ahh…..
the nostalgia of my youth in 60s and 70s…..
”car!”
www.bostonglobe.com
If history is any indication, these record-smashing Bruins are putting kids on the streets.
They’ll pretend they are David Pastrnak, ripping one-timers into the net and waving to an imaginary crowd. They’ll dangle through defenders, tongue wagging, like Brad Marchand. They’ll be as tough as Trent Frederic, as smart as Patrice Bergeron, as crafty as David Krejci.
They’ll strap on the pads and become Linus Ullmark, or Jeremy Swayman, scoring goalie goals and hugging it out.
Around here, it remains a way of life, especially when the Bruins are hot.
Jack Studley and his buddies, including the late Martin Richard, used to pretend they were the 2010-11 Bruins. They would bang slappers like Big Z and holler “Tuuuk!” after big saves. Their compete level was always elevated.
“Every day after school, we would run around Dorchester,” Studley said. “Whatever park, whatever side street, somebody had a net and we would just play.”
In some pockets of the city, street hockey rules no matter how the local team is doing.
“In Dorchester, kids don’t put their sticks away,” said Mike Devlin, director of recreation for the City of Boston. “It’s South Boston, it’s the Shamrock Shootout in West Roxbury.” That’s where some 650 players take their whacks on a closed-off Temple Street.
The stick-and-ball version of hockey is on the minds of those in the NHL’s corner offices. The league recently announced the creation of NHL Street, for ages 6 to 16, which aims to start in Boston and six other cities (Detroit, Edmonton, Pittsburgh, Winnipeg, Vancouver, and Austin, Texas) in the coming months. It promises free equipment, provided by Stoughton-based manufacturer Franklin, and jerseys with the local team’s colors and logo. Former Bruin Andrew Ference, now working for the NHL, is running the show.
There are independent and municipal leagues all over the Boston area, but a lot of the action is still unorganized.
“Older kids, they want to play pickup by themselves,” Devlin said. “They don’t want mom and dad around.”
Given the immense cost and time commitment of organized hockey — consider how many hours and resources are needed to put a kid on the ice for 10-15 minutes per game — and the state of our climate, street hockey is more critical than ever to player development.
Boston is hardly the only northern city having milder-than-usual weather. Ottawa did not open its five-mile Rideau Canal Skateway this winter, shuttering the world’s largest outdoor rink for the first time in its 53-year history. Some 400 miles to the south, we here in Greater Boston have not had much time on the ponds. Backyard rinks have remained pools. Those of us with young children may be worrying about a pastime lost.
Those of us who grew up in Gloucester and first shuffled on double-runners at age 2 — Buswell Pond in Magnolia — still go to sleep floating on the glassy ice of Lanesville’s frozen granite quarries. The first strides of the season, hearing the spooky settling of the sheet. Then we’d throw sticks, day after day. The stuff of dreams.
If we didn’t have ice, in the time of Ray Bourque and Cam Neely, we always had a side road or a church parking lot. We would run there as soon as we were free from obligation. Our elders did the same.
“If I didn’t have hockey practice or a hockey game, it’s what I looked forward to the most when I woke up that day,” said NESN color analyst Andy Brickley, who grew up in Melrose in the Orr-Esposito era. “What time am I getting home from school, and how many guys are we going to have, are we going to play in the street, are we setting up in the tennis courts, do we need to shovel, do we have two nets . . .
“I was so preoccupied with how we were going to arrange the street hockey game for that day. If it was a weekend, you’d play all day.
“Everybody could play. Not everybody could play hockey and not everybody could afford to play hockey, but everybody could afford to play street hockey. If you were products of my generation — we were 8 and 10 when the Bruins were winning the Stanley Cups, and those guys were your heroes, the swagger, the team-first attitude, the accessibility, the personality, all that stuff impacted my generation.
“We all wanted to play hockey. Not everybody could, but everybody could play street hockey. Never were we shorthanded.”
Street hockey was a place to grow athletically, competitively, and of course, a place for childhood mischief.
“When cars would come by we’d say time out, and we’d try to pass the puck through the car’s wheels,” Bruins coach Jim Montgomery remembered of his days on Paisley Street in Montreal. “Wasn’t that hard to do.”
“My parents would never agree this happened,” Brickley said, “but late at night, we’d go up and cut the tennis court nets down [to make street hockey nets in the garage]. We did it every time we got locked out of the tennis court. We’d find the right time to do it. I think people knew it was us, anyway.”
Bruins defenseman Brandon Carlo and his crew in Colorado Springs blocked cars from their cul-de-sac on Sawleaf Court so they had uninterrupted games. In Lerberget, Sweden, Hampus Lindholm’s squad wouldn’t stop when they saw one.
“They’d have to wait until the play was over,” he said, “and then you’d let them through.”
They were too busy mimicking their heroes, taking scenes from the TV and applying them to the asphalt. Even today, when kids have the universe streaming in front of them, there’s still room for them to ditch the screen and let off steam.
For the youngest of the stick-carrying tribe, these Bruins have no doubt inspired.
“I’m sure we’ll see it when our season starts this year,” Studley said. “Everyone’s going to want to be as good as they are.”
After Ullmark scored against the Canucks recently, Studley posted the video on his league’s Instagram.
“We haven’t had a goalie score a goalie goal yet,” Studley said. “Is that going to change this year?”
the nostalgia of my youth in 60s and 70s…..
”car!”
Much like their predecessors, NHL-best Bruins could inspire new crop of street hockey players - The Boston Globe
If history is any indication, these record-smashing Bruins are putting kids on the streets.
www.bostonglobe.com
If history is any indication, these record-smashing Bruins are putting kids on the streets.
They’ll pretend they are David Pastrnak, ripping one-timers into the net and waving to an imaginary crowd. They’ll dangle through defenders, tongue wagging, like Brad Marchand. They’ll be as tough as Trent Frederic, as smart as Patrice Bergeron, as crafty as David Krejci.
They’ll strap on the pads and become Linus Ullmark, or Jeremy Swayman, scoring goalie goals and hugging it out.
Around here, it remains a way of life, especially when the Bruins are hot.
Jack Studley and his buddies, including the late Martin Richard, used to pretend they were the 2010-11 Bruins. They would bang slappers like Big Z and holler “Tuuuk!” after big saves. Their compete level was always elevated.
“Every day after school, we would run around Dorchester,” Studley said. “Whatever park, whatever side street, somebody had a net and we would just play.”
In some pockets of the city, street hockey rules no matter how the local team is doing.
“In Dorchester, kids don’t put their sticks away,” said Mike Devlin, director of recreation for the City of Boston. “It’s South Boston, it’s the Shamrock Shootout in West Roxbury.” That’s where some 650 players take their whacks on a closed-off Temple Street.
The stick-and-ball version of hockey is on the minds of those in the NHL’s corner offices. The league recently announced the creation of NHL Street, for ages 6 to 16, which aims to start in Boston and six other cities (Detroit, Edmonton, Pittsburgh, Winnipeg, Vancouver, and Austin, Texas) in the coming months. It promises free equipment, provided by Stoughton-based manufacturer Franklin, and jerseys with the local team’s colors and logo. Former Bruin Andrew Ference, now working for the NHL, is running the show.
There are independent and municipal leagues all over the Boston area, but a lot of the action is still unorganized.
“Older kids, they want to play pickup by themselves,” Devlin said. “They don’t want mom and dad around.”
Given the immense cost and time commitment of organized hockey — consider how many hours and resources are needed to put a kid on the ice for 10-15 minutes per game — and the state of our climate, street hockey is more critical than ever to player development.
Boston is hardly the only northern city having milder-than-usual weather. Ottawa did not open its five-mile Rideau Canal Skateway this winter, shuttering the world’s largest outdoor rink for the first time in its 53-year history. Some 400 miles to the south, we here in Greater Boston have not had much time on the ponds. Backyard rinks have remained pools. Those of us with young children may be worrying about a pastime lost.
Those of us who grew up in Gloucester and first shuffled on double-runners at age 2 — Buswell Pond in Magnolia — still go to sleep floating on the glassy ice of Lanesville’s frozen granite quarries. The first strides of the season, hearing the spooky settling of the sheet. Then we’d throw sticks, day after day. The stuff of dreams.
If we didn’t have ice, in the time of Ray Bourque and Cam Neely, we always had a side road or a church parking lot. We would run there as soon as we were free from obligation. Our elders did the same.
“If I didn’t have hockey practice or a hockey game, it’s what I looked forward to the most when I woke up that day,” said NESN color analyst Andy Brickley, who grew up in Melrose in the Orr-Esposito era. “What time am I getting home from school, and how many guys are we going to have, are we going to play in the street, are we setting up in the tennis courts, do we need to shovel, do we have two nets . . .
“I was so preoccupied with how we were going to arrange the street hockey game for that day. If it was a weekend, you’d play all day.
“Everybody could play. Not everybody could play hockey and not everybody could afford to play hockey, but everybody could afford to play street hockey. If you were products of my generation — we were 8 and 10 when the Bruins were winning the Stanley Cups, and those guys were your heroes, the swagger, the team-first attitude, the accessibility, the personality, all that stuff impacted my generation.
“We all wanted to play hockey. Not everybody could, but everybody could play street hockey. Never were we shorthanded.”
Street hockey was a place to grow athletically, competitively, and of course, a place for childhood mischief.
“When cars would come by we’d say time out, and we’d try to pass the puck through the car’s wheels,” Bruins coach Jim Montgomery remembered of his days on Paisley Street in Montreal. “Wasn’t that hard to do.”
“My parents would never agree this happened,” Brickley said, “but late at night, we’d go up and cut the tennis court nets down [to make street hockey nets in the garage]. We did it every time we got locked out of the tennis court. We’d find the right time to do it. I think people knew it was us, anyway.”
Bruins defenseman Brandon Carlo and his crew in Colorado Springs blocked cars from their cul-de-sac on Sawleaf Court so they had uninterrupted games. In Lerberget, Sweden, Hampus Lindholm’s squad wouldn’t stop when they saw one.
“They’d have to wait until the play was over,” he said, “and then you’d let them through.”
They were too busy mimicking their heroes, taking scenes from the TV and applying them to the asphalt. Even today, when kids have the universe streaming in front of them, there’s still room for them to ditch the screen and let off steam.
For the youngest of the stick-carrying tribe, these Bruins have no doubt inspired.
“I’m sure we’ll see it when our season starts this year,” Studley said. “Everyone’s going to want to be as good as they are.”
After Ullmark scored against the Canucks recently, Studley posted the video on his league’s Instagram.
“We haven’t had a goalie score a goalie goal yet,” Studley said. “Is that going to change this year?”
