My first trip to the Forum was in 1945 at age six. Our park hockey team was chosen to play between the first and second period of a Canadiens/Ranger game in salute to National Hockey Week. This happened once a year. Since there was no TV yet a kid my age could only dream of indoor ice let alone sixteen thousand cheering people watching a hockey game. We played on outdoor rinks that were scattered by district all over the City. We played through ice storms, snow storms, below Zero weather and late in the season on melting ice. On stormy nights the game might be halted, snowplows and shovels brought out on the ice with every player on the team expected to clear the rink so the game could continue. But not on this night! We hit the ice with grand enthusiasm to the delight of the packed house and played a five minute game.
When it was over we basically had the run of the building. Since there was never an empty seat for the Canadiens we were told we could watch the game from the standing room area. The only hockey image I remember from that night was the Montreal goalie Bill Durnan, a tall imposing man who was ambidextrous and wore two blockers both with webbing to catch the puck and who switched his stick from side to side, hand to hand, depending on the oncoming angle of the shooter. What I remember most overall was me and my buddy Larry Langill standing by the hot dog concession telling complete strangers we had each scored a goal that night and yes we would love another hot dog. We must have had six or seven each. By the way, the Forum hot dogs were then, and are still, famous for their unique taste and feel. Ask Chico Resch! LOL
I had many more trips to the Forum in subsequent years but I will save those for future telling. For now welcome to my blog. I am interested in any hockey dialog you might want to share, any remembrance you might have or just to see your smiling face as you read mine.
As they say in Montreal " A Bientot".
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I played a lot of backyard hockey as a young boy. My friend had an odd backyard that was perfect for 3 on 3 football year round, or hockey when it was cold enough to flood and freeze. It was 20 feet wide and around 100 feet long. Along one length was a tall row of thick, bushes. Along the other length was a stone retaining wall with a 3 foot drop-off to a grass landing...this is important to the story.
ReplyDeleteAt one end...the uphill end...the goal was backed by the same tall bushes and the other end (you guessed it, the downhill goal) came to an abrupt 3 foot, drop-off to the neighbors driveway. In the very first game one friend got checked onto the driveway so we made a new rule that there would be no checking at that end. Somehow we still felt checking on the side with the drop-off was still ok. In the third or fourth game my friends' mother saw him fly off the side. He didn't get hurt but She decided she would add her own rules, no checking. We changed this to no checking on that side or near the downhill goal, but the bushes were still in play. I don't have to tell you they took a beating.
Anyway, this was not pretty hockey. None of us were particularly good skaters but we all loved the game and played hard. On some day's we would have a small audience (5-10) of
younger kids from the neighborhood and this was our chance to showoff...steal the puck and score or nail somebody into the bushes.
We spent a lot of time grooming the rink...building snow walls all around and building a 2x9 retaining wall at the downhill end to try and level it off.
It's funny but I have no memory of games or goals but I distinctly remember the big hits!
ED: welcome to my blog. We played ball hockey on the street (our street had very little traffic) and we labored daily building nets out of snow. This was serious stuff - no skates, we ran - frozen tennis ball that hurt like hell if it hit you - full contact hitting and high scores. One day some driver came a long and plowed through the net at the South end scattering the snow and destroying the net. We all yelled at him but he laughed and drove off. Next day, same guy, same car, same result. This time we were more than annoyed so we put our devious eight-year-old minds together and plotted revenge. The following day when we built our nets we used empty metal garbage cans as foundation but the net looked exactly the same. Before long our nemesis arrived. We all scattered as he came up the hill, slowly at first the accelerating as he ran through the net. This time the hit sounded like an atom bomb had exploded on our street. I can't tell you what the guy said since we had gathered at the entrance to a lane ( our fav escape route ) but I will never forget the look on that dude's face as he hit. Thanks for sharing youer memory and bringing back mine.
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