I guess all of that talk about the 50th
birthday of the Kipling Arena made me pretty nostalgic. It welled up a lot of
memories of the past so you will have to endure one more column mostly
dedicated to the theme of the Kipling Arena.
Back
in the 1970’s there was an abundance of hockey players and not just in Kipling,
either. The Baby Boomers were coming of age and there were a lot of them. They
were everywhere.
There were so
many players back then that the younger minor hockey teams seldom had to leave
town to find competition as they had a four-team house league in most of the
age groups right here in town and they played against each other every Saturday
morning.
Every now and
then there would be a trip to a tournament or an “away game” somewhere and, to
me, a road trip back then to Odessa or Indian Head seemed like it lasted
forever for crying out loud and now we’re hiking eight and ten-year-old kids to
Carnduff in the middle of the week? Times have definitely changed and I am digressing.
In
addition to all of Kipling’s minor hockey teams there were the Kipling Royals senior
hockey team, the Pipestone Beavers Junior B Hockey Team who used the Kipling
Arena as their home base and there was a “fall-through-the-cracks” Senior “B”
team of guys who still loved to play the game but didn’t have the talent for
the Royals or didn’t want to commit the time required to play senior hockey, or
risk a job-ending injury in a body-contact league. The Senior B’s were a
precursor to today’s Rec Hockey Teams playing in the beer n sausage leagues.
After
I finished high school I played more than a few games with the Senior B’s
before joining the Royals for a few seasons but I didn’t get a chance to play
for the Pipestone Beavers. Like many of my peers I tried out for the team but
apparently the quota on string-bean right wingers with a soft backhand had been
filled. Three years in a row. Again, with the digressing.
In
2006 I helped organize a “Royals Reunion” and it was well attended and we had a
lot of fun reminiscing, and, like many of these events we vowed to have one
every five years or so. So far, we haven’t.
I
had many discussions with a lot of the old Pipestone Beaver alumni, too, many
of which are still in the area, and it turns out that they have never had a
reunion since the team disbanded after the 1976-77 season.
Many
of my close peer-group friends played with both the Royals and the Beavers and
we share many, many hockey stories every time we gather for an occasion. Since
the day I moved into Kipling Brian Gallagher had been one of my closest friends
and he was an excellent goaltender for both of those teams. Brian passed away
last June and as many of his old teammates and friends gathered to say goodbye
we lamented the fact that we don’t meet as often as we should or as often as
many of us would like. Again, the subject of a bigger reunion came up. This
time we aren’t putting it off.
So
we are going to have the First Ever Kipling Royals Pipestone Beavers Hockey
Teams Reunion on June 17th. There will be a golf tourney at Kingwood
Golf Course, a supper and hours and hours of reminiscing and lying to each
other about how good we used to be. A wobbly pop or two may be involved.
We
will be recruiting help and we will be calling as many of the old team members
as we can so if anyone would like to volunteer or pass on any names of
teammates past follow the contact information at the bottom of this article and
let me know.
“What can ever
equal the memory of being young together?” –Michael
Stein, In the Age Love.
No comments:
Post a Comment