An Australian at Toronto School Ice Hockey, 1969

From MemoryArchive

An Australian attends a School Hockey Final Toronto, Canada 1969

The Ice Hockey Fool

In 1969 (or thereabouts), the ice hockey final for the secondary schools of the province of Ontario, was played in the University of Toronto stadium. After all the schools in the province had participated, the final came down to a couple of very local teams, Western Tech (from near High Park) and the elite Humberside Collegiate (also from near High Park in the west of the city).

The stadium was packed, the schools had been granted a weekday holiday (serious business in sober, education conscious Canada). Traffic had delayed our arrival, and already goals had been scored. We gazed across at the jeering Tech boys. En route to the venue they had ‘collected’ from sundry public places, round toilet seats complete with their hinged covering lids. Each score or penalty induced a deafening clatter as the lads held high the apparatus and punched through the lid with a symbolically clenched fist - all quite unambiguously entertaining for the multitudes.

Nearby in our section of the steeply tiered grandstand, sat a lad whom everyone knew was head over heels in ‘lurv’ with a girl who was sitting, strategically, a row or two above and behind. One turned and craned neck, and you were looking up at the knees of patrons ranked above. So much so that craning your neck was considered a little infra dig, and as a rule, people made sure they gave no sign of ‘perving’. All except, on this occasion, the love-sick couple, who conspired to titillate one another while pretending that ‘nothing unusual is happening here’.

The problem with looking up your girlfriend’s skirt at a hockey final is that you have to turn away from the action, this in a game where, now and then, there is the original, the genuine Flying Puck.

Hits happen.

This one saw a whole hockey arena watch the missile rise above the plexiglass and head for the grandstand. Plenty of time for patrons to dive one way or another and avoid being struck.

So it was that not a single one of the thousands present, could be in any doubt as they saw a section of the crowd part, some to the right, others to the left. All except one soul who craned his neck and tried to interpret the look of consternation and horror on his beloved’s face. Too late! God struck the sinner above his heart, and the whole world roared its acclaim and acknowledgment, clearly they knew the biblical text...

“Be sure - your sins will find you out”!

Frank Hicks