Thread: OT: Turd Hockey: we shoulda went pro.

I suspect Big Fatty, Reelfun, Berdman, and others among ya have played this great Northern winter sport or one of its many variations.

I have some of my fondest childhood memories took place right in front of our house in SW Minnesota in the sheep pasture. Sunday after church was game day. Turd hockey! Dont knock it if ya aint tried it. All the area boys would walk, git rides, pedal, ski, or do whatever to arrive at our hockey rink at 1 P.M. Dad would run a garden hose outta the basement and give the rink a good solid shot of water which almost froze before hittin the ground. I would take a crowbar and go out in the cow yard to procure a collection of suitable "pucks." Some kids brought prize pucks from their own cattle yard.
When you saw one perfectly symetrical and flat on one side it was too good to pass up. Serious puck-hunters such as I were known to purposely drive cows around a fresh steaming pile that had the looks of a dandy puck so it would freeze unmarred by hoof prints and could be pried up at a later date.
Equipment was simple, pucks and a hockey stick that was a broom-type handle. Not a shovel, not an ax handle, a plain straight broom handle. Hockey sticks were a precious commodity since we went thru quite a few. Every area
aunt, grandma, cuzzin, all were put on notice to save their broom handles for us once the broom end wore out. Some lads were accused of sabotaging the family broom just to git to the handle but once tried & convicted it went bad for them, alas. Rules were simple but strictly enforced. 1. No using the stick in a fashion a pole vaulter would use. End of rules.
Our uniforms were a bit lacking, as they consisted of several layers of ragtag clothes that wouldnt matter if they got blood stains that wouldnt come out.
This also made it hard to discern who was on whose team. This became a non-issue after the first period, as the assemblance of so much 6-16 yr old testosterone had us trying to kill our own team mates in no time. Tripping was not only allowed, but encouraged, and if done discreetly you could add a bonus whack to the boyz while doing so. Body protection was found by folding up the Sunday paper and covering the reproductive area and padding the knees since kneecapping was a very effective way to put an opponent on the injured reserve list. Fierce rivalries does not suffice what happened on the hockey rink, controlled homicide would be more accurate. Some lads were put in the penalty box before the game even started for showing up with illegal hockey sticks to avenge the previous weeks' game. Some of us soaked our hockey sticks in water overnight then set em outside to freeze on game day. This had to desired effect of splitting yur foes' gourd wide open but had the unpleasant side effect of making yur stick brittle and about the time the visiting goalie was slipping into unconsciousness you found yur stick had disintegrated into a million pieces. George & Bertha DeVlaeminck lived on a farm about 1-1/4 miles from ours and Bertha was team physician for both teams. I remember sittin in my undies crying in the kitchen as Bertha put 3 of her patented sewing thread stitches in my scalp one day. The bridge of my nose still bears a scar where Nick Flood used his hockey stick on my head in a fashion that batters hit pop flies for practice. This was perfectly legal in turd hockey and an alarmingly frequent occurance. I finally quit my crying and am proud to say ol Nick kinda walked home gingerly, on the balls of his feet, after I teed off and sent both his boyz up deep inside his body. Who actually scored the most goals and won the game was usually lost in the heat of battle, although it was a good topic to ignite one last bench-clearing brawl before it was time to go home and recap distorted versions of the game to all yur buddys the next day. Did I mention ice skates were banned? Even ol Bertha couldnt have stitched up the mess that woulda created when tempers flared. Good ol 4 buckle rubber overshoes were the footgear of choice. They allowed you to fall on yur ass without any outside help and were great for raking across yur opponents face when he was down. Them buckles & clips could make a friends' face look like a meat tenderizer had been taken to it. None of us were smart enuf to take reprisals & repercussions into consideration and Dad would generally hose the blood off the ice after each match. He said it would attract skunks.
