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#18   Hockey Star

4/2/2022

2 Comments

 
 I read this story to my grandchildren and felt like a hero all over again...such fun!

Enjoyed the Jets game. They don't have to win as long as Ehlers is playing......... 

​Another story......

******
 
I remember the first time I put skates on. We were visiting family friends who had a rink in their back yard and they lent me a pair of skates.
 
They fit the skates, laced them and put me on the ice and I just started to run across the frozen smooth surface before me. I ran and fell, got up and ran again. It must have been the funniest thing to see my skating frenzy because they were just standing and laughing. I didn’t care – I was running, gliding and falling in complete abandonment. And that’s where I first discovered my joy of skating.
 
Not sure where my parents always found the money but I remember always having a pair of skates after that which was considered as important to a prairie boy as a pair of rubber boots.
 
In school when I started skating with the others students, I found out that not only was I as good as skater as they were but I was faster.  I was a Nikolaj Ehlers, the fastest hocky player in the game today. Even when Ehlers coasts, he still seems to be zooming past the other players.  
 
Because of my eyesight, I’m not sure I contributed that much because I wasn’t able to focus on a moving puck – but I sure looked good on the ice.
 
So for me the ice path to the school rink was my quick getaway to freedom during the school recess breaks. Whether it was playing hockey or skating for fun – I was on that ice. And I practiced all the moves. I skated backwards with the same ease as forwards. I had edge control, cross overs, turning on a time, stopping on a dime. I had quick feet. I could do it all.
 
Eventually my father even built a rink for the four of us at home, which we enjoyed immensely - perfect ice rink lined with hay bales.  We actually had our own “poor man’s” puck made of frozen horse shit.
 
Even though I never saw my father skate he did champion our skating efforts and anything that looked like hockey. I actually got to play hockey with our community’s high school hockey team. Here we were rubbing shoulders with non-MB folk in the Borden Langham and Dalmeny tournaments. He actually supported this and helped me with equipment etc. Brought me to all the games!
 
I joined the Borden team. We won some; we lost some, but we were always competitive.
 
I’ll never forget the playoffs, playing on the outdoor rink after dark. It was mask shift but it worked. For lighting we had a string of  lights strung across the center and blue light  - strung so low you could touch them with a stick if you wanted to - swaying in the wind while you played.
 
One particular last play off game the weather turned warm on us.
The guys were checking all day if weather would permit. Would the ice be crisp enough – or too soft ice? It was probably too warm, but in the end, we decided to play anyway.
 
Unfortunately, it continued to warm even as we played. The ice started to rut – and there was slush everywhere. We were basically running on  our skates rather than skating  which suited me. I didn’t mind the running, but this also meant that when we were pushing the puck along, we were pushing slush as well.
 
Everything was wet. We were wet.
 
But we were doing well.
 
It was the third period, I was playing left wing, and our team was carrying the puck when someone passed it to me.
 
I made it over the blue line skating fast. Then when I was up against a defiance man blocking me, I thought I would shoot it into end zone and fight for it there again.
 
So I took a shot, actually shovelled that tiny puck up out of the slush – with all of the slush flying, everywhere. The puck went higher than the lights into the dark night,
 
When it went out of sight, everyone paused, sky gazing – no one could see it. Neither could I. Suspense. We had a lot of spectators that night, all of them were silent, waiting.
 
Even the goalie just stood there then before he could even react.
it came down right beside him and slid into the net for a goal 
 
We won the game The tournament
 
I was the hero!
 
More divine intervention then skill – but I took it all. 
 
To this day – hockey can take my breath away.

You miss 100% of the shots
you don’t take.” 
​
- Wayne Gretzky

2 Comments
Sharon yarowy
4/3/2022 07:12:36 am

Amazing story what a time that must have been.

Reply
Richard Hyslop
4/3/2022 11:07:42 am

I watched Nicholas Ehlers play his last hockey game in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League in the spring of 2015. He was 19 years old and obviously the best player on the Halifax Moosebead. He was dejected when the Moncton Wildcats scored in overtime and eliminated his team from the second round of the playoffs. The Wildcats were led by diminutive Connor Garland, who was league scoring champion that year. My supervisor at work is no taller than me, same age as me, but still playing in a local men's beer league at age 56. At age 40, he quarterbacked Moncton's flag football team to a national championship. We both agree Connor Garland, now a member of the Vancouver Canucks, could have been as good as Theoron Fluery had he been coached by James Graham and properly filled with the anger and hate James Graham instilled in Fluery. Another talented forward on that 2014-2015 edition of the Moncton Wildcats, eliminated in four straight by the powerful Quebec Remparts in the semifinals, was Ivan Barbashev, a Russian and now a member of the St. Louis Blues But the kid I will never forget was Zachary Macewan. He was 18 years old and captain of the Amherst Ramblers of the Maritime Junior Hockey League, a league beneath major junior hockey. Zachary got called up for a few games that season. After his MJHL season ended, he joined the Wildcats, as an extra, someone who practiced with the team, but never played. I saw Zachary sitting in the stands, with his father, a resident of Charlottetown and provincial government employee, a tall fit man, same age as me. I got to know Zachary's father a little when we traveled together on the Wildcats team bus, which had been loaned to the booster fan club since the owner of the team flew his team to Quebec in his private corporate jet. Mr. Macedon knew his son was the only parent on the fan bus, and knew his son was not going to be allowed to play in Quebec. He was a quiet man who said he wasn't that interested in hockey and that neither he nor his wife had ever spoken with anyone within the Wildcats organization, telling their son major Junior hockey was professional hockey, a job, and if he wanted a job in that industry then he needed to get that job entirely on his own, without his parents talking to a prospective employer on his behalf. Mr. Macewan told me Zachary's mother was secretly making a scrapbook for their son, which they intended to give him in two years, the conclusion of his competive hockey career. Zachary is now a member of the Vancouver Canucks. Zachary's father, same age as me, tall and fit, got cancer after I met him and is now dead. Hey, life is funny. You just never know when the unexpected might happen. You might score a fluke goal and win a championship. You might also slip while walking down Portage Avenue, stumble into traffic, be struck by a car and killed. As I tell all my switch partners: Have fun, but play safe.

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