Hockey Experience: Getting Personal

so, as promised, i’ll start off with my own. I’m from ontario, canada, so, i’ve played hockey since i was 3 years old. i’ve been a goalie since i was 4. I grew up playing for my local travel teams, and then onto high school hockey, and after that i was fortunate enough to make it to play some minor pro hockey in the chicago area. i hope to continue my career sometime in the near future. now let’s hear all of your stories!

My earliest memory of playing hockey was Blades of Steel. I know there were some crap hockey games before then, but that’s the first game I remember seriously playing, and it’s definitely where I made my name. I was just an above average player until one night my older brother beat me 14-2. I never felt so helpless and I threw down the controller and ran out of the house and down the street even though I was in socks with no shoes. I vowed to never lose again, and that was pretty much the case. I may have lost a handful of games over the remainder of my BoS career and I ended up taking Sal Porto down 4 games to 2 in the great Blades of Steel tournament of ’91.

Not long after my wildly successful video hockey career started, I began playing regularly in the VBGHL (Virginia Beach Garage Hockey League, later shortened to GHL). This consisted of consuming large quantities of beer and other fine, mind expanding substances and then strapping old strips of carpet to your legs and crawling around the garage on your knees trying to hit a ball into the net while avoiding the inevitable gruesome, game-ending injury.

It didn’t take long for the GHL to move to the street. It started off in pretty crude fashion. We set up in an undeveloped cul-de-sac where every errant shot seemed to end up in the busy road just on the other side of a guardrail. It was pretty fun but that first game ended prematurely when some fool tried to block my shot, and he wasn’t wearing a cup, and I thought I had killed him.

We kept playing in the street for a while, even going so far as to make boards out of cardboard boxes. It just got to be too much of a hassle to have to construct a rink every time we wanted to play. One day, we noticed these enclosed playing areas on the side of elementary schools in the area. One side was the wall of the school and the other three sides were made up of 16-foot high chain link fence. That’s how the CHL (Cage Hockey League) was born. The cage was kind of small, but the games were fast paced and brutal as hell.

After a while, our game was noticed. Our league started to grow, and some of the new guys clued us into a few other games that were going on in the area, including one that would become the HRASHL (Hampton Roads Adult Street Hockey League). We put together a team and started playing in the HRASHL in the 92-93 season. That year was played on an old tennis court where the net and poles had been removed. We called ourselves the Beer Wolves. We had a lot of promise, though our season got off to a rough start with a shootout loss to the Hobos. Our main claim to fame that year was being the only team to beat the defending and eventual repeat champion Kings. We met them on an icy January day, threw the 1-1-3 at them and came away with the 2-1 upset win.

I had been named team captain for that season, something that I initially saw as an honor and a sign of the respect that I had among my teammates. As time went on, I realized what a curse it was. “Team captain” meant you were also the coach and the GM. Imagine trying to get a team of stoners to show up for a 8am game in 20-degree weather, and then explaining to one of your friends that he was getting thrown off the team for only showing up once every three weeks. Not to mention the shit storm that starts when your goalie / brother-in-law accuses you of trying to replace him when the reality was that his job prevented him from playing every third game and you just wanted to find a competent backup.

Anyway, after that first season on the tennis court, the HRASHL moved to a pretty sweet rink at the Sticks & Stones facility in neighboring Norfolk. We played there for a few years before moving on to an even better deck a few miles away and eventually an indoor rink in Chesapeake. We all got a lot better over the years, had some great times and made a lot of new friends. I moved to Philly and then Maryland in ‘97, but kept making the trips south pretty much every weekend during the season until the league finally broke up in ’99 after a few serious injuries and the resulting lawsuits. After that, I played the occasional pickup game in Hampton Roads and Richmond until finally giving up the game when I moved to Phoenix in ’02. I still break out the sticks and ball every now and then just to see if I’ve still “got it” ;-)

I was known for having a decent stick and a wicked wrister. I was a part time wing, part time defenseman. One of my older brother’s friends on the team said I was the Sergei Zubov of street hockey. Of course he’s the same guy who called me the Babe Ruth of t-ball when I was 6, so that’s a good indication of his love of hyperbole. Anyway, I tried to play like Sergei, smart and cool under pressure. I miss those good old days. As much as I loved playing baseball as a kid, I’d kill to have grown up somewhere cold where hockey was king.

I still remember that day…you know, that one moment where you figure things out….that day playing in the cage where one minute I was just running around trying to hit somebody and then I get the ball moving in on net and without even thinking about it, I make the slightest little move and then roof it before the goalie even knows I’m taking the shot. That’s when you realize hey, I can play this game. What a glorious feeling. What a fantastic game.

