WHY WE COME TO THE WORLD'S GREATEST HOCKEY TOURNAMENT

Life is good when you can skate into the beer tent.

I wrote those words for The Wall Street Journal after skating in the 2004 World Pond Hockey tournament. I returned last year and can’t wait to get back this year. And I’m not coming just for the beer tent. Honest.

I come to see the rinks shimmering under the night lights and the snowy pines ringing the lake. I come to eat the Frisbee-sized omelets and exquisite poutine at the Settlers Inn. I come to hear the public-address announcer exhort us to get our tickets to the Saturday night dance so we can "hobnob with the world’s greatest pond hockey players."

I come to see another game like the 2004 semifinal where the Boston Danglers scored with seconds left to beat the Frozen Four, 18-17. I come to sing "Roadhouse Blues" with the band at the dance. I come to see Greersky and Heather and Chris and Mike and all the other townsfolk who each year open their arms to hundreds of strangers who share the love of a simple game. I come to help those folks build a new indoor rink for their children.

I also come to see many an old hockey buddy. Listen to why they’ll be here this year,
"When you walk out onto the pond at 11 p.m. and the snow starts to fall, it brings me back to my younger days when I didn’t have to worry about anything but playing hockey," says Nick Carone, who played as a boy in Cheektowaga, N.Y., and now lives in Bethesda, Md. "I could skate with my friends all day and never get tired or have any other thought in my head."

Tony Gray, a three-year WPH veteran, says it’s possible that he comes back "to enjoy the pleasure of standing out in 40-below weather and risking frostbite for a beer slushy." But really he comes for "locking out the real world and skating like a kid again - of course minus the speed and stamina - and for hitting Friday night’s beer tent and catching up with acquaintances of years past. Hanging out with 400 guys from varied locations, backgrounds and careers, we realize we all have so much in common - the love of the game."

When Ron Blum steps onto the pond, it reminds him of playing in Michigan as a 12-year-old. "The snow would be falling and we would have to take shovel breaks to get the snow off the ice. A buddy, Sal, used to get bloody noses and we would make him discharge on center ice so we would have a nice face-off dot. There was a shack with heaters in it where we would put our skates on--just like the WPH beer tent except 100 times smaller and no Labatt."

Todd Chamberlain will fly all the way from Memphis, Tennessee. "I grew up in a small New England town some 40 years ago, and pond hockey was at the core of my love for the game. No refs, no boards, no 6-4 guy hooking and holding you, just skating to open ice, passing and making the great play."

This will be Frank Provenzano’s first WPH. "Listening to guys talk about it reminds me of growing up in the Sault, skating at Esposito Park in never-ending 'tournaments,' warming up in 'the shack' between games, and being able to skate home on the neighborhood streets if the sand trucks hadn't been around yet. I think these boyhood memories of the game are part of the reason all of us still haul our old bones around the ice."

Sean Sherman of Washington, D.C., says, "If you grew up in Massachusetts skating on the ponds, and you now live where the ponds don’t freeze, any time you can skate on a pond is great. Throw in a place where you can actually skate into a beer tent after a challenging game and it’s magical. The only place you can do that is Plaster Rock. Despite all the copycats and pretenders, this is the original and unmatched WORLD Pond Hockey championships."

Amen, my brothers.


By Bryan Gruley
Chicago, Illinois
Captain of the YANKS (Your Average No-Talent Knuckleheads from the South).