The Pond Hockey Portal!
The Pincherry Lake Loons are six local guys who played their first game together as a team at the championships.
They competed in the novice level, consisting of 24 teams. This is the first time they entered the competition, after having visited it last year to check it out. A total of 196 teams played on 20 rinks at the fourth annual championship.
Team members Dave Moynihan and Kelly Elwell play hockey on the Humboldt Park Lagoon and help keep the ice clear of snow during the winter months. Moynihan, of Bay View, has a cabin near Eagle River on Pincherry Lake, hence the team name.
Pond hockey differs from regular hockey in several ways. It’s four-on-four, with six people allowed per team. There are no boards, so Moynihan said you have to get the puck out of the snow. You deal with cracks and humps in the ice. There are smaller nets. Moynihan never played regular hockey, but said pond hockey has less contact, except “friendly” contact and accidental collisions. Challenges including battling Mother Nature and keeping the puck down.
The Pincherry Lake Loons’ uniform colors are red, black, and white. Will they be back next year? “We sure hope to,” Moynihan said.
Moynihan described the 2009 tournament action:
“We played for the first time as a team in game one of the tournament. We lost that game and had to regroup and figure out a different strategy. We decided to play slightly more defensively and eked out three wins in a row to put us into the finals.
“The final game we were up 2-0 at the half, (you play two 15 minute periods-no stopping). We were playing a team that in my view was much better then us. We were playing as a team and had two breakouts that we were able to score on. The second half started and the other team had a new strategy as well; that was to plant their biggest guy in front of our goaltender and block his view and their best guy in their defensive position so that we had a very tough time getting the puck to the other end. Their strategy worked and they were able to beat us 4-3 to take the gold. We celebrated as if we had won and had a great weekend.”
Nearly 1,600 pond hockey fanatics, NHL legends, former Olympic and college greats met on Lake Nokomis in Minneapolis this weekend for the fourth annual U.S. Pond Hockey Championships.
The tourney featured 251 teams in four-on-four competition in the open, 40+ open, 50+ open, women's and Rink Rat divisions.
Winners:
• Open: Concord USA beat Cold Hands 3-2.
• 40+ open division: Herbies beat Pipewrench 9-4.
• 50+ open division: Minneapolis Moose beat St. Nix 7-4.
• Women's division: Seasoned Skaters beat Barbette 15-3.
• Rink Rat division: Golden Ophers beat Cougar Bait 15-9.
The winners of the open, 40+ open, 50+ open and women's divisions will have their names inscribed on the Golden Shovel, otherwise considered the Stanley Cup of pond hockey. Winners of the Rink Rat division -- developed for the less competitive pond hockey player -- will have their names forever inscribed on the Silver Scoop.
The Bill Wood MVP Sweater, which memorializes a pond hockey legend, was awarded to one player in each division who most embodied what it means to play pond hockey: teamwork, effort, skill and sportsmanship:
• Open division: Billy Hengen, Eden Prairie, from team Concord USA.
• 40+ open division: Rich Farrell, Grant, Minn., from team Herbie.
• 50+ open division: Randy Zejdlik, Maple Grove, from team Minneapolis Moose.
• Women's division: Sue Ring-Jarvi, Anoka, from team Seasoned Skaters.
• Rink Rat division: Jon Zurby, Cottage Grove, from team Golden Ophers.
Kids who grew up on skates can tell you about it. It all comes back to them now, their memories jogged by the New Year's Day spectacle of the Chicago Blackhawks and Detroit Red Wings playing a "Winter Classic" outdoor NHL game at Chicago's Wrigley Field.
Playing hockey on enclosed outdoor rinks is a joy in itself, but playing on a pond ... well, that's something so special, anyone who has done it becomes bonded to hockey and skating for life.
"Playing on the pond - that's pure hockey. That's where kids fall in love with the game," said Colin McDonald, a Springfield Falcons player who grew up in Wethersfield, Conn.
"I'd rush home from school, grab my skates and head for the pond. Skate and play hockey until supper. No coaches, no parents, no time limit, just kids playing the game," he said.
"When we were kids, the ponds would freeze and stay that way all winter. It's not like that now. Maybe because of global warming."
As a player for Wethersfield High School, McDonald had the opportunity to play against Loomis-Chaffee and Westminster, old New England prep schools that had outdoor rinks.
"We played some games in Vermont on outdoor rinks, too. Good old days, great memories," McDonald said.
Bruce Landon, president/general manager of the Falcons, grew up in Kingston, Ont. By age 4, he was skating with his brother Terry on a frozen marsh not far from home.
"You had to watch the reeds. They'd be sticking up through the ice. You'd have to skate around them, but we loved it - morning, noon and night we'd skate," he said.
