Visiting Table Top Hockey Heaven

Halfway through the second period of last week’s Allen Americans game, a bunch of players got tangled up in the offensive corner. As I watched them push and kick and whack at the puck (and each other), a smile came to my face.

I was imagining a long metal rod protruding from behind the goal and a 12 year-old boy working that pole to free the puck from the corner. Another 12 year-old is pushing a metal rod at the other end of the ice trying to steal it back. Meanwhile, the players are just spinning in circles.

Despite the exciting game on the ice, my mind had wandered back to the days of playing Bobby Hull Hockey in my friend’s Gary’s basement. Bobby Hull Hockey was a table top hockey game that used rods to control players along a track in the “ice.” The playing surface was about 2’ x 3’ and included 5 players per team plus a goalie and a rolling puck.

I remember Gary calling me on his birthday to come over and play the shiny new game. A few kids had old hockey games with missing players and bent rods but a brand new game…well that could create a buzz in the whole neighborhood. The game lasted for years and filled many idle hours for us in high school.

Gary’s game came from the third generation of mechanical hockey games. The earliest model was built by Donald Munro in Toronto around 1933. The game was made of wood and was given as a Christmas present for his children at the time. Munro later built a small number of these wooden games for the Eaton's department store in Toronto. They were an instant success and stayed in production until 1955.

A plastic version was introduced in the early 1950’s and then the first “modern” version of the game was released by the Eagle Toy Company of Montreal, according to the fan website Table Hockey Heaven (www.tablehockeyheaven.com). Eagle Toys sold the metal games through the early 1960’s until the company was bought out by Coleco Toys in 1966. A big push for toy safety in 1971 spelled the end of the familiar tin men in favor of a mostly plastic game.

Like its cousin electric football, table hockey has never completely died out. The Table Hockey Heaven (THH) site lists over 60 tournaments in the U.S. and Canada for 2011 with the Stiga American Championships scheduled in late December. Stiga, a Swedish game manufacturer, is the official game of the NHL and only game to be used in most competitions although some U.S. tournaments allow classic games as well.

Serious fans of the sport on THH (and there appear to be many) have forums and online chats to discuss strategy and swap parts from old games. There are even music videos that feature close-up action and highlights.

No discussion of table hockey would be complete without mentioning bubble hockey games. These games were larger versions of the home games made for arcades. They were encased with a large plastic bubble or dome to keep the puck from getting lost or stolen. The most popular version made by Chexx in the 1980s recreated the Miracle on Ice between the U.S. and Russia.
With the realism of video games such as NHL 2011, Bobby Hull hockey is a dinosaur. Still, if I had that game today I am confident that it would only take a few phone calls to create a buzz in our neighborhood – at least among the fifty-somethings.

As for the Allen Americans, they won that game and the series and I look forward to seeing them again this weekend. How does Yellow Horn Table Top Hockey sound?

For Whom The Church Bell Tolls

I watched as several boys of about 9 years-old recently walked by the front of my house. One of them stopped, pulled out a phone and announced that his mother texted him that he has to go home. It didn’t surprise me that he had a cell phone since more and more youngsters carry phones. No, I was just surprised how convenient it was for mom to text message her kids.

My neighborhood in the 1960’s operated on two precise units of time measurement – the sun and the bells of St. Thomas The Apostle Church.

How much time kids got to play on school days was based on how fast they could get home, get changed out of the school uniform and meet back at the park which was adjacent to the school and church. The day’s activity would be based on the current sports season – football in the fall, basketball in the winter and so on. The pick-up games included all those kids who could get back to the playground before sides were picked. Late comers may or may not get into the game depending on their popularity and skills.

One big variable in the after school race to play was mom. Working mothers were still a novelty in our neighborhood so they were home each day and kids who hadn’t raked leaves or cleaned their room would be snared by moms. Even a 20 minute chore was enough to blow the whole afternoon. Games ended when the church bells rang at 5 or 6 o’clock. Picking a football squad required extra strategy when half the team might go home for an early dinner. The 6 o’clock dinner kids, including me, squeezed an extra hour of play but the rosters were limited.

The church bells rang every hour and could be heard for blocks away. When the bells chimed, I had 5 minutes to be home for dinner. It was that simple and I tested the system many times.

Sunset was the other limiting factor of course. Touch football games in the late fall would be played until the ball was almost invisible. Clever quarterbacks would toss the ball above the streetlights and it would reappear somewhere down the street. The local park called Vasser Field only had tennis court lights and their glow was just enough to dimly light a basketball court in the winter. There were only a few rules for after school play around the neighborhood. Listen for the bells, watch the sunset, stay clear of high schoolers who smoked cigarettes and hide if any nuns come by. Nuns were usually looking for a few strong men as they would say to carry groceries or move plants around the convent. Once asked by a nun there was no way a Catholic School boy could say no. An easier strategy was to hide in the wooden fort.

Unlike today’s hovering parents, mothers rarely came to Vasser Field. In fact, when one showed up we knew a kid was in trouble for something like missing a piano lesson or stealing fifty cents from his brother. Kids would walk right off second base and head towards the gate when their moms showed up – arguing was pointless.

One afternoon though, I got hurt playing football and there was my mother. Someone had texted her (just kidding) run home and told her I was hurt. I should have been embarrassed but instead I was grateful. Sometimes you just need mom.