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Post by The Rocketmen on Nov 10, 2014 13:31:40 GMT -5
I started to think about what it was like to grow up in such a small town with a brother, and wondered what others' experiences were in regards to possible siblings, or what it was like being an only child and if you think things would have been different if your situation was reversed.
For instance, I have many great and equally shitty moments with my brother growing up, and I think both have defined me incredibly, but I wonder what kind of personality I would have had if I didn't grow up as an older brother, or even if I was the youngest. Strange things like that.
One weird memory I have (bad) is playing basketball at the school after hours. They just built this great, new court and I went there with him and a few of his friends. We got paired off on separate teams (fine, this never really bothered us) and I was not too shabby at basketball.
That year, I was trying out for the basketball team (this is grade 8, btw) and was supposed to make the team until a kid that was going to get cut told the gym teacher that I was just there to practice and never wanted to actually be on the team. Gym teacher yelled at me for being there, and in a skins vs. shirts game (I was always a bit chubby growing up) I was put on the skins team with the rest of the heavier set kids in the class. The teacher and the other team proceeded to ridicule us for the duration of the game, then immediately cut me and two other kids. Was an incredibly hard moment to overcome. I think I stood in the shower at the school for a half hour waiting out everyone else to leave before going home. I just wanted to be alone.
Now, I'm playing basketball at the school the next day with my bro and his friends. During one play, I stumbled a bit, but retrieved the ball and tossed it up and hit the rim. While jogging back to the other end, my brother is heckling me saying that I "run like a faggot. Hey everyone, look at the way this faggot runs."
I was hurt. I didn't even finish the game, I just walked off. I know he was just being a kid, but it hurt a lot more than it otherwise would have because of who he is to me.
In this situation, I wonder what would have happened if he was a "friend" heckling me, and how I could have avoided him as I got over it. Instead, I go back to the house he will also return to and have to engage him just an hour later and for the next few days and whatnot.
Anyone else have any weird stories about being a sibling or single child and how that may have affected you growing up?
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Post by The Sandmen on Nov 10, 2014 13:42:58 GMT -5
As an only-child, I have a trillion "weird" stories, haha.
When my friends weren't around to play street hockey, I didn't have any siblings to coerce into playing, so I had 1 of 3 options. My dad was borderline-disabled, because he worked long hours standing on a cement floor and his feet would kill him daily. My mom was my mom. Who plays hockey with their mom? Or, I could play by myself.
This is simple enough if I wanted to just shoot on my net. I did that a lot. Imagining Bure was passing to Mogilny for a great play, etc. But my problem came in that I liked playing goalie. So, while there were times my dad was able to come out and take shots on me, it was kinda rare. I was happy to have SOMEONE to shoot on me, so I did ask my mom to take shots on me, and she often did. It was a little embarrassing being seen playing road hockey with your mother shooting on you, and a little annoying when your mother scored on you, but it was better than nothing.
And then there were the times when my mom would not play hockey with me, and my dad would not play hockey with me, and no one was around, and I wanted to play goalie. So I literally took shots on myself.
I would get the equipment on, and sort of reverse-poke-check the ball at myself, which made it come at me in unpredictable ways, and I would try to save it. It was kinda boring, but I think in the long run, it developed my reflexes (especially glove hand) on short-range shots with limited reaction time.
