there.
In fact, you'd think about that puppy and the meatball if you ever saw me skate.
Things got a lot better skating-wise when I dated a girl who manned the Dellwood Ice Rink every weekday morning. Because the public sessions had nobody ever showing up, she let me pull the goals out onto the ice, toss a dozen pucks out there, and skate and shoot for three hours every morning.
How about YOUR first skates and stick?
I bought my very first stick, a Northland Pro, at Famous-Barr (Northland store, appropriately) for $3.50. I understand the prices have gone up since. I greated that baby like the Ming Vase. No street hockey with THAT bad boy!
Because I idolized Jacques Plante and Glenn Hall, and was a hopeless skater, I made several goalie masks for myself by cutting out cardboard, soaking it to shape it to my face, then gluing and padding it, and attaching straps. At a pickup game at Winterland one Sunday morning, that homemade monstrosity saved me from a broken cheekbone and stitches.
Dad got me a pair of hockey skates for Christmas, but didn't know good from bad, bless his heart, and the skate's blade rivets started coming out during my first skating session, so we took them back and he opted for a good pair of Bauer skates that lasted me a decade.
They lasted through every Sunday at Winterland and dozens of midnight madness sessions (midnight to 5 a.m.) at Ice Chateau in Spanish Lake. However, you can't learn to play hockey by just public-session skating, though it does make you very good at left turns.
Fortunately, my hockey-lovin' cousin, who played at Temple U., took me to a frozen pond at Florissant Valley Community College and handed me his stick, and tossed a puck out there. Instead of worrying about "Stride...stride....stride", now I just lit out after the puck, using his stick the way Karl Wallenda used a balance beam (except, of course, for that unfortunate day in Puerto Rico).
Just like training a new puppy to climb the stairs. You don't stand there and tell him what to do. You put a meatball on the top step. He'll find a way to get there.
In fact, you'd think about that puppy and the meatball if you ever saw me skate.
Things got a lot better skating-wise when I dated a girl who manned the Dellwood Ice Rink every weekday morning. Because the public sessions had nobody ever showing up, she let me pull the goals out onto the ice, toss a dozen pucks out there, and skate and shoot for three hours every morning.
How about YOUR first skates and stick?
foofighter
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Joined: 14 Aug 2003
Posts: 3588
Location: Peoria, Mars
Location: Peoria, Mars
Post subject: Re: Remember Your Very First Skates and Stick?
Posted: 07 Nov 2009 16:53 pm
I want to say 1965. Not sure of the brand but there was no support. The team I played on stuck me in goal because I was such a bad skater I had cat like reflexes mainly learned avoiding the spinning backfist my dad had used on me many times while I was harassing my sister in the backseat of our car. 
It wasn't too long after that he suprised me and brought home a shiny, new, stiff pair of CCM Bobby Hull's. WOOHOO the difference was amazing. I later got a pair of goalie skates (CCM). From that point forward I had both pairs and could skate pretty good in or out.
I'm thinking my first stick was a Vic with the multi-laminated shaft. I, not too long ago, gave Battra one of my early goalie sticks with quite a few Blues autographs on it including Barclay Plager.
I do know for sure that most of my early sticks had zero curve
Cool topic as usual Clark.
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Last edited by foofighter on 07 Nov 2009 17:28 pm; edited 1 time in total
I had cat like reflexes mainly learned avoiding the spinning backfist my dad had used on me many times while I was harassing my sister in the backseat of our car.
It wasn't too long after that he suprised me and brought home a shiny, new, stiff pair of CCM Bobby Hull's. WOOHOO the difference was amazing. I later got a pair of goalie skates (CCM). From that point forward I had both pairs and could skate pretty good in or out.
I'm thinking my first stick was a Vic with the multi-laminated shaft. I, not too long ago, gave Battra one of my early goalie sticks with quite a few Blues autographs on it including Barclay Plager.
I do know for sure that most of my early sticks had zero curve
Cool topic as usual Clark.
_________________
Don't Illudium PU-36 Space Modulator me Bro'
Last edited by foofighter on 07 Nov 2009 17:28 pm; edited 1 time in total
suckoface
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Post subject: Re: Remember Your Very First Skates and Stick?
Posted: 07 Nov 2009 17:23 pm
Sid Vicious
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Joined: 11 Dec 2008
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Post subject: Re: Remember Your Very First Skates and Stick?
Posted: 07 Nov 2009 17:41 pm
Go Blues 2
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Post subject: Re: Remember Your Very First Skates and Stick?
Posted: 07 Nov 2009 17:48 pm
Tim B
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Joined: 06 Jun 2008
Posts: 5113
Post subject: Re: Remember Your Very First Skates and Stick?
Posted: 07 Nov 2009 17:52 pm
billy pilgrim
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Joined: 18 Oct 2002
Posts: 5975
Location: St. Louis: Home again, home again, jiggedy jig...
Location: St. Louis: Home again, home again, jiggedy jig...
Post subject: Re: Remember Your Very First Skates and Stick?
Posted: 07 Nov 2009 17:57 pm
Northland "Bobby Hull" wooden stick...
Blue and gold CCM skates...
Kettering ( Ohio, suburb of Dayton ) Ice Rink...