I come from Singapore where the bulk of the population have never seen snow & the only ice here is rapidly melting in our drinks. When I was a kid, I followed my aunt, a journalist, around the US, spending time in many different cities. When I was brought to my first ever hockey game at the old Civic Arena. I saw Mario score on the last shot of his last shift of his last game against the Flyers at the Civic. Didn’t understand the significance of that particular game until many years later but I was hooked on the sport that night.

Picking sports as a kid in junior high, I played more basketball but I switched to hockey when the coaches shoved me under the basket & refused to teach me the game. All because I had a very early growth spurt & was significantly taller than my peers. Not being able to learn the game, I committed myself to hockey. I played D (just like in every other sport) & some time in goal. I was essentially a Scuds or Kasparaitis, the stay at home D with limited offensive upside but a huge physical presence & shot-blocker extraordinaire until circumstances forced me to go back to Singapore.

I didn’t really have a team growing up but I loved watching many teams & players, including Patrick Roy, Daryl Sydor, Dominic Hasek, Stevens/Niedermayer, Kasparaitis etc. But I latched on to the Pens after hearing of how Mario bought the team & saved it.

I joined the Singapore Ice Hockey team, but they weren’t a real team & most of them had issues with my physical play & fighting. Eventually our rink was demolished for a shopping mall & the team lost funding & was disbanded. I tried floorball but found that the mechanics of which are vastly different from ice hockey & between getting schooled by people more familiar with the sport & my own injury history, I enlisted in the army & ceased participation in the sport.

Now I’m pretty much the only Penguins fan I know in Singapore. I’m the weirdo that’s genuinely excited about waking up at 5AM to watch a game or NHLCupcakes. I barely fit in as it is & it was really lonely until I discovered this blog in the middle of our Stanley Cup run. Given the timezone differences & general lack of interest here in hockey, I miss a lot of games or rely on the Mike Lange gamecast & the game threads here to keep up.

So that’s my story & I’m sticking to it…

let’s keep em coming! hooks? frank? gopens? i wanna hear about where some of the heavy hitters around here are speaking from

so it’s safe to say I wasn’t born with a hockey stick in my hand. When I was 11, our area got a minor league hockey team and I fell in love instantly. The game was so fast paced and made every other sport seem boring. A few years later, I started watching the NHL and got spoiled by the supreme skill that the players had. I still love my minor league team (kind of like a first love) but the young skill of the Pens definitely spoiled me.
My love of hockey has lead me to love all other sports and now I’m so obsessed with it all, that that’s what I want to do for a living. But, hockey, is miles and miles above all the rest.

It’s really cool to hear from so many people and to learn about some of their roots in the game. I really do feel fortunate to grow up where I did. Even now, I can honestly say that there’s ice time at my disposal any day of the week lol. One of the great things about this blog, and I think sports blogs in general, is the different perspectives on each issue that arises. That’s why it’s cool to hear where everyone’s coming from! Thanks again and LET’S GO PENS!

(Houston area), hockey wasn’t exactly the sport to play when I was young, so I played baseball, football, basketball etc… but when I got into high school, I had a few stoner friends who skated and they started playing roller hockey in a school parking lot… so I started playing roller hockey with them at around 17 or 18. A few years later, once I started playing roller with some more experienced players, I got into ice hockey (around 21 or so) and have been playing in a C-level Sunday night league since then… I’m not almost 30, so I’ve been playing hockey for about 12 years in some fashion or another.

My best friend got me into hockey. We started playing hockey on his neighborhood street and driveway. Sometimes a few friends and I would meet up at school and play roller hockey on the basketball courts. My fave player growing up was Mario, but somehow I ended up playing goalie and got to be pretty decent at it. I made the transition to ice in high school and played at the midget level for a few seasons. Then I went off to college to play some ACHA hockey. After college, I continued to participate in pickup games. Last year, I made the switch from goalie to defense and I kind of wish I’d done it a lot earlier.

As for the Penguins, I’ve been a faithful fan since around ‘94. I’m pretty sure I started off as a Lemieux fan, and then just naturally hitched to black and gold and have stuck with this team through the good and bad times.

Really, growing up in the South roller hockey has been 95% of my experience. Played as a kid in leagues, on the street, etc for about as long as I can remember, which would be about 20 years. I’ve played in tournaments everywhere, including Pittsburgh area. I got to play some dek hockey in Pittsburgh too, but I don’t like all the running and have only played a handful of times.

Went to college and founded a roller hockey team at my school that played in the NCRHA, a very organized and legit national body.