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Post by The Rocketmen on Nov 10, 2014 13:48:47 GMT -5
lol that is the weirdest way I've ever heard anyone say they taught themselves how to play in net. I remember picking up a Mr. Siv goaltender, which is basically just a plastic cutout of a goalie you could chain to your hockey net and take shots on. It sort of annoyed me though because it didn't move, you were basically just shooting at the same spots over and over again, which can help your accuracy, but then you play hockey and you expect the goalie to be in the same spot so you shoot for your "pockets on Mr. Siv" only for the goalie to move. And your brain yells at you "he's cheating!" lol
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Post by The Sandmen on Nov 10, 2014 13:56:26 GMT -5
lol that is the weirdest way I've ever heard anyone say they taught themselves how to play in net. Oh, you get me wrong dude, this was long after I knew how to play net. This would have been like, 2-4+ years into my ice hockey career, lol. I remember picking up a Mr. Siv goaltender, which is basically just a plastic cutout of a goalie you could chain to your hockey net and take shots on. It sort of annoyed me though because it didn't move, you were basically just shooting at the same spots over and over again, which can help your accuracy, but then you play hockey and you expect the goalie to be in the same spot so you shoot for your "pockets on Mr. Siv" only for the goalie to move. And your brain yells at you "he's cheating!" lol Hahaha. I had one of those plastic dudes, but I didn't like just target shooting, so I got bored of tying him to the net pretty fast. I then invented this elaborate set-up with a tiny picnic table top, a bucket, and a recycling bin where I set him up "free-standing" out a couple feet from the net. This rocked because: 1) This cut down the angle, so it made it less lame for me - no goalie stands on the goal line!!! 2) if you shot it at the bucket, the ball would bounce out unpredictably so you could get "rebound goals", 3) I could shoot the ball off my house and receive it as a "pass across", with an open side to shoot at, 4) I could move him a bit to one side and actually work on running in and trying to snipe a top corner goal on a breakaway with a goalie cutting down the angle, and 5) I could deke and pretend i was deking out the goalie to score on a hard-earned open angle. |
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Post by The Rocketmen on Nov 10, 2014 14:00:41 GMT -5
That's actually pretty smart. My brother and I used the siv as a goalie, and then would strap on our roller skates. We got some industrial brooms to sweep the road from the rocks and dirt, fucking sparkly clean that asphalt, then pointed out a line on the curb that would act as "half ice." Then, we would play one on one and if you could get the ball past that line, you were now on the offensive and the other one had to play defense. It's not easy moving around as agile as you can on ice, but it helped teach us to protect the puck a lot more. It also trained us on wrap arounds where you only have like 5 inches to work with on either side and swinging around on roller blades led to a lot of falling.
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Post by The Sandmen on Nov 10, 2014 17:00:02 GMT -5
I did that sometimes with friends (obviously I would be all kinds of special if I did that solo, haha), but mostly we just had 1 or 2 people taking shots on whoever was goalie. Our road was TERRIBLE for rocks and bumpiness, so unless you had REALLY good roller blades, not worth the effort. I also found backtracking and overskating the ball a problem, so I always liked playing on feet.
When we were like, 14 my friend Jeff and I played with this 18 year old guy. Me or Jeff would go net, the 18 year old would try to score, and whichever one of us was not the goalie would play defence. Those could be fun. I really liked trying to set up plays with Jeff on the 19 year old cause he was pretty good but he was also big in that tiny net, so it was a challenge. You really had to work passing and positions, rather than just sniping it through him type deal.
More recently, I play with a different pair of friends, and I mostly enjoy being goalie and playing hog, where last person to touch the ball before it goes in gets the goal. I love scrambles and chaos, so lots of fun is had during those times. Plus, we are big, old guys so when there are snowbanks, the body contact gets high.
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Post by xx - Team GAP on Nov 10, 2014 21:00:07 GMT -5
my Brother and I played hockey in our driveway with our garage door behind the net. most of the driveway was gravel. so when the shooter (usually my brother) would take shots I would get a faceful of rocks. but we made up our own game of goalie vs shooter. (which I taught to Kruzer a few years again)
the game goes like this. (the shooter can continue to shoot if he scores it's a point for him. if the goalie can cover the puck or clear the puck past a certain line then the goalie gets a point.
We had some good games in the past.
Now if we are not just talking hockey stories...
I liked to eat wagon wheels.. but i would take out the marshmellow first, eat the cookie then eat the marshmellow. my brother slapped my hand one time so the marshmellow on my hand came up and hit me in the face. I said to my brother "bet you can't do that again" and i held out another marshmellow wagon wheel in my hand again this time bracing my arm so he couldn't slap my hand. My brother grabbed the back of my head and moved my face into the marshmellow.
This story taught me to think outside the box and try to be smarter than my brother.
