JMS Hockey

Somebody sent me this note & pics after a recent (non-JMS) game: ___________________________________________________ So I was playing D, on the left side of the goalie crease, about 4 feet away, facing away from the blue line but at a 45 degree angle from the goalie line (so kinda facing the boards behind our net). I had just cleared the puck back up the boards (firing it behind our net and up the half boards to a wing). The next thing I know I am going down in a heap as a guy slides right in the back of my legs. He lost an edge and said he was sorry and asked if I was OK. His angle was pinning my left skate under him, for a second, before I went over backwards on top of him. I think the rivets must have popped and the heel tore when my skate got trapped with his weight on top of it. When I got up, my skate was wobbly but I just thought the laces had become loose. I skated over to the bench and tightened my laces and my skate felt OK, sort of. I noticed my skate was a little weird for the rest of the game but I never really looked at it again. When I was retrieving my bag at the end of the game, I was putting weight on the inside of my skate and that is when I felt it really buckle. When I took it off, well, you see the pictures. It’s the inside edge of my left skate. I still can’t believe I played the game like that and made it the whole game. It just shows how much I really don’t use my left foot when I skate. Oh, and I did score after my skate was broken. Craziest thing to happen to me playing hockey. Now I have to buy new skates!

I've had a few crazy things happen playing as well. I've been a goalie since I was about 8 years old. When I was about 13, my brother and I went down to the local park to skate. He would take shots on me. The very first shot this time out hit me square on the collar bone. Back in the mid-80's... goalie chest protectors were not much more than a baseball catcher wears today. Needless to say, there was no protection there. I skated around abit and shook it off (like any goalie does). I get back into the net and the very next shot, he hits my other collar bone!!! Needless to say, I was done after that! Another time I was playing in a game in HNA (Hockey North America) and someone took a slap shot. It hit the front of my goalie skate and the puck split into thirds... all three pieces ending up against the endboards on either side of the net. I played club hockey for Normandale and took a butt end of a stick through the eyehole of my cage and it caught me very close to my eye. I still have a black bruised looking mark from that one... which happened 20+ years ago! In another HNA game at the State Fair Coliseum, an opposing player was skating for the puck after it came out of his offensive zone. As he turned to grab the puck he caught a rut or something and broke both bones in his lower leg. By far the WORST thing I have experienced on the ice. In an AHA game several years ago on the SLP East rink, I dropped down to stop a blue line slap shot that was very low on the ice. Somehow my thigh board had come undone and I caught the puck directly on my right knee cap. Now I've gotten hit by pucks LOTS of times in the knee, thigh and other places, but this one took the cake. It was the only game I have never finished (except the one I was thrown out of ;-) ). I ended up fracturing my knee cap and was out for about a month or so. And lastly, 2 seasons ago I was subbing in an AHA B2 game and all of a sudden my right skate was collapsing after I made a save. In the wait for a faceoff I see that I lost most of the rivets out of the bottom so the back of my booth was coming out of the skate housing. Everytime I would lean forward, my right foot would give. So in between periods, a teammate gave me a skate lace and I tied everything together. Worked for the time being!!!!

Wow. Crazy stuff.. But the rivets can be replaced at a good skate shop. I know Strauss Skate and Cycle in Maplewood can fix just about anything skate related.

Alas, no. He took them to George's and their first words were: "Looks like you need new skates!"