LOL!!! That is what I call sticking with it :-)

Maybe I had better change my avatar to this then:

ChrisL

oh I got cross checked in Ice Hockey and stitches in 1997 or 98 in the same spot I got hit before when I was 15 years old. But after that I was tough as Chris when playing Windows Exchange and gave the first check of the game and pushed out some girls from the net in front of Brian Valentine.

But you made it in ESPN before me.

It was the Microsoft Ronald McDonald's Charity Game, Windows 2000 vs MS Exchange we lost 9-7 because our goalkeeper was rubbish. Sara is a Canadian who was the only girl to play in the Men's League and is good, and we had another girl on our team maybe 2 since it was a requirement.

well I was born in Boston, and learned to skate at 6yrs in the cemetery fountain behind my house in Dedham MA, and had skated every year and use to dream of ice all over the streets so we could skate to school but that never happened. We use to flood the back yard and skate on that or skate in cemetery ponds, the outdoor swimming pool deep end use to freeze over with enough rain water to skate, and on the ponds when it was mid winter. Then when we got older we'd play at the new Rink but our games use to be as early as 5:00am. My school had one year of ice hockey then cancelled it!!! but it was resurrected about 1997 and I think it has a team now.

So if you grew up in somewhere that has cold weather all winter and the ponds freeze you would either akate all winter or ski. Depending on how high your hills are.

I loved ice hockey but went further in baseball since we lived in an american football town (NFL hall of fame Howie Long played for our school) and a baseball town that had the oldest American Legion program in the US.

It a bit difficult to play in London since the only rinks I know are small or going to close, Basingstoke has a nice full size rink but it's a bit far on a Sunday night.

How about the Broad Street Bullies?

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/multimedia/photo_gallery/0703/gallery.n...

I've got one knocked out front tooth not two from when we use to not wear mouth guards, but looked a bit like bobby for a few years..

ChrisL

Great photo Dez!

I grew up in a small country town called Manotick. I learned to skate at about the same time I learned to walk. When the Rideau river froze over my father would take me down to the river and we would spend countless hour skating and goofing around passing the puck.

I began playing in an organized hockey league when I was around ten years old.

When we weren't playing in a league my friends and I played street hockey in the summertime or in the wintertime we would get a game going somehow either at a local rink, or on a backyard rink, ...or go down to the river.

Read me now - believe me later...

BOSTON BRUINS RULE!!!

_________
Hiro

> I think if I were born Canadian, they would have thrown me out of the country for inept skating and hockey misfit.

We would have thrown Vince out for calling it "Ice" Hockey. It is just Hockey, dammit. The other one is "Field" Hockey. (And no self-respecting male would play it.)

the fine art of hockey machodom

Tweeeeeet! It ain't a "fine art": two minutes for mixing an inappropriate metaphor....

(Bruins ain't gonna do it this year, and unless they suck it up real fast, neither are my Canadiens!)

We would have thrown Vince out for calling it “Ice” Hockey. It is just Hockey, dammit. The other one is “Field” Hockey. (And no self-respecting male would play it.)

As someone who played field hockey on my high school team, I would take great exception to that sentiment. :-) Field hockey can be a brutal sport, by the way, as should be expected from any sport featuring men wielding sticks and solid plastic balls similar to billiard balls; I think I got more injuries playing field hockey than all the other sports combined. Then again, those were soccer and volleyball.

I enjoy watching both major forms of hockey (and variations like floor hockey, broomball, and bandy), but unlike most Koreans I never was much of a skater. My mother used to skate on the frozen streams near her home in the winter when she was growing up in Seoul, but nowadays you don't see that so much since the winters are warmer. In fact, this past winter was ridiculously wild, and the River Han didn't freeze at all for the first time in decades.

By the way, I think Korea might be one of the few countries where you really have to specify which code of hockey you're talking about, since both ice hockey and field hockey have a wide following (my high school in Korea, Kyungbok High School, is a big ice hockey school). I'm guessing that's the case in Japan, too, maybe Germany.

And no self-respecting male would play it.

Say it again, I dare you.

I had a friend in college who played on the field hockey team. I went to watch her play. Hey guys, that is one damn tough sport! Those women are serious and intent on kicking butt. My friend came home with shins that looked like shredded tree bark but she was happy--they won!

ChrisL

"Game time is 2:00p in the school yard"

Mart,
Not really the same thing but entertaining,
http://www.bemboszoo.com/Bembo.swf

Tim