Now I’ve graduated to the beer leagues of Northern Virginia, playing recreationally in men’s roller hockey leagues.

I am looking to get back into ice a little more, I don’t have a pair of skates that fit (which gives you an indication of how much ice I’ve played in the past 10 years) but I hope to get back in the swing of it.

I grew up in Canada, in a neighbourhood that was full of kids. Every winter my dad made a rink in our backyard, and each afternoon we’d play whatever ice-related game we had the equipment for (usually some form of hockey). Every time I’m watching a game and the puck bounces over a weird bump in the ice, I’m reminded of our zamboni-free days in the backyard. Once the ice melted, we’d fill the neighbourhood with the singular call of road hockey (“Caaaaaaaar!”) several days a week. And in gym class we of course had floor hockey tournaments, and there was plenty of ball hockey through the years.

So I guess that’s where I first learned to love hockey. It wasn’t until years later that I became a true fan of the NHL, but my childhood is where the joy of it all started.

Starting playing floor hockey at the local YMCA in elementary school. Around the time of the first Cup win, a bunch of us in the neighborhood starting playing on roller blades in the street almost every day. Played a lot of roller hockey in the school parking lot through high school and we got an ice hockey team my senior year… gave it a shot, but wasn’t much of an ice skater. Played more roller hockey in college at Duquesne, as they built a nice little outdoor rink about the time I started there (’97).

I got away from playing after school, but after getting back on the ice during my trip to EA Sports in Vancouver for the NHL11 Community Event, my passion is back. I went to the prospect camp at Southpointe and discovered they have inline stick time on the weekends. Bought a new helmet — apparently my head grew considerably in the last 10+ years — and went to Southpointe Saturday. Only a few guys there so it was mostly a chance to get my feet back under me on skates. Still have the wrister, but the slapper sucks…

My plan is to head out there at least once a weekend and hopefully catch on with a league team there or in Bridgeville. I live right by the Rollerplex but it’s all league all the time…

Although I grew up in West Virginia (not a hockey hotbed) I started playing when I was 6 years old after watching Mario and the Pens on TV and deciding, “That game is waaaaay cooler than lame-assed T-Ball, I want to play.”

Luckily, there was a rink and developing league in Morgantown, and before too long, I was playing on the travel team and in tournaments all over the East and Midwest. We went up to Canada a few times to get schooled, but actually had a pretty good team all the way through my high school years. We played in the Pittsburgh area league, so I got to know the rinks of southwest PA pretty well, including the Johnstown arena where Slapshot was filmed.

I was/am a good skater who played physical, smart hockey (3rd line checking wing) but didn’t have great hands or a great shot, just played nastier than the bigger guys. Got recruited to play at some D3 schools and by New Hampshire and UVM, but I was pretty small even for college and most likely would have warmed the bench for a bunch of years while having hockey be my whole life, so I went and played club instead for a pretty good Gettysburg College team which won our league one year.

Now, I have played in a few beer leagues post-college with good levels of play, especially in northern New York state and out here in Jackson, WY. The town I live in now floods the baseball diamond in the winter and we play some mellow pick-up where I can get my fix, but the competition is definitely lacking.

When you said you wanted to hear about he hotshots I immediately assumed you mean me. But I’m sure everyone knows my side already.

I was taken to plenty of Johnstown Chiefs games and a few Pens games when I was younger, but too young to actually realize what I was seeing or fully care about it. But still I remember how much fun everyone else was having and the passion I saw at those games. My family is a huge football family, and that’s like the first and foremost sport, followed by baseball, and maybe basketball at a very distant third. I was good at baseball, better at basketball, sucked at football, and only played hockey because, unlike with today’s kids, you want to go out and just be active and play anything you can.

So we used to always go down in my church’s basement and play roller hockey, using shoes as goals, that whole thing. When it would rain, which it does frequently in western PA, and usually during the summer, after the rain we would play street hockey where the roads were slick and a little more challenging. If it was a long hard rain (giggidy) and the drainage ditches on the side of the road were full of water, that meant we could check each other into them. Good times.

Then I unfortunately moved to Los Angeles when I was 12 where hockey is only used for Hollywood gawkers to try and “look cool” at, so I focused on baseball, football, and basketball. I really started following the Pens again when Geno finally got his visa figured out and made it to the Pens, and then even more so in 07-08 season, when they lost to the Red Wings in the Finals. I then decided that I should try playing this game called hockey myself, and I went straight for the ice, this being fairly recently back in November. Racked up my credit card, took an adult beginners class, and the first time I went to play pickup, though there is no checking allowed, accidentally ran into a dude behind the net and laid him out. Right then and there I knew I made a huge mistake not playing this game sooner.