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Post by The Sandmen on Nov 10, 2014 22:24:12 GMT -5
my Brother and I played hockey in our driveway with our garage door behind the net. most of the driveway was gravel. so when the shooter (usually my brother) would take shots I would get a faceful of rocks. but we made up our own game of goalie vs shooter. (which I taught to Kruzer a few years again) the game goes like this. (the shooter can continue to shoot if he scores it's a point for him. if the goalie can cover the puck or clear the puck past a certain line then the goalie gets a point. We had some good games in the past. My newer hockey posse sometimes play a similar game, but it's if the goalie saves the ball, he gets a goal, if the shooters (working together) score, they get a goal. It's really challenging. As for the rest of that post, I didn't have a brother or sibling to mush my face into marshmallows. I did have a cousin who lives with us for a while who was a bouncer and would come home in other people's blood on occasion. He also owned a ferret, which lived in our basement whom I loved  . |
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Post by xx - Team GAP on Nov 10, 2014 23:35:40 GMT -5
i could mush marshmallow in your face if your feeling left out.
the way we played the hockey game... it made it difficult for both sides... cause a save is easy but having to cover the puck is more difficult.
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Post by The Sandmen on Nov 11, 2014 0:15:21 GMT -5
i could mush marshmallow in your face if your feeling left out. Rude and uncalled for. the way we played the hockey game... it made it difficult for both sides... cause a save is easy but having to cover the puck is more difficult Ohhhh, I beg to differ. You take 2 guys who know they MUST score when they shoot and they only shoot when they are certain they will score. The players have everything to lose by shooting. The pressure is on them to make every single shot count. And when that pressure is on, saves are NOT easy. |
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Post by xx - Team GAP on Nov 11, 2014 5:52:10 GMT -5
i could mush marshmallow in your face if your feeling left out. Rude and uncalled for. the way we played the hockey game... it made it difficult for both sides... cause a save is easy but having to cover the puck is more difficult Ohhhh, I beg to differ. You take 2 guys who know they MUST score when they shoot and they only shoot when they are certain they will score. The players have everything to lose by shooting. The pressure is on them to make every single shot count. And when that pressure is on, saves are NOT easy. 1)It was not rude. I was trying to help your feeling of being left out. 2)As a goalie I like to be blistered with shots.. it makes you not want to give up rebounds. It keeps you moving. 3)Your way I could see two or more guys passing around a bunch and deke deke deke pass around a bunch.. just to tire out the goalie or to wait for a moment to shoot. it's more action for the shooters.. But the goalies want action too. 4)we would play up top 10 points then break. If the score is 9-9 then it's considered to be sudden death overtime. 5)I played my version of the game with Kruzer and his family... I was the goalie, kruzers family was the shooters.. it was a great fun game.. we played to overtime. I won. |
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Post by The Rocketmen on Nov 11, 2014 6:52:21 GMT -5
I think he was being sarcastic.
I miss the old days when you pulled a net onto the road and every kid within a one mile radius knew it was go time.
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Post by xx - Team GAP on Nov 11, 2014 9:09:40 GMT -5
I think he was being sarcastic. I miss the old days when you pulled a net onto the road and every kid within a one mile radius knew it was go time. oh. and yes I remember and miss old fashioned street hockey.. |
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Post by The Sandmen on Nov 11, 2014 13:20:23 GMT -5
When I was a kid, there weren't that many kids in the area that would play. Mainly just my posse of 3. Later, though, when I was an old man of about 22, more kids moved into the neighbourhood and they played with a couple older guys as well, so I joined them. More like that atmosphere you mentioned, of "out comes the net, guess this is happening now" and everyone comes out to join in. Good fun.
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Post by The Rocketmen on Nov 11, 2014 13:30:19 GMT -5
My grandparents used to own a campground and turned one of the campsites into a nice green-grassed section for us to play on - no gravel to get hit with outside of the odd twig that might get caught in the crosshairs. Was a blast. We'd start playing and have extra sticks for other people at the campground to join in if they'd like. Then in winter, my grandfather snowblowed the lake to make a rink. Fun times were had by all.
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