Handling the tur...er, puck with a broom handle was no easy task. Generally it got shoved and pushed around kinda like curling. But once it a while all the forces of nature lined up right and you could send one with both velocity and some air beneath it. The prudent goalie immediately turned his back on the puck and curled up the fetal position and said "oh sh**." A couple of the ballsier goalies had to make trips to Berthas field hospital to get hanging upper lips reattached and teeth taken outta em at the same time. My brother caught one in the adams apple and sounded like a hawk when he spoke for 2 full weeks. He's lucky that particular puck had been in play for a while and the edges where it had been pried up were rounded off some or he mighta been decapitated. I think Bertha was disappointed cuz this was in our 3rd or 4th year of turd hockey and she had done everything but a complete head reattachment at the time and seemed eager to learn. Dad & Mom pretty much stayed outta it and read what was left of the Sunday paper after we had fashioned knee & nut protectors from it. Occasionally Dad would open the porch door and yell "hey." This was the extent of any refereeing or officiating.
The worst penalty I ever saw was Billy Pohlmann got sent home for riding a victory lap on one of our sheep after taking out the goalie. This was not tolerated. It made me mad too- those were MY sheep to ride every time Dad wasnt around to see it. And, I was almost at that age where the 'leave my girlfriend alone' thing came into play. Did I mention that actually scoring a goal was of no importance to us? Well it wasnt. The biggest, oldest boys always were the goalies and fancied themselves some mean wieners but I learnt early on that there is power in numbers. Many a 16 yr old corn-fed goalie took a serious whoopin from a half dozen 8-12 yr olds. You just cant git away from that much high-sticking in the game of turd ball. The object was to git the puck in the general vicinity of the goalie so as to make it legal-like, then assault the crap outta the goalie with total disregard for the location of the puck. If it happened to be handy all the better, it could be used to attempt caving the goalies' skull in with. We taught the goalie a lesson in life on Sundays but dang, he got us back individually at school the following week. We thought of this as "keeping the rivalry alive." Come Sunday there would always be one or two spoilsports who had taken the last weeks' game too seriously and got equipment violations for attempting to smuggle baseball bats and steel fence posts onto the ice. One day during a particularly heated game I found myself near the bottom of the pile at the scene of a flare-up. I could hear the hockey sticks thumping against clothing & bodies somewhere above. I couldnt move for all the bodies on top of me but some kid was down there with me and I was able to get 1 hand free of my mittens and took a frozen sheep raisin and jammed it up his nostril as far I could, then took my pinkie and tamped it in. I then spit in his ear which may sound kinda chikkin****, but at -10* Fahrenheit is a deadly weapon.
There was only 1 severe penalty issued in the whole 8-9 yrs of my turd ball career and it was dealt out to poor Lawrence Van Moorlehem. Frankies Dad drove up and walked right out on the rink and beat the livin daylights outta Frankie for not feeding the hogs before leaving to play turd hockey. It was a doozie of a beating and both teams were quite subdued by it. Lawrence never said a word and got in his truck and drove off. Dad stuck his head out the porch door and asked what the heck that was all about. Frankie was still piled up pretty much worthless after being kicked across not only our rink, but the entire sheep pasture several times by his dad. Good thing my Dad was preoccupied reading what we'd left him of the Sunday paper or he woulda kicked Frankie a cpl more laps around the pasture for such an infraction, and had Lawrences good graces in doing so. I saw several youths
purging their minds to try remember had they fed their dads' hogs before leaving for the game.
The one little nuance we never could overcome in the game of turd ball was puck integrity. Once in a while, when you least thought one would do it, a puck would just absolutely disintegrate when the stick hit it. This had the majority of both teams, who were crowded around it spitting out corn, alfalfa, oats, and weed seed. Nuthin like sneering at yur opponent with the same green frothy grin when facing off at the blue line. Face-offs were a faction of the game always in question. You never knew if there was some prearranged agreement and both players would slapshot the poor sucker who got looped into dropping the puck, or would one player go for control of the puck but the other just go for the opponents head and to hell with the puck.
I believe the rationale was why fight the other guy over the puck when you can make him null & void in one well-aimed swing and have the puck all to yurself. Dadgummit I miss turd hockey. Next time I go home in the winter I am gonna see who is still around from the old teams and see if we can set up a Memorial Reunion Game. Same rules, same play.

