Boston Globe Street Hockey Making a Comeback

[4ORRBRUIN]

Another hight light of my youth was the annual freezing of Smiths park on wester ave in Allston .

On any given weekend or weeknight you could skate all day all night in pick up games.

My god those where the days

 

[sarge88]

the best. we also did the roller thing often. a lot of times, me and a buddy would take on
10-15 kids from the street. skates for us, feet for them. developing those short area stick
skills by trying to beat 4-5 kids at a time was fun (most of the time, one of the little
bastards would end up getting the ball).

didn't play street for maybe 15 years before a trip to turks one spring, where a lot of
canadians (not dirty habs) would vacation. they had games every day (goalies would
show up after school - it was hot as f*** outside too).

after that, caught on with a street league in NYC for a while. great time, great talent
in there. even used my 2 piece stick from middle school because the 5v5 on a small
court was easier to maneuver with it. league still going strong, but too busy to do it.

I think I was the first kid in my city to have rollerblades.

I saved up for 6 months, birthdays , chores. Etc..

I really think I had them in the fall of 1982….I think they were a brand called Roces?

Not sure when they came out, but I was definitely the only kid I knew that had them That fall.

A few others had them the next spring.

 

[CharasLazyWrister]

Man the curves you could put on those banana blades!

Good call.

I remember my dad talking about how I should bend my blade. Within a week, he had to tell me to dial it back since I took his advice as just seeing how far I could bend it without breaking it.

 

[Babajingo]

No one I knew used the mylec pucks. Those sucked. It was either orange mylec ball or a dead tennis ball.

My South Shore town had a Saturday morning street hockey league. Played in the HS gym. Was a blast.
When i was in 7th grade I reffed the league. I believe I made enough to walk to the pizza house after, for a pizza and limitless PacMan or Defender or Joust.

 

[neelynugs]

I think I was the first kid in my city to have rollerblades.

I saved up for 6 months, birthdays , chores. Etc..

I really think I had them in the fall of 1982….I think they were a brand called Roces?

Not sure when they came out, but I was definitely the only kid I knew that had them That fall.

A few others had them the next spring.

they made rollerblades in 1982? damn. i would never have guessed that. i had quads
for a long time, think the first pair of blades i got was maybe 1991.

 

[Ludwig Fell Down]

I used to log so many hours in the driveway and around the neighborhood in rollerblades with a stick and ball. Had a lot of great co-ed neighborhood games where a bunch of kids came out regardless of ability. I'm now a father of three young girls and it seems unscheduled free time not in front of a screen is rather unusual these days. Too bad. Those were great times.

When my older daughter was in 5th grade, her and her neighborhood friends had a regular street hockey game in our driveway that went out to the road. It went out of style when they got to middle school, but that was a cool throwback winter.

 

[JOKER 192]

Had this Mylec mask during my street hockey days. I didn't like playing goal, but my best friend really liked Tony Esposito, so I lent it to him when we played

I had one very much like that , probably the same one. Of course I had to decorate it with markers (made a mess) .

If I had a dollar for every minute I spent playing hockey as a kid I would never have had to work a day of life, lol.

Recently some neighborhood kids were playing down the street. There were a few using plastic blades with almost nothing left. I had about twenty sticks in the garage that I no longer use so I took the lot of them down the street and gave them to the kids.

 

[jgatie]

they made rollerblades in 1982? damn. i would never have guessed that. i had quads
for a long time, think the first pair of blades i got was maybe 1991.

I remember when rollerblades were sold as the blades alone. You had to have them mounted to an old skate boot at your local skate shop. Same with Tuuk blades, they weren't sold on new skates, they had to be retrofitted.

 

[BTO]

Played all the time as kids. Every day after school in the Fall. One buddy would constantly skip Hebrew School and had like 135 absences or something one year .

Perhaps surprisingly, however, being in Canada, we played football more - every day, all day, all summer. Would go play, go home for lunch, go back after lunch and play. Then mid-aft a couple of kids would hop on their bikes and go grab pop for everyone, then we'd play until dinner. After dinner we'd play "cheese" (tackle hide and seek lol) in the ravines. We were outside all day, everyday. Not like now, alas.

 

[Si Hopkins]

The street hockey in Malden in the late 80's / early 90's was so good. It seemed like people played everywhere, all the time. Driveways, streets, tennis courts, basketball courts. That feeling of sweating in the cold air, going after the ball in a pile of leaves in the corner of my driveway when it's already too dark to keep going. But you always kept going. I remember 9AM games on Sunday mornings with a bunch of older guys cracking cans of Milwaukee's Best before the game even started. It also seemed hyper-localized. Like at that time you probably could have put together a league of six to eight teams just in Malden. Awesome times.

 

[neelynugs]

I remember when rollerblades were sold as the blades alone. You had to have them mounted to an old skate boot at your local skate shop. Same with Tuuk blades, they weren't sold on new skates, they had to be retrofitted.

we played in a very serious roller league during college. i felt like i was buying new wheels for my blades constantly - the rink had this asphalt surface that just wore out the wheels so quickly. wasn't great for the college budget.

 

[MustardStew]

Me too. Lots of hacking and whacking.

Mostly, though, I played in our basement and garage with my brothers.

Frequently played goal. My eldest brother Greg was happy to lift the tennis ball near my head, but (surprise) never played goal.

I was dubbed Madman Marcus, and with good reason.

I'm an eldest brother Greg, and I did the same thing yours did !

 

[Donnie Shulzhoffer]

I played street as a kid in Northern Vermont. Friends house who lived at end of a dead end street with plowed snow bank walls.

A lot of checking

 

[Therick67]

Had this Mylec mask during my street hockey days. I didn't like playing goal, but my best friend really liked Tony Esposito, so I lent it to him when we played

I had one and I used a black sharpie to put stitches on it like Cheevers mask..