From the Bench
~ By Pastor Dave Solmes

I loved Saturdays. Not just because we didn’t have to go to school. It was hockey day. All day.

Bright and early Saturday morning my parents would take me over to the very nostalgic and very cold Harold Harvey arena. It always seemed to be a lot colder inside the rink than it was outside. This hockey palace was one of the many arenas in Kingston that hosted minor hockey.

I always resented having to get up so early on Saturday morning to play our games. I never quite understood why our team, who played such entertaining hockey, had to get to the rink at 7:30 a.m. I always felt that if we played a little later in the day more people would have come to see us. I imagined the bleachers filled and not just of the parents of the boys on my team. If we played a little later in the day people from all over the city would have been able to come. Other young kids could have watched us and learned how to skate, shoot, and play as a team. I felt that we were the best kept secret in minor sports. It never made any sense to me.

Despite their shiver our parents would bang the boards with skate guards and cheer us on to victory. After the game a parent would bring a tray of cups filled with Coke. There was always just enough for each of the players. It was the only day of the week that I ever really remember drinking Coke. We never had Coke in our refrigerator at home. I think what made it so radical was that the time we drank it. It was 9:00 a.m. and it didn’t seem to matter to all the parents that were crowded into our dressing room. For a young boy we thought it was the privilege of being a hockey player. It felt like our reward for playing so hard and providing such great entertainment for our parents.

The conversation as we drove home was not at all anti-climatic. Dad would congratulate me on any goals I scored and we would talk about the game.

My dad always said I played like Jean Beliveau. It amused me. For years I believed him and it empowered me. I was usually the one wearing the big “C” and so my imagination would run wild.

All Canadian boys that I grew up with wanted to play for the Montreal Canadians. As a young boy I always felt like I was tracking right on course and that some day my Saturday game would be on a Saturday night, and televised from some big city in North America.

Before we arrived home plans would be made where the next hockey game would be played, on the street or on the rink in my back yard. If we could play on the rink we would. Dad would always do his best to create a small rink in our back yard. It was my job to keep the snow shoveled off the ice. This back yard wasn’t big, but it was larger than life to us. Something magical would happen on those Saturday afternoons. It felt like my street name would change to St. Catherine Street (the name of the street that the Montreal Canadians home rink, The Forum, was on). With the sun shining brightly like flood lights that little patch of ice became our “Forum in Montreal”. We would stick handle around the big tree in the centre of the yard and then often lose our puck when we would slap shoot it into the snow banks created from shoveling the ice.

One of my fondest memories as a child took place after supper. Every Saturday night I had to take my bath. It was mandatory. Little boys who work so hard all day need to soak in a hot tub to relax their muscles and wash their hair after it had spent the morning in a helmet and an afternoon in a toque. My mom always said that Sunday morning church services go off a lot better if all the little boys have had their baths.

It wasn’t the bath that created the fond memory. It was the rewards that followed. Dressed in clean hockey flannel pajamas, wet hair, and smelling like an ivory soap bar I would sit on the floor in front of my parents, eat my snack, and watch Hockey Night in Canada. I knew that my parents attention was often divided. Even though my father would be preparing his final thoughts for Sunday morning service, and my mom would be ironing our church clothes, it felt like quality family time.

The Saturday night hockey game drew my undivided attention. With my pen and notebook I would record every goal, assist, shot, and penalty as if every newspaper across Canada and the United States was counting on me to share the statistics for the game.

During those most formative years I learned a few lessons about hockey and life.

Click on any of the LESSONS on the right side of the page to read more.