HS- You may have stuck me for a "view post", but don't get that confused with a "read post"

Some one cliff note that for my please. I ain't got time for that kind of mess.

Dayton

Originally Posted by squirrel hunter

HS- You may have stuck me for a "view post", but don't get that confused with a "read post"

I thought of you (fondly) when that wouldnt post and it said trim it down from 3 million, 600 thousand characters to an even 3 million. I love you too man. How is that wayward kid of yurs doing and whats up with you bud?
Little be it for me if you choose to cheat yurself outta the finer points of turd hockey. You grit-eaters wouldnt understand anyway. My spinach is evidently impervious to cold. It is sittin, high & dry & unprotected in what was a potato hill and seems to like it the colder it gets. Are we going to have to go thru The Asparagus Wars this coming spring, using that ol "my spear is bigger than yur spear" edict? I knew we should not have planted at the same time. Ol
"Paw Paw Gene" from the Louisiana forum sent me some okra seeds and way too many for me to ever use. I believe I know him as a gardener well enuf that if you want some he would be glad to see them grow under someones TLC so if ya want some holler. You can go on the LA Forum back in mid-summer and see the outrageous okra plants he had. Some of these are heirloom seed I believe. Other than that I have nuthin to offer ya but the usual pickled fish & smoked eggz. You may have just screwed yurself outta
the 2009 Turd Hockey Classic, but little be it for me to feel sorry for you.

Originally Posted by Ranger690

Some one cliff note that for my please. I ain't got time for that kind of mess.

Dayton

Go iron yur apron. I editted that for brevity more than I wanted to have to, and the best juiciest parts got deleted.
Bet you couldnt keep yur eye on the ball, could ya?

Jeff, you know dang well that all you have to do is offer me an opening to brag on Pete and I'm on it like a grinnel on Rex's minnow:D and cause me to forget that you are the long windedest Yankee what ever posted without actually saying anything worthwhile
He finishes his doctoral courses at the end of this coming semester and then it's on to the thesis. I'm gouing to forward you an e-mail with a link to an article he just had published.
Hope to see you Sat. I'm coming up, rain, shine, wind, whatever. I'm tired of Dayton busting my kahones, plus I have Tony's present to deliver.

Originally Posted by squirrel hunter

Jeff, you know dang well that all you have to do is offer me an opening to brag on Pete and I'm on it like a grinnel on Rex's minnow:D and cause me to forget that you are the long windedest Yankee what ever posted without actually saying anything worthwhile
He finishes his doctoral courses at the end of this coming semester and then it's on to the thesis. I'm gouing to forward you an e-mail with a link to an article he just had published.
Hope to see you Sat. I'm coming up, rain, shine, wind, whatever. I'm tired of Dayton busting my kahones, plus I have Tony's present to deliver.

Well that was alot to read but what the hay, may as well respond. I'm glad you recognize our universal dislike of Dr Speckle but shirley you realize there is a certain amount of grudgery goes along with a dude who is Errol Flynn-pretty, and no doubt a big hit with the ladies. Although I have never forgiven him I do understand his reluctance to directly answer my question about Oriental female anatomy after he had been on his "learning" sabbatical in China. I dearly hope the oncoming thesis of his you have promised addresses this question. All I have ever heard is the old tales of drunken sailors waking up in a foreign port and swearing they saw a clam that had grown a beard?

Well in all seriousness, that is one kid you can talk to for 2 minutes and come away feeling sure he is gonna make it in whatever his endeavors are. Watch him become the leading OB/Gyn in Hong Kong someday just to prove this right.:D Come over to my hizzle if ya git an early start and got time to kill, coffee is always on and breakfast a distinct possibility even if we do meet at the Lakeside Restaurant. I am not above eating 2 breakfasts and having no qualms whatsoever about it.

This Plaxico Burress shooting hisself in the leg-a common occurance with VA Beach natives or just coincidental?

Originally Posted by Ranger690

Some one cliff note that for my please. I ain't got time for that kind of mess.

Dayton

Or maybe one of those fancy drawings instead.

Been there, done that and miss it also. Might be able to get in a quick game saturday morning.

Originally Posted by Big Fatty

Been there, done that and miss it also. Might be able to get in a quick game saturday morning.

C'mon wid it horsefly, it'll be like ol' times. I'll even concede to you being Wayne Gretsky if ya want. I aint livin at home now, I can dismantle & destroy as many mop & broom handles as I want around here. I have often felt the waste involved with tossing a perfectly good broom handle in the dumpster cuz the straws were worn out, and gave the ol lady a sentimental thump for old times sake before laying it to rest. I kin git some pucks tomorrow from a favorte pasture of mine where the horses are fed Omelene 1000 and crap perfect cylinders.