Edmonton Sun - SLAM!SPORTS
Pond Hockey Extraordinaire by Richard Wright
Returning to the roots of the game brings everyone together for a weekend celebration of hockey in its purest form.
George Mackenzie didn’t have any reason to be there other than the love of the game and to rekindle some terrific memories of frostbitten toes and banged-up knees.
The 78-year-old Peace Country resident wasn’t a participant, didn’t have a single relative out on the ice, but for a man who 70 years ago honed his skills on the area’s rickety outdoor rinks with barely a piece of legit equipment to call his own, the 2008 Alberta Pond Hockey Championships last weekend on Lac Cardinal just outside Peace River might as well have been the Stanley Cup finals.
“I can remember using Eaton’s catalogues for shin pads and outdoor rinks where you had to shovel the rink before you played games,” said Mackenzie from the warm confines of the event’s main tent, where the smell of boiling hot dogs and brewing hot chocolate permeated over an excited crowd of hundreds.
“The bank of snow would be so high that outside the fence all the people could stand up there and watch the game.”
Memory lane
Talk about a trip down memory lane. Mackenzie was one of close to 1,000 people who enjoyed the Family Day weekend playing, or simply watching, a form of hockey almost every Canadian can relate to. Well before indoor rinks with heated lobbies and concession stand rife with choices, pioneers of the game we have grown to worship toiled on ponds, lakes, rivers or crudely-crafted outdoor community rinks where ice-cleaning machines would have been a luxury saved for a futuristic Orson Welles novel.
Even today, those same rivers and ponds offer a new generation of hockey fans a place to play. Outdoor hockey will never go away as long as there is weather cold enough to freeze water.
On Lac Cardinal, organizers of the event did their best to keep with tradition. The 13 rinks carved out of the lake, in perfectly aligned blocks, were half the size of a regulation ice surface and had only two feet of snow piled along the sides and ends to stop pucks from flying into the next field of play. The only modern convenience, other than a giant tent, which wasn’t really needed thanks to unseasonably mild weather, were two local Zamboni crews that worked feverishly to clear the ice in time for the next game.
Everyone enjoyed themselves. That was clearly evident from quickly offered smiles that were flashed everywhere despite being slightly over shadowed by runny noses and pink cheeks.
“What a blast!” said Celine Doyle, a 53-year-old mother of four, who along with her brother Reale Sasseville, husband Ed, son David and daughter Joanne, made up the Pita Pit Puckheads, team based out of Grande Prairie.
“This has been the best weekend - great people, wonderful weather, a fantastic organization and everybody is so friendly. This is all about the spirit of the game.”
For the Doyles, the spirit of the game may be what attracted them to Lac Cardinal, but it was more about being able to spend time with family that brought them together again.
Celine and Ed, once longtime residents of the Peace Country, now live in Crowsnest Pass. Their grown children are spread out from Grande Prairie to Calgary.
“We have always been a hockey family,” said Celine. “So when David e-mailed us, what we first said was, ‘Are you crazy? We are too old. If you plan on winning any games you’ve got the wrong people.’ But then after a while my husband and I were sitting there and he looked over at me and asked, ‘What are you thinking?’ I said, ‘Pond hockey.’ He looked at me and said, ‘Pond hockey.’
“So we phoned David and said, ‘We’re in.’”
The Puck Heads did win a game. In fact, they won five, losing a tight contest in the first playoff round to go home with a 5-and-3 record.
“And we are happy with that,” said Celine. “David said he wanted to win at least two games.”
64 teams involved
In all, 64 teams from Okotoks to Hay River turned out for the championships, which, now in its second year, is purely a Peace River-area effort.
In the end, the hometown, and defending champions, Doug Marshall Chevies were ousted from their perch in the semifinals a new champion crowned when the Grimshaw Mullen Oilfield team took out Team Tylenol from Peace River 23-15.
John Haney, vice president of the Alberta Pond Hockey Championships, couldn’t have been more pleased with the way things unfolded and announced plans to make it even bigger next year.
“I think we are going to grow the event to 80 or 88 teams,” he said. “What we really want to do is increase the proportional representation from throughout the province. This year we had a new champion,” he added, noting that parity is a good thing. “That’s a part of what attracts people - to see change and also to be challenged.”
As a result of their win Team Mullen Oilfield now qualifies for the world pond hockey championships in Plaster Rock, N.B., next February.
Peace River Record-Gazette
(Editorial Excerpt) Tuesday, February 20, 2007
We came out with some bumps, bruises and chipped teeth but it was all worth it. The Record-Gazette’s Hookers and Slashers were the only all-girl team to take the ice last weekend for the Alberta Pond Hockey Championships and we proved we could keep up with the guys.
Thanks to the Town of Peace River team, the Hookers and Slashers didn’t go winless. In all, organizers deserve a big hand for pulling off a top-notch event. Kudos to John Haney, Gord Drummond, Jennifer Thietke and James Bazan-Lindsay and the countless volunteers that shoveled snow, cleared the ice, served coffee and other warming brews, sold 50/50 tickets and the many sponsors that made it all a reality.
Teams that travelled from far were impressed with the event and the hospitality of the Peace. The Peace Region continutes to set the bar high and exceed expectations with regional events that draw crowds from across the province.
We have no doubt that Pond Hockey will continue to flourish in the Peace Region with double the teams flocking to beautiful Lac Cardinal next year…
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