"Car!"

[Blackbeard]

How many here used to do this? Have you seen many girls involved?

A few years back there was a bunch of kids which included some girls who used to set up right in front of my place every few nights for a large part of that summer.

I wonder how many of those girls either did play or went on to play hockey?

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilt...gain-1.4004816

[ne7minder]

Re: "Car!"

How many here used to do this? Have you seen many girls involved?

A few years back there was a bunch of kids which included some girls who used to set up right in front of my place every few nights for a large part of that summer.

I wonder how many of those girls either did play or went on to play hockey?

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilt...gain-1.4004816

Used to play in the alley behind my house all the time. I don't recall any girls getting involved. Interesting link, thanks!

[pgb-ohio]

Re: "Car!"

Good for Hamilton! Big part of my childhood.

To the gender point, girls were always welcome in our games, but only rarely participated.

The thread title is spot on. That's exactly what we yelled every time a car came. Each time we dutifully moved the nets out the way to let the car through. It was a relatively quiet neighborhood street, so we weren't interrupted all that often.

Years later I learned that my Grandmother rather disapproved of the practice. To my Mom's eternal credit, her response was "Lighten up, that's how things are done here." But my Grandmother remained convinced that the day would come when the proper authorities would put a stop to the criminal activity.

Well, there finally came a day came when the "Car!" was a police car. My Grandmother, watching out the front window, is reported to have said something like "It's a shame that the boys will be arrested, but justice must be served."

So what actually happened? The Officer gave a cheerful wave, and turned the corner to avoid disturbing the game. We cheerfully waved back, and resumed play.

Grandma was aghast. Her next reported comment was that our evil city had descended into lawlessness, if not utter depravity. And then something about the moral superiority of her small town.

Pretty juicy stuff. But my parents withheld that story from us for years. Until we were old enough to see the levity and not have hard feelings, I suppose.

I should make it clear that I loved my Grandmother dearly. But she was wrong about street hockey.

[pgb-ohio]

Re: "Car!"

Also -

Laughed out loud at the comment that street hockey "is healthy, free and gets kids off computers."

[thirdtime's . . .]

Re: "Car!"

I thought “Car!” might be another of those weirdo threads that sometimes, somehow find their way onto the forum. But “Blackbeard” was more than reassuring, so I opened it to find an instant classic: nostalgia, kids, family and culture wrapped into a few brief posts about this shout. Even now it’s ready for the forum hall of fame.

[pgb-ohio]

Re: "Car!"

When Blackbeard starts a thread, the win rate is pretty much 100%. A great contributor.

Now, as for the rest of you, let's hear some more street hockey stories!

[Blackbeard]

Re: "Car!"

Good for Hamilton! Big part of my childhood.

To the gender point, girls were always welcome in our games, but only rarely participated.

The thread title is spot on. That's exactly what we yelled every time a car came. Each time we dutifully moved the nets out the way to let the car through. It was a relatively quiet neighborhood street, so we weren't interrupted all that often.

Years later I learned that my Grandmother rather disapproved of the practice. To my Mom's eternal credit, her response was "Lighten up, that's how things are done here." But my Grandmother remained convinced that the day would come when the proper authorities would put a stop to the criminal activity.

Well, there finally came a day came when the "Car!" was a police car. My Grandmother, watching out the front window, is reported to have said something like "It's a shame that the boys will be arrested, but justice must be served."

So what actually happened? The Officer gave a cheerful wave, and turned the corner to avoid disturbing the game. We cheerfully waved back, and resumed play.

Grandma was aghast. Her next reported comment was that our evil city had descended into lawlessness, if not utter depravity. And then something about the moral superiority of her small town.

Pretty juicy stuff. But my parents withheld that story from us for years. Until we were old enough to see the levity and not have hard feelings, I suppose.

I should make it clear that I loved my Grandmother dearly. But she was wrong about street hockey.

Excellent post PGB. Thanks for sharing that great story.