I’m not that good, but I’m not the worst. I had shoulder surgery and have been out since February but just now started skating again, getting my legs back. I rarely fall, unless bumped or whatnot, so I think I have pretty good balance, and my wrister isn’t terrible. Slap shots, forget it, I want to keep my arm attached for a little while longer. But I try to either keep the passing lanes clogged on D or be that annoying person right in front of the net making it difficult for goalies. In fact, every goal I’ve scored in pickup has been from tapping in juicy rebounds or gathering in wild passes.

although I’ll stick mainly to how I became a Pens fan
Just read this post.. I love hearing how everyone comes from all these different backgrounds.

thanks so much guys! it’s great to see all these stories. i don’t think i expected so many comments when i first put the post up, but the response from everybody has been fantastic! just goes to show how awesome all you pens fans really are!

As for me, I grew up very close to Winnipeg, Manitoba which is known for blistering cold temperatures in winter. My parents signed me up for the local hockey team when I was 5 and 6. After that I guess I either didn’t show enough promise, or else I didn’t care enough to continue.

I grew up following the Winnipeg Jets, and said I wanted to play in the NHL for the Jets when I grew up (along side Teemu, of course). I had posters on my wall of various Jets players, Patrick Roy, and 2 or 3 of my favourite player, MARIO LEMIEUX. I’m not sure how I picked him as my favourite, considering I didn’t watch hockey very much, but I’m sure glad I did.

Fast forward to high school. I was very much into playing floor hockey, and I still do every chance I get. I also started playing ice hockey once a week in a church league. This was also the time I got big into hockey stats. I would have hockey drafts with my friends and family, and routinely win them.

Today I am 24, and entering my hockey prime (haha!). I still play hockey once a week through the winter months, though I wish it was more. I go skating with my friends in freezing temperatures for games of shinny whenever I can. I have also played in the annual 4-on-4 street hockey tournament that CBC puts on across Canada. Last year we did better than this year, placing in the top 16 in the highest division in Winnipeg.

During the lock-out (sniff!) I decided that I would cheer for the pens, mainly because of the special spot Lemieux has in my heart (I picked him in the first round of our hockey draft the year he only played 9 or 10 games. Ouch). Which is bold, considering they hadn’t exactly been a powerhouse. When I heard they had the first overall pick, and Crosby in the bag, I was pumped. His first year, I rooted along for the team while listening to the games on the radio online. It was painful to listen to them loose.

It was exciting to see them make the playoffs in 2007.

In 2008 we got NHL network, and I could watch any of the games I wanted! The world was my hockey rink. I cheered for them right up til game 5 of the finals. I regret to say that I missed game 6, because I was in Uganda doing some missions with a friend of mine.

2009 was my dream season. I watched (literally) every pens game on tv. It was awesome to see them fight back into the playoffs, and then take it all in game 7! Though, I’m sure I don’t have to say that, as most of you were likely all just as excited as me.

This year, I watched nearly every game. Some I missed becuase of technical issues with our VCR (old school). Whenever I would head out with my friends, to play poker, or whatever, I would have to tell them to not tell me the score. This is often diffucult, as they like to watch sportscenter as we would play! AGH! Then I would head home to watch the game, often staying up til 1:30 or 2:00 am.

This last season, as I have mentioned in other threads, I was able to fly out to Pittsburgh to watch my first, and only, game in the Igloo (Feb. 14 vs Nashville). It was awesome. I got myself a Fleury jersey at the game, and cheered my heart out. I was on the jumbo-tron holding up an “87” sign after Crosby scored his goal that game. I’ll never forget it.

I hope to make it out to a game again very soon. Staying connected with other Pens fans here has me even more excited for the start of this season than any other! I’m confident that our boys will put together a great season, and we’ll have lots to cheer about.

GO PENS!

… as I’ve posted around here during the last year… mine is another of those “not-in-a-hockey-hotbed” stories:)

I’m from Bulgaria where during my years as a kid “hockey” meant watching the Soviet national team play in the Olympics/World Championships.

So I didn’t get into hockey until the mid 90s when I was still watching only international games and was a big Jagr fan. Therefore I started following the Penguins and the NHL more closely. Mainly checking up scores/news/highlights on the internet and playing the NHL Series:)

Thankfully the live streams and Online TVs developed and the last few years I’m able to watch all the games and cheer for the Penguins.

As far as real hockey experience goes… well… we have a skating rink in town since 2 or 3 years and I’ve skated a few times, but just to get a feel about it… I suck at it… I’ve never put on a hockey gear and skated with a stick (although I have one)… but may be one day:)