There is a poetic danger in hockey players aren’t feeling in the culture of safety today.
The following is an excerpt from Peter Lasalle’s book Hockey Sur Glace.
“The clubhouse of the Winter Club in Lake Forest is American Tudor with at least a half-dozen gables. The shingled sides are green and the crisscrossing beams were probably once bright buff. But the buff has turned to tan under a coating of the thick soot that blows down from the factories in Waukegan. This particular Saturday morning in 1972, fat flakes fluttered like moths and every once in a while the sun appeared in between moving clouds. Chicago lawyer John Fontaine— he had been starting right defenseman for the Harvard team in 1957 and 1958—slammed the black lid of the battered white Volvo wagon. He wore his shin pads underneath the sweatpants. He had bound them tight with hospital tape in the living room while his wife said what she always said: “I don’t know why you put yourself through it. I’m only going to have to listen to you moan about your knees for the rest of the weekend.” She kissed him on the top of the head. “You’re like a kid.” His stick was a stock Northland “Pro” with a five lie for a right-hander. It was new and one of the four he had bought from the remaining supply in the sports shop on LaSalle Street. The salesman told him that Northland had discontinued the straight blade in its top “pro” line and the company now turned out only banana curves. They had come into fashion long after John had stopped playing regularly. The ruddy-faced German attendant, Max, was behind the equipment counter at the club, smiling his usual toothy grin. The dressing room wa s long corridor with benches, and framed photographs of old curling teams formed a string like boxcars along each glossily painted wall. Some of the brown-and-white group shots dated back to the twenties and before. The men in heavy coats wore matching tams for the poses and had lined up in front of the same clubhouse. The white script below listed the squad and year of each: “LFWC 1922,” “LFWC 1923”. Dozens of them. At the far end of the bench, Ed Ridley laced on his scuffed skates. He seemed to sew the brass tips of the broad, dirty laces through the holes. Half finished, he stretched out one leg and with a grimace he tugged on the two taut strands, as if yanking the reins on a runaway horse. He was only a year or so older than John, but without his hair he looked maybe ten years older. He wore an old Brown University uniform jersey made of wool. The chocolate color had faded and the red stripes at the biceps were sewn-on satin and equally dull. Big moth holes sparred the back. They stretched even bigger as he leaned his overweight body down to continue lacing. John dropped his canvas bag and sat down beside him. “I keep telling you,” John said, “that sweater dates you, Ed. You’ re as bad as I am with my antique Northlands. I think I’ve bought out the last of the straight blades in Midwestern captivity. I can’t get used to the curves.” Ed didn’t seem interested in such talk about equipment....”