Knee Hockey

[dempsey_k]

So we've started a new Sunday night tradition at the house, and it's turned out to be extremely fun. I'm sure at least a few of you have played knee hockey as kids growing up. Basically you just buy these mini-sticks and play on a carpeted floor on your knees (knee pads highly suggested for adults, mine are still hurting from last Sunday).

You get 8-12 guys together. No girls, this is far too childish and ridiculous, and violent, so only invite them if you hate them and don't care what they think of you. Get 6 mini-hockey sticks, possible tennis rackets for goalies, especially when you use balls instead of taped-up canisters of chewing tobacco as pucks.

Then, depending on the space available, you play 3 on 3 or 4 on 4, with bench rotations after each goal. A bigger space with 4 on 4 can be very exciting and opening things up a bit. A closed space with 3 on 3 can be equally exciting but it becomes more a wrestling match.

The team that gets scored on has to do shots after each goal. Usually go to about 10, but if you have enough people and time go to 15 or even 20. The winner drinks the finest beer you can buy from a selected chalice that you dub Lord Manley's Cup (Gulden Draak from my Bavarian beer stein was our choice last game). The drunker and more tired you get, the more hilarity ensues towards the end.

http://www.backtobasicstoys.com/images/7837.jpg

[Beaker]

Goalies need to use baseball hats as trappers..

[Ricard_Persson]

This is great. I wore out a pair of Calgary Flames joggers in knee hockey. I played in the living room with my brother. It was a huge living room, and great being a rectangle and same proportion to an ice surface. We broke lots of stuff and wore out the carpet we played so much. It isn't that bad have no valuables left in my parents will. We busted everything.


I would recommend getting better sticks and a softer ball. We had a cushion ball that you could really shoot hard, but