Playing hockey on ponds meant improvisation.
"We'd take our boots and set them up to be the goal," Landon recalled. "Sometimes, we'd skate on nearby Newboro Lake. There, it seemed like you could skate for miles, and the surface was like glass. Shoot the puck, and it might slide 500 yards if nobody was there to stop it."
The Landon brothers wanted a regular net for their outdoor games, so they built one in their cellar.
"My brother ruined one of our mom's new sheets, tearing it up so we could use it for the back of our net. Then you know what? We found out that we made it too big. We couldn't get it out of the cellar," he said.
No problem. They used it for cellar hockey. Bruce grabbed his baseball glove, got in front of the net, and Terry fired tennis balls at him. It was then that Landon began to realize he liked goaltending - a feeling that carried him to a career in professional hockey as a goaltender for the Springfield Kings and Hartford Whalers.
"We played road hockey, too,," Landon recalled. "About 15 years ago, when I went back home for a visit, I called some of the guys who used to play road hockey with us. We got together and played again - like a bunch of kids, I'll bet if I went back there now and called them, they'd be ready to play again," he said.
Falcons coach Jeff Truitt, a native of Rosetown, Saskatchewan, well remembers his time as an outdoor hockey player.
"There were ponds and rinks all over the place," he said. "We'd skate, and get so cold our fingers and toes would ache. A lot of those places had sheds where you could put on your skates, We go to the shed, warm up a little bit, and then be right back out there, playing on the pond."
In 2006, Truitt served as an assistant coach for Canada's gold-medal winning Under-18 team in the World Junior Tournament.
"That team played some outdoor games - back to the roots," he said.
Mike Gabinet, a defenseman for Truitt's Falcons, grew up in Edmonton, where he played on some outdoor rinks.
"Playing outside was special, even thought it was pretty cold. I think the NHL having outdoor games is a great thing for hockey," he said.
Gabinet didn't have to play pond hockey when he was a kid.
"We had a rink right in our yard, just outside the back door," he said.
Yours Truly can relate to the fond memories shared by Falcons players. I spent many hours of my long-ago youth skating and freezing on Sullivan's Pond in Indian Orchard, just down the hill from our backyard.
Winters were colder then, I can remember skating on Thanksgiving morning, going back up the hill for dinner, then lacing 'em back on for an afternoon on the pond.
Skating and hockey became a neighborhood effort. After a snowstorm, people along the pond would shovel the ice surface so the games could begin again.
An NHL game on a specially-constructed rink at Wrigley Field before a sellout crowd may be a long way from pond hockey, but it does carry a special charm, and as Gabinet says, is "a great thing for hockey."
Such a game stirs memories, all right. It certainly did that for Bruce Landon. Decades later, he's still a hockey guy - and it all goes back to those mornings, noons and nights, shooting the puck into snowbanks and dodging reeds in an icy marsh.
Think of the happiest time you had a child. Chances are it involved hanging out with your friends with no plans and no idea what the day would bring. Playing games for the fun of it instead of winning a scholarship. The men who take part in the 1st Annual Pond Hockey tournament remember these times well. Their words bring back our memories of a simpler time. A time most adults would give anything to relive again and again.
We live in a time when it seems many athletes are doing their best to make sports look bad. Complaining loudly about the few millions they are making, breaking laws and treating spouses badly, it’s easy to forget that sports can be a positive force. The pond hockey players in this film will never receive endorsements, but are much greater role models than those who do. They play not for money, but because they don’t know anything else that can give them that much pleasure.
The stories of playing pond hockey are the highlight of this film. Hockey greats such as Wayne Gretzky and Neal Broten speak of spending more time outside playing than inside doing everything else. They and many others are saddened when they hear how few are allowed the same joy. How will they ever learn to be their own person if others are always telling them what to do?
I’m not a sports guy. My dad took me to a few hockey games, but stopped when he realized I had no interest. This film is about more than just watching sports being played. Much of this film takes place at the 1st Annual Pond Hockey tournament, but it’s never very important who wins or loses. Just playing the game is reward enough. It may not be as enthralling as "Murderball" or "King of Kong," but the players all have interesting stories to tell. You may have forgotten what childhood is about, but this film will remind you of memories that cannot be made sitting inside in front of electronics.
USA Hockey today announced that a record 171 teams have already registered for the fourth annual Labatt Blue/USA Hockey Pond Hockey National Championship, set for Feb. 13-15, 2009 in Eagle River, Wis.
The teams registered for the upcoming event represent 22 states and 12 age divisions. Sold-out divisions include Men's Silver 21 & Older and Men's Bronze 30 & Older. Teams interested in participating still have time to register by visiting here.
