Hockey = $$$$$$



My Hockey Equipment (staged for a photo op)



To play hockey you need a lot of equipment, I mean a lot of equipment.  You also need an ice rink, preferably indoors.  I know a lot of people from previous generations would argue that you can play just as well on an outdoor rink, but I'm all for playing indoors, where there is heat, toilets and running water (call me pampered)!  To play hockey in a league, you also need refs (two, for the level I play at, 3, for the higher levels), and most importantly you need team mates who have also spent a great deal of money on their equipment.

Hockey requires a lot of equipment. 

Basically one is covered from head to toe. Besides ice skates and sticks, hockey players are usually equipped with an array of safety gear to lessen their risk of serious injury.  Most adult leagues have a strict "no contact" rule, but usually a great deal of contact occurs, usually accidentally, due to an inability to stop or turn.  This equipment usually includes a helmet (in my case with a cage), shoulder pads, elbow pads, gloves, padded pants, that are more like long shorts, a 'Jill' athletic protector (the female equivalent of a Jock), shin pads and a neck guard.  Covering all this are hockey socks (think leggings from Flash Dance) and a hockey jersey.

That's a lot of stuff.

When you first start out, you have 3 choices

• Buy new, top of the line, intended for NHL player, type of equipment.
• Buy inexpensive/cheap, (think Canadian Tire), intended to fall apart quickly, type of equipment
• Beg/borrow/steal used equipments from friends, family and pretty much anybody who will give you their used stuff.

I went the later route.  Though I have to admit, I did buy a new Jill (Jock), I mean, come on, there are some things you just don't share!  I also bought a new helmet, there was no way I was going to get someone else's cooties (see my previous point re. the Jill). 

I already had an old pair of hockey skates that my ex husband had bought on sale at Canadian Tire, some 12 years previously, while we were dating, so we could skate at Nathan Phillips Square.  They were used once,  (shows how successful that date was), then put away until resurrected for my hockey career.  I asked around and various people would offer up old bits of equipment from the caverns of their basements.

At the inception of my hockey career, I was dating John, my future husband (not to be confused with my first husband, Neil, of the unsuccessful skating date).  John's son Jamie, was playing competitive hockey and as a typical boy (who now at the age of 18 stands 6'3") had some equipment he had grown out of.   Many of the GTHL teams require team gloves, hockey pants and helmets, as well as the jersey and socks, so Jamie had quite the collection.

Jamie had just got his new gloves that he needed for his present team, thus he took his gloves from the year before and left them in the garage to practice shooting .... I got his old shooting gloves.



Kaitlin wearing Jamie's old gloves at the Not a Rehearsal Party

Jamie claimed they were "still good."

He would shoot a few hundred, yes that's correct, a few hundred pucks a night at a net his dad had set up in the garage from a sheet of plastic that was similar to ice.  It was hard work.

Teenage boys sweat a lot.

When I started to play hockey, I used the gloves you see above.  I would drive home after a practice or a game and be disgusted by a smell that I thought was emanating from my hockey bag.  I thought it must be especially pungent to be able to waft it's way out of the trunk.

I clearly remember the day, driving along the 401, when for some reason I smelt my hand.  Egad!  It is I who smelt like a dog's breakfast (in truth our dog's breakfast smell 100 times better).  I was imbued with the smell of eau du sweaty boy!  Only those of you who have lived with teen boys, can know how they simply go through a stinky stage and everything they touch takes on their ambiance. 

I bought new gloves the next day.

Since that day, I've purchased very little.  I'm old enough and wise enough to know that better equipment won't make me a better player.  I also live with two good hockey players who scoff at players of my ability buying $200 sticks, when they don't even have a decent wrist shot yet. 

I had originally intended to add up the cost of the equipment that I have, plus all the money I've spent on lessons and leagues.  Yet somehow it doesn't really matter.  It really becomes one of those MasterCard ads, when you itemize the cost of everything, yet the really joy of playing is priceless.

P.S.  The infamous gloves are now gone.  Jamie wanted to try to sell them at Play it Again Sports, but I was afraid of potential lawsuits for the spread of a noxious odour!

P.P.S. We're one month into Jamie's school year in University and he's still keeping his hockey equipment in his closet in his residence room.  There's a perfectly good locker downstairs that the residence provides, but he just hasn't managed to get around to it yet ...  I think he lacks the olfactory ability to detect Eau du sweaty boy