Table hockey, mike and Danny boy
HodgePodge by Charlie Hodge
Inseparable friends, bonded by a love for hockey.
The life-long connection between Danny Thiessen and Charlie Hodge cannot be described any simpler than that. Just put a hockey stick at the end of the sentence as an exclamation mark.
Danny and I first met in grade five while attending Central Elementary School. Danny was under the tutelage of Mr. Peters while I under the kind guidance of Mrs. Hare. Danny remembers our first introduction. “A couple of guys were bullying me in the school yard during recess and you came in and saved my butt, pulling them off of me,” he chuckles in recall. “You did the same thing for Rich Rumbley who was huge. We could never figure that out,” Danny snickered.
Perhaps Danny took less pucks to the head over the years than I did but as soon as he reminded me of that first day the memories flooded back. Once I befriended Rich and then Roger LeBoe we had our own little Central Elementary safety patrol team and bullying basically disappeared.
I’m not sure why I took on the role of protector because I was just about the smallest of kids my age. Perhaps because I had been bullied earlier and learned to stand up to it. Regardless helping others felt good and it was something I adopted as part of my persona. Regardless, in grade six Danny and I were in the same grade 6 class with Mr. Clark and that sealed the friendship. However, the sinch was hockey.
We lived and died for the game playing pond hockey and minor ice hockey. Mainly though we honed our skills playing road hockey day and night. When we could not find ice somewhere we were busy playing on Water Street, Knox Crescent, tennis courts, school grounds. If it was relatively smooth and would allow a tennis ball or a road hockey ball to be used on it – we were in.
Most road hockey games involved four- or five-man teams with home made nets and a goalie. Most goalies used old sears catalogues as pads though in later years some kids were lucky enough to get old pads and baseball gloves for catcher mitts.
In ice hockey Danny was a great little goalie but in road hockey he was close to a superstar forward. I was just a solid little stay at home defenceman on pavement or ice. I grin, now, thinking about other neighbourhood kids Danny I played road and ice hockey with: Doug Bromley was the Bobby Orr of our league, other players included Rick Bain, Rich Rumbley, Rob Gable, Ken Carter, ‘Big Red’, Rod Cooney, Rob Jeffries… We played till the sun went down and loved every moment of it.
However, even die-hard road hockey kids had to go home due to late hours or lousy weather – which is when Danny and I turned our passion to my table hockey set.
Sometime around age 11 my parents bought me a Coleco table hockey game for Christmas which I immediately embraced with passion. Problem was I had no one to play it with on a regular basis. Until I met Danny.
As best of friends we also discovered a strong competitive nature between the two of us. Danny’s need to win factor was and remains more ferocious than mine – yet has always been sporting. I can not begin to tabulate the thousands of hours we spent from age 11 to 16 on that hockey set. We had a league set up with teams we would draft, uniforms we would create and paint on the metallic men, and scoring statistics kept.
We’d have spent even more time on the hockey set except that at 14 -17 I wound up as first the stick boy and later trainer with the local junior A hockey team Kelowna Buckaroos. Danny joined halfway through the first year as statistician.
Life could not have been grander for a boy in Kelowna, especially since I had keys to the rink.
However constant change is here to stay and such with Danny and I. Around grade 11 and 12 Danny chased God and I chased girls.
Danny went to bible school in Saskatchewan for three years, discovered he could play guitar and sing, then went on tour for two years as a singer flaunting his five albums.
I went into journalism.
Jump ahead 40 years.
Danny bumps through his world and I bumped through mine – both returning to Kelowna.
In a column last year, I mentioned table hockey and another old classmate Michael Oneil read it and made contact.
Turns out Mike, a skilled wood craftsman and kitchen cabinet installer by trade, had started a hobby of building custom-made super-duper table hockey games back in 1984. He produced five and then quit for several years. His creative interests returned though and since 2010 Mike has been building custom table for many folks and has now completed 19.
They are truly a masterpiece of craftsmanship and show off the many and various skills Mike possesses. He has hand crafted every player on his games and builds impressive arenas for the table set. “I have always been a bit of a different guy, and it shows in my tables,” Mike chuckles.
I visited Mikes house and for the first time in forty years or so played a few games on his amazing creations.
Last week I took part in a fun filled table hockey tournament at Mike’s place involving 20 guys and around eight tables. The Tamarack Set Hockey championship was a great event. I had to leave early but was happy with my two-win two-loss record.
Another guy at the event did well also. Danny Thiessen was tournament rookie champion with two wins and one loss.