NOTES: Last year's field of 142 teams held the previous record for number of teams in the Labatt Blue/USA Hockey Pond Hockey National Championship ... The event is conducted each year on Dollar Lake in Eagle River, Wis. ... The Labatt Blue/USA Hockey Pond Hockey Championship is part of Hockey Weekend Across America, presented by Reebok. The three-day nationwide event, set for Feb. 13-15, 2009, provides a backdrop to celebrate hockey at all levels throughout the country in addition to exposing the sport to new audiences.
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OK, eh, it’s time to start thinking about skating the cup.
So what’s a gamer to do with hockey season approaching and a choice of NHL games when it comes to the video-game world?
Well, first ask yourself what kind of gamer and hockey fan you are.
Hardcore serious? Well then EA’s NHL 09 is the choice.
Goofy casual? Go for 2KSports’ NHL 2K9.
Here’s the breakdown:
EA’s NHL 09
The good: It’s all about the hockey here, as the controls can be as complex or as simple as suits your gaming ability. The genius of NHL 09 comes in with the online play. For the first time in sports online gaming, a player can create his own hockey player, then jump online to join a pickup game with 11 others using custom characters. EA also has the minor and international leagues to go with the NHL license.
The bad: Not much. In fact, hockey is rising to the top of EA’s sports pantheon as one of the genres it does best. The only knock is that it’s becoming so deep that an average gamer might be overwhelmed with the options and not utilize the game to its potential.
NHL 2K9
The good: Pond hockey and Zamboni races. Yeah, baby! Nothing is cooler than racing on the greatest mechanized vehicle of the modern era — the Zamboni. The free-for-all, unencumbered nature of the pond hockey with no crowd, no offside and no calls certainly is the best play mode in 2K9. Online play allows for 12 players to compete in a game simultaneously.
The bad: Years ago, 2K was a great option because it offered a price point about $25 cheaper than the EA sports titles but hardly a drop in quality. The Xbox 360 versions we played are the same at $59.99, which takes the edge from 2K.
The thought occurred to me when I heard Sarah Palin describe herself as a "hockey mom" that she was making an unconscious decision to distinguish herself from the more commonly-heard "soccer mom." Having taught in a town that is perhaps more synonymous with soccer than any community in New Jersey--Kearny--my initial reaction was to interpret her remark as somewhat elitist: Soccer is a game for the masses, hockey for the wealthy.
To test my hypothesis, I decided to see what it would cost to outfit a teenager for both sports.
As with automobiles, so it is with hockey equipment: apparently there is no limit to the amount of money one can spend. Perhaps the most reasonable estimate I got was from a site called ThinkQuest:
Q. What equipment do you need to play this sport and how much does it cost?
A. "Equipment these days is made to protect virtually every part of the body. A full set of equipment for a youth hockey player costs around $500.00, the two most expensive items being the skates and the helmet/cage combination." If that is the nationwide average, I suspect the cost might be somewhat higher in the Northeast. Additionally, outside of pond and street hockey (does anyone play pond hockey in this state anymore?) I doubt one can play hockey for free in New Jersey. So add the rink rental fee to the cost of the equipment.
As I was preparing this blog on September 11, I happened to read this in The New York Times:
In and around Anchorage, particularly in wealthier high schools, hockey is everything. With $400 skates, $150 sticks and hundreds of dollars more for pads and gloves, outfitting a skater can cost well over a $1,000. Add in ice time, league fees and the cost of travel in and out of this rural state, and some families with elite high school players can spend $15,000 a year. Parents with especially talented skaters or with enough money or both often do what the Palins eventually did with Track (Sarah Palin's eldest son), which was to write a check and send him to special hockey development programs out of state. Housed with teammates, the boys go to local high schools and play on sponsored teams intended to attract attention from college recruiters.)
For soccer, I could not find a similar Q & A, so, using midrange Modells' North Jersey prices, I estimate about $150 would easily cover the cost of spikes, shorts, a jersey and socks. (A former student who lives and breathes the sport told me the cost could easily be double that amount if one wanted to go with all the bells and whistles [$150 soccer balls and a bag, warm-up equipment, etc], but that would be like adding a Bose audio system to a car--nice, but not necessary to get you from point A to point B.) And when I observe the teams of young, mostly Latin American men playing the sport FOR FREE in my local park, it seems most of them are outfitted with "equipment" (if that's the term) for a whole lot less than the $150 estimate.
I don't know if Governor Palin meant to reinforce the stereotype of the Republican Party as the political party of the wealthy with her "hockey mom" reference. But that's how I interpreted it. And the research seems to support my hypothesis.
Growing up I frequently heard thoroughbred horse racing referred to as The Sport of Kings. Might we now conclude that ice hockey is The Sport of Republicans?
