Rails From The Rails 13 – The Road Less Travelled!

All Aboard: “Canadians are less likely to shoot someone. However, we are more
likely to club someone over the head with a hockey stick.” – Tim
Cerantola

Tickets Please: In my home town of London, Ontario we receive a weekly paper called The
Londoner. It is a community newspaper and it comes along with some
flyers. I came across an article that I found quite interesting.

The title of the article by Jeffrey Reed was in the form of a question that I often ask myself: Where has all the road hockey gone? The author uses the article to lament the lack of road hockey being
played and to discuss the lack of activity of children. I have often
wondered about why there doesn’t seem to be as much road hockey being
played. And the fact in itself disappoints me. So allow me to make a
few comments about a one-time national pastime.

I have very fond
memories of playing road hockey when I was young. In particular, I
recall with nostalgia when we lived in Chatham, Ontario. We used to
play a lot of road hockey and we played it year round. We played more
often in the winter, but even in summer it was not uncommon to find a
game of street hockey at Finch Place. We even had our own team called
the Finch Flyers. I remember once carrying our nets to Baldoon Road to
play the Baldoon Bulldogs. I’m not sure who won that game. Even at
school we relinquished the sticks but still played a version of the
game that we called foot hockey. The space between portables made a
perfect venue for an out-of-sight rough-and-tumble game.

Later on in my youth I
recall a hockey trip we took to the United States. I think I was in
grade 7 or 8. We played a game against a team that was physically
superior to us. Even in warm-up we could see their skating prowess.
They were big and fast and I thought we were in trouble. Fortunately
for us, they couldn’t handle the puck. We beat them convincingly. After
the game their parents paraded into our dressing room to thank us for
showing them how real hockey was played. I have always attributed
Canadian’s advanced puck handling ability to hours and hours of road
hockey. I wonder if the Russians and Europeans play much road hockey.

My brother-in-law is
probably the best road hockey player I know. He has always been a
wizard with a tennis ball and hockey stick. Unfortunately, growing up
he didn’t play ice hockey. And though he was dominant in a gym or on a
street, hockey played on ice was far from his forte. Due to not playing
ice hockey, his skating was inferior and this was evident whenever we
played shinny with friends or our church youth group. Recently my
brother-in-law decided to take adult power skating lessons. The results
were incredible. He has become a proficient skater. That was not
entirely expected. However, due mostly to the many years spent playing
ball hockey, he has great hands. And with the new found ability to
skate well coupled with good touch on the puck, he has become a good
hockey player. At least good by
old-guys-playing-shinny-late-on-Sunday-night standards. And he can
thank road hockey for that.

I will give you a
couple reasons why I think kids are not playing as much road hockey
these days as compared to when I was young. First, many children have
hockey schedules that are ridiculous. They are on the ice 3, 4, or 5
times a week for 5 months. No wonder they don’t want to play road
hockey. They also have a myriad of technological entertainment at their
hand: Xbox, Wii, Nintendo DS, iPods and the internet. I had none of
those distractions when I was young. As a matter of fact, I recently
had to convince my daughter that we didn’t have remote controls for the
TV when I was young. “Well how do you turn it on?” she said. Lastly,
parents don’t kick their kids out of the house the way our parents used
to: “Go outside and don’t comeback until I call you for lunch!” I
believe that safety is a big reason why this doesn’t occur as much. A
kid has to find something to do and we often found a game of road
hockey would suffice.

I hope that road
hockey experiences a renaissance among the youth of Canada. If not, our
dominance in the hockey world might not be the only thing in jeopardy;
our health might be as well.

Last Stop: The current Boatmen have their own list of accomplished hockey players. The roster would include such skaters as: