GDT: Lightning and Pens @ Johnstown - 7PM?

[steveg]

Sponsored just meant our teams were sponsored by various corporations. They covered our tourney dues, and paid for some of our gear. It was a nice setup TBTH. All we had to do was wear their names on our jerseys somewhere, basically.



Sounds like you did better than a local dek league, so that's cool to hear. Have you ever played outdoors?

Even in my competitive days, my greatest joy was being alone on some outdoor rink with just the sound of my blades cutting the ice. There was always something magical about that for me, hence my desire to play at the PHC.

Never on an outdoor rink, but pond hockey, absolutely. I built a 4x6 net when I was a senior in high school, and it stayed on a local pond all winter. We were there nearly every day after school, and on weekends. But never played on a true outdoor rink...

Thanks for explaining the "sponsored" thing -- that sounds like it would have been a really, really cool setup, lots of fun, and sounds pretty "high level" to me...

 

[steveg]

I took my first job at a hockey rink at $5.25 an hour as a 15 year old. I'd really just run open skates, and work as a guard for 3-4 hours. The manager taught me how to sharpen skates and drive zamboni to get more hours, and if I did late night cuts for him so he could go home early, he'd let me stay as late as I wanted and skate around on an empty sheet, shooting pucks, and doing drills by myself.

Those nights are honestly some of the most cherished nights of my life, and I'd give pretty much anything to be able to experience that again. I was a kid trying to get better so I could maybe play for a good college program. Those nights alone were huge for me.

WOW, what I wouldn't have done for that amount of ice time, as a teen! My best friend was an ice guard in high school, and I should have done that, as well. He became a really good skater simply through all those hours on the ice. That used to be the hardest thing to do when I was a kid -- to get ice time. I used to rent the ice for two hours, and get 20 or so guys together; the hardest part was getting two good goalies (we always had one, the second was not always available), as well as the hours (usually, we rented the ice at either midnight, or 2 AM, when it was cheapest -- $90 per hour -- so that a bunch of broke high-school guys could afford it)!