Remembering the first hockey sweater I owned too ( a Chicago Black hawks #19 ), I am:
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the Blues Talk sponsor for Jonas Junland
Blue and gold CCM skates...
Kettering ( Ohio, suburb of Dayton ) Ice Rink...
Remembering the first hockey sweater I owned too ( a Chicago Black hawks #19 ), I am:
_________________
the Blues Talk sponsor for Jonas Junland
Toots MaGoo
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Joined: 28 Oct 2009
Posts: 43
Post subject: Re: Remember Your Very First Skates and Stick?
Posted: 07 Nov 2009 18:35 pm
haHA, I have plattapus feet and can't ice skate for too long so I'm going with roller/street hockey (and for the record they were my firsts):
My 3 brothers and I had those plastic bladed sticks in blue(s) and pink , the blade you could bend for a lefty to righty (we had 2 southpaws) that had one screw in it. Inline skates were new and I think the skates were just called rollerblades or something. We used tennis balls and a dozen different kind of hockey balls (even the 3-ball pucks didn't work), catchers mitt for a goalie glove, all that jazz..
My 3 brothers and I had those plastic bladed sticks in blue(s)
and pink , the blade you could bend for a lefty to righty (we had 2 southpaws) that had one screw in it. Inline skates were new and I think the skates were just called rollerblades or something. We used tennis balls and a dozen different kind of hockey balls (even the 3-ball pucks didn't work), catchers mitt for a goalie glove, all that jazz..
spoonz
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Joined: 10 Nov 2008
Posts: 512
Post subject: Re: Remember Your Very First Skates and Stick?
Posted: 07 Nov 2009 19:07 pm
billy pilgrim wrote
Northland "Bobby Hull" wooden stick...
Blue and gold CCM skates...
Kettering ( Ohio, suburb of Dayton ) Ice Rink...
Remembering the first hockey sweater I owned too ( a Chicago Black hawks #19 ), I am:
Blue and gold CCM skates...
Kettering ( Ohio, suburb of Dayton ) Ice Rink...
Remembering the first hockey sweater I owned too ( a Chicago Black hawks #19 ), I am:
Billy, i was up at the Kettering Ice rink the other day...
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CanadaCajanek21
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Joined: 05 Apr 2006
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Location: Bridgeton, MO
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Post subject: Re: Remember Your Very First Skates and Stick?
Posted: 07 Nov 2009 19:13 pm
the SILVER easton aluminum. and a pair of CCM's. they were junk. my second pair were custom $400 Bauer 5000s.
I also had a red easton aluminum. both were junior sticks. i'm 23 now and i still have the red one and i use it for playing hockey in the street, garage, whatever. it hasn't broken after 15ish years which is incredible. it has an extention in it, and still shoots like when i first got it
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I also had a red easton aluminum. both were junior sticks. i'm 23 now and i still have the red one and i use it for playing hockey in the street, garage, whatever. it hasn't broken after 15ish years which is incredible. it has an extention in it, and still shoots like when i first got it
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billy pilgrim
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Joined: 18 Oct 2002
Posts: 5975
Location: St. Louis: Home again, home again, jiggedy jig...
Location: St. Louis: Home again, home again, jiggedy jig...
Post subject: Re: Remember Your Very First Skates and Stick?
Posted: 07 Nov 2009 19:13 pm
spoonz wrote
billy pilgrim wrote
Northland "Bobby Hull" wooden stick...
Blue and gold CCM skates...
Kettering ( Ohio, suburb of Dayton ) Ice Rink...
Remembering the first hockey sweater I owned too ( a Chicago Black hawks #19 ), I am:
Blue and gold CCM skates...
Kettering ( Ohio, suburb of Dayton ) Ice Rink...
Remembering the first hockey sweater I owned too ( a Chicago Black hawks #19 ), I am:
Billy, i was up at the Kettering Ice rink the other day...
You'll appreciate I drove from Germantown three or four times a week to work on my skating...
...before joining the Men's Rec. League. I made the long drive a couple of times a week during the winter for over twenty years...
Missing that league, I am:
_________________
the Blues Talk sponsor for Jonas Junland
spoonz
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Joined: 10 Nov 2008
Posts: 512
Post subject: Re: Remember Your Very First Skates and Stick?
Posted: 07 Nov 2009 19:20 pm
billy pilgrim wrote
spoonz wrote
billy pilgrim wrote
Northland "Bobby Hull" wooden stick...
Blue and gold CCM skates...
Kettering ( Ohio, suburb of Dayton ) Ice Rink...
Remembering the first hockey sweater I owned too ( a Chicago Black hawks #19 ), I am:
Blue and gold CCM skates...
Kettering ( Ohio, suburb of Dayton ) Ice Rink...
Remembering the first hockey sweater I owned too ( a Chicago Black hawks #19 ), I am:
Billy, i was up at the Kettering Ice rink the other day...
You'll appreciate I drove from Germantown three or four times a week to work on my skating...
...before joining the Men's Rec. League. I made the long drive a couple of times a week during the winter for over twenty years...
Missing that league, I am:
If you hit traffic, I could walk there from my place and get there about the same time... I go up there every so often to skate.. Never been good at it, and don't have the time to really get better at it...
Count me in the street hockey with family and friends club...
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