My Hockey Life On The Streets

I’m sure there are plenty of things more frightening than a slapshot from Bob Davis, but I’ll be darned if I can think of any right now.

Davis – and I’m using his real name here, for I feel no need to protect the innocent, since he’s not in my book – was the kid who was slightly bigger than everyone else. But he was no bully. He just happened to be able to terrorize us with his slappers.

The game was street hockey, though the action mainly occurred on our driveways. And nothing was greeted more warmly than a fresh dusting of snow. The phone lines in my Livonia neighborhood would start sizzling, even before the snow could finish falling.

“You look outside?”

“Yeah.”

“Hockey?”

“Where?”

And that was about the extent of the formalities of planning. A house was chosen – usually mine or Steve Hall’s, because both of us possessed a hockey goal, complete with netting. Then the gang of us – anywhere between three and six – would gather, some with plastic sticks, others with wooden ones. Our object of choice was either a tennis ball or a plastic puck. The usual equipment for boys of our age, and I’m talking 13-to-15 years old. Hall played hockey for real, so he had some goalie equipment, the amount of which that was worn varying from kid to kid, depending on how bold he felt. I was a full equipment guy – a baseball chest protector to go with the trapper, waffle glove, cage mask, and leg pads. Unless Davis wasn’t around, in which case I might eschew the mask. Hey – I fancied myself a handsome kid, and Davis’s shot was just menacing enough to threaten that, had I gone mask-less.

The snow was vital because we would use it to provide a slick coating for the driveway. But there was a process. Functioning like human Zamboni machines, we would use our sticks, boots, and even a broom from the garage to get the snow just right. It couldn’t be too thick, lest the ball or puck not move well. But it couldn’t be too thin, or else you’d fall too easily. It was an art, I tell you, getting that driveway covered with the film of snow perfectly.

The driveway was too small for a real game, and besides, we only had the one goal. So it was an all-out assault on the goalie. We set up a little game, thanks to a stopwatch I received for Christmas one year. One person would be the timekeeper. The others would take the role of goalie and shooters. The shooters had sixty seconds to score four goals. How we came up with such a ratio, I’m not sure. But as sure as I am that I’m breathing right now, thems were the rules, folks.

The timekeeper was to stop the clock after every goal, to give time for the ball/puck to be placed at the “point” – also known as halfway down the driveway from the garage. Then the ball/puck would be teed up, the timekeeper would nod, and the action would begin again. The timekeeper was also responsible for keeping track of the situation.

“Two goals. Twenty-seven seconds left,” or something like that, he would crow into the winter air. He was also under strict orders to count the time down, loudly, in the final 10 seconds, if a fourth goal was still needed. He also served as referee, his word on disputed goals or those scored after time had run out being final.

But back to Davis and his slapper.

All of the above was needed when Davis wound up for his slapper

Like I said, Davis was big for his age, and he could really thwack the ball/puck. The fellow shooters had the advantage of being able to scatter when Davis, playing the point (the shooters would rotate positions, like in volleyball; this was all organized stuff, you know), would begin his wind up.

The goalie had no such option to his avail.

What was worse was that Davis, for all his firepower, was dreadfully lacking in accuracy. Plainly put, Bob had no idea where the ball/puck would go after he thwacked it. It was like stepping up to the plate against Ryne Duren, the drunk, wild Yankee of the 1960s.

I don’t think I actually saw Davis’s stick hit the ball/puck, ever, because my eyes were always closed – even when I was a scattering-out-of-the-way shooter.

It was like being on the firing line. Here was the three-step process:

1. Davis winds up

2. I close my eyes – squeeze them shut, actually, cringing

3. A or B occurs

“A” was that the shot was off target, in which case you’d here the smack of the metal garage door being pummeled. “B” was that it was spot on, and it either hit you – and hurt you, despite the gear – or it went into the net.

I was deathly afraid of “B” and no goal.

We had one of those garage doors with the rectangular windows in it. Drive around any subdivision built after 1975 and if you find one, give me a holler and I’ll buy you lunch – after calling you a liar. Well, Davis broke many of those windows, and my mother knew it. She didn’t really seem to care. Perhaps it was a resigned feeling. Of course, Davis was almost bigger than her, too.

But Davis’s presence was great, because it provided an edge to the game. The unpredictability and instability of his slapshot was something to be feared. He was the North Korea of street hockey.

With all the shoveling to be done lately, I’ve been thinking a lot of those perfectly-snow-coated driveways. Today my aim is the cleanest driveway possible. But occasionally I get the urge to toss away the shovel and break out the broom.

“Hockey?”