How To Play Roller Hockey, Circa 1949?
Way back in ancient history, at a time when kids had more street playtime and less structured activity, "Roller Hockey" was what many of us active young boys did on an afternoon in Brooklyn.
This was way, way back, before the Stanley Cup was anything a 12-year-old boy ever heard of, or cared about, and when professional hockey "on the ice" was not yet a regular televised event, and in fact when television was in its infancy. Way back then, in 1949, Roller Hockey was the name of our game. And it was a game of the street.
Simple Equipment
It was a primitive game that differed from modern versions because of the skates we used: roller skates that clamped onto our shoes. No shoe skates for us. If they existed, we never heard of them and, anyway, could not have afforded them even if we had.
We wore no uniforms, and chances are that we only had three or four guys on each team. We'd meet up after school on a chilly fall day in corduroy knickers, wool flannel shirts, plaid wool mackinaws, long woolen socks, and leather Thom McCanns, shoes with edges that roller skate grips could grasp and fasten onto by turning a special skate key in the clamps. (Boys being boys, the skate keys were constantly being lost.) And the lucky ones among us had the latest technology in roller skates: ball bearing wheels!
Sneakers, as tennis shoes were called then, were not yet daily garb for active youngsters in our circle, and our shoeless metal roller skates could not have clamped securely to such footwear. Air Jordans and their ilk had yet to be invented and, anyway, our metal roller skates (and their wearers) wouldn't have been impressed with them. Even canvas Keds were waiting somewhere in the future for most of us.
Risks of the Game
Very often, the skates would get loose and fall off if they weren't clamped tightly enough to the Thom McCann's. Heaven help the player whose skate fell off while racing with the puck toward the goal. Sprained ankles, bloody knees and ripped knickers were the rewards as the hapless hero limped home to face his angry parent.
But it was fun. And my Dad didn't have to get up at 4:30 AM to take me to organized hockey practice (which probably did not exist for most kids back in 1949). He wouldn't have done it anyway. Even if I had had the courage to try to wake him at that hour, he wouldn't have budged and I would have been in big trouble for disturbing him.
Dad's Attitude
Here is a sanitized version of how I think the dialogue would have gone at 4:30 AM:
ME: Dad, wake up. It's time for Hockey practice.
DAD: Grmmmph!
ME: Come on, Dad. We have to get going.
DAD: Whaddya want, Bobby?
ME: Hockey practice, Dad. It's getting late.
DAD: What time is it?
ME: Err…4:30.
DAD: 4:30!!!! @#$%&* You gotta be kidding. Go away. Get lost. NOW!!!
ME: Please, Dad. I need a ride to practice.
DAD: Snore!!!
Parents had very different attitudes about such things in those days than they do today. That's for sure.
How the Game Was Played
Our "arena" was an asphalt-paved street, with parked cars on either side, and where interruptions for "time-outs" to allow for motor traffic to pass were frequent enough to be annoying. We'd have skated there with our roller skates already clamped to our leather shoes, our skate keys hung around our necks on lanyards, long shoelaces, or string, and our pockets filled with chalk.
The chalk came out of pockets to draw goals and face-off circles in the middle of the street. Hockey sticks were wooden, and the puck could be anything from a tennis ball, a spaldeen, (tennis ball without a covering), an orange, or a chunk of rough-hewn wood.
Picture us, half a dozen boys, ages 11 to 13, standing in a circle in the middle of a busy street. On the count of three, everyone made a fist and pointed either one or two fingers into the center of the circle. Those with one finger extended were a team for that game, and those with two fingers extended were their opponents. If the teams were numerically unbalanced, some negotiation (with the lead negotiator being the biggest among us) usually resolved the team makeup. And the game was on!
Macho Goalie
The offensive strategy was to batter the defending goalie with hockey sticks from all sides to motivate him to abandon the goal and allow a score. I always ended up as the goalie. I wasn't fast or agile enough to play offense, but the goalie position was tailor made for me. I was good at it, and I was proud of the fact that I could take more pain than most of my teammates. In spite of the hammering blows descending on my head from opponent players, few pucks got past me for a score.
And when I came home at dusk, bloodied and black and blue, my eyes shone, my chest stuck out, and my voice reflected my pride in the fact that once again I had blocked the goals of the other team. And we had WON!!!.