When I read the headline in the article about Hamilton the “Car!” rang out in my head and I said it out loud as if I was on the street playing and I started laughing out loud wondering how many decades back my subconscious mind had to dig in order to instantly retrieve that, blow the dust off it and hand it to me? Ha. Then as I read the article I saw “Car” mentioned and laughed all the more.

I’ll return the favour with my recollection but not as good as yours.

Although I know we played street hockey I can’t recall a specific instance at the moment. Instead this has always been with me. We used to play ball hockey, as we called it, in the winter with one of those ubiquitous sponge balls from the ’60’s that was blue on one side, red on the other with a wide white stripe around the middle separating the red and blue. (Goalies had to be sharper because shooters had tremendous control with that ball…and I should mention no one had equipment other than sticks and the ball, that was it). There was a Safeway grocery store about a block from our place that had a single ground level loading dock on the side of the building near the back end. The dock was protected by two concrete pillars each about 8-10 inches in diameter and about 5 ft high that were wider than a hockey goal but still acceptable to us. As a bonus the “goal” had a single light bulb fixture hanging above it that shone a circle of light down on the goal and “crease” area…and it was always on at night 7 days a week!

About 25-30 yards away, across the parking lot, was the side of the Woolworth store that faced the same way as the Safeway store so that we didn’t have to go that far to retrieve errant passes or shots that bounced off of the Safeway wall since they would often bounce off the side of the Woolworth store and roll back toward us.

Endless hours of fun for years in 30-40 below temperatures always with play by play commentary on the go the whole time to increase the interest, intensity and excitement. I had a couple of friends who were great at this (one originally from England) who were always trying to emulate the iconic Foster Hewitt and Danny Gallivan and were very good at it. (For those not familiar, Hewitt (“he shoots, he scores!“) was the voice of the Toronto Maple Leafs and Gallivan was the voice of the Montreal Canadians…Hockey Night in Canada every Saturday night on tv for decades featured either a Toronto or Montreal home game (only 6 teams in the NHL back then, those were the days) with one of these guys doing the play by play…household names in Canada at the time).

And, of course, every game we played was one of the seven Stanley Cup Final games. It often took two or three nights of play to wrap up a Stanley Cup Series.

One of the benefits of this handy set up was that you only needed 2 guys to play…with the Safeway wall acting as a backstop for the forward it acted like a second forward in the corner sending the ball back to the shooter in the slot, more or less, with or without a bit of running. And you could switch off on playing goal and forward instantly since we had no equipment.

I remember my mother on more than one occasion coming to look for me around 10:00-11:00 at night and finding us at Safeway calling out, “get home, you’ve got school in the morning“. And on more than one of those occasions having to come back a second time which did nothing to improve her demeanour. She seemed to fail to appreciate the serious import of a Stanley Cup Series occurring so close to home where the price of admission always allowed us into the building.

Imagination is a powerful force.

Huge part of my childhood as well.

Ah…memories.

[pgb-ohio]

Re: "Car!"

I thought “Car!” might be another of those weirdo threads that sometimes, somehow find their way onto the forum. But “Blackbeard” was more than reassuring...

thirdtime's initial reaction may be widespread. Very hard to believe that on the entire Women's Hockey Forum only four of us have ever played street hockey.

Can the thread title be edited? I actually don't know the answer to that. For as long as I've been on USCHO, that's kind of ridiculous, I know...

But if edits are possible, may I suggest: "Car! The Street Hockey Thread" as an option?

[shelfit]

Re: "Car!"

thirdtime's initial reaction may be widespread. Very hard to believe that on the entire Women's Hockey Forum only four of us have ever played street hockey.

Can the thread title be edited? I actually don't know the answer to that. For as long as I've been on USCHO, that's kind of ridiculous, I know...

But if edits are possible, may I suggest: "Car! The Street Hockey Thread" as an option?

Thread title is fine. I understood it right away. Does that mean I'm old?!?!

[pgb-ohio]

Re: "Car!"

Thread title is fine.

As demonstrated by the tidal wave of replies?

I understood it right away. Does that mean I'm old?!?!

If so, that means I'm old too, having understood it right away.

IMO, this topic deserved a better response. That's really all I was getting at. Maybe some got deked by the thread title, maybe not. I've long assumed that most who post here grew up playing the game, and that street hockey was therefore a widely shared experience. Could be that's a bad assumption.

Or, maybe the fact some important D-1 games were played this weekend had an impact on the response.

I do question whether there's really a generation gap on this. In recent years our short street has had a group of kids playing street hockey for stretches of time. Next street over, same thing. Sometimes the kids are on Rollerblades; sometimes not. Now I wouldn't claim that level of activity is the norm on every block, but I don't think that street hockey is ultra-rare either. Also keep in mind that while hockey in Columbus is growing, no one's claiming we're a "hockey hotbed." Yet street hockey lives on here...

The generation gap I perceive is with respect to outdoor ice. Even in locales where decent outdoor ice is readily available, most of today's kids play on indoor ice a high percentage of the time. That's a shame on many levels. But that's also a different subject.

[clarksoncluck]

Re: "Car!"

Not quite a road hockey story but similar.

Here in Canada any kin of hockey is considered fun. Mini stick hockey, table hockey, floor hockey, quarters on a table hockey, ball hockey, hockey, hockey, hockey.......

Story revolves around 2 of my boys. They both just got back from junior hockey to finish up their high school year (2 months left in school year). They put in a team for the floor hockey tournament at the High School. They ended up playing in the finals against another stacked team. The other team had a set of twins know as the Robbies (Robertson's). Both were feisty kids and never backed down. The game was close and tempers rose as the other high schoolers cheered them on. My younger son and one of the Robbies antagonized each other throughout the game. Then push came to shove. The one Robbie jumped my younger son, my older son jumped in to protect the younger one, the other Robbie got involved, others got in on the scuffle. Eventually teachers pulled them apart. In the end my eldest son had a big goose egg on the top of his head, no one got kicked out of school, and the Robbies and my boys are still friends.

Just a good old hockey game. It defines us.

[thirdtime's . . .]

Re: "Car!"

Endless hours of fun for years in 30-40 below temperatures . . .

Imagination is a powerful force.

[Magicstew]

Re: "Car!"

Great topic, brings back great memories as a kid on the frozen prairies. Worst was when you yelled "car", you cleared the road and they run over your goal posts. We had lots of snow so was easy to replace.

[TonyTheTiger20]

Re: "Car!"

Bump

[Blackbeard]

Re: "Car!"

I've long assumed that most who post here grew up playing the game, and that street hockey was therefore a widely shared experience. Could be that's a bad assumption.

I know a guy who was the manager of a good female team (Peewee A1 I think it was) that his daughter played on for four years and then for the next four years for a very good female Midget AA team (US high school hockey would be the equivalent from what I've seen...high school hockey here is terrible) and his son even played one year with Jonathan Toews.

During those last four years I learned that he couldn't skate! Never learned. I was shocked...a Canadian guy who never learned to skate as a kid...now that's an anomaly. Here, that's kind of like a kid never learning how to ride a bike...it just doesn't compute. I just assumed. (Tremendous team manager though).

Maybe there are many here on this forum who are gaining the hockey experience vicariously...can't skate, never played, hence, a dearth of street/ball hockey stories.

We mostly played in winter on that snow packed Safeway parking lot that I mentioned or on small outdoor rinks, which was a bit tricky in boots, (the game slowed down somewhat but took on a different dimension) and if it wasn't in the Safeway parking lot after hours when all the vehicles had left then the goalposts, as Magicstew mentioned, were big chunks of hard snow. No "bar down" happenin' back then. We had no nets...nets? What were those? Don't think they were even made back then...what a luxury that would have been.

More stories would be welcomed...I've enjoyed those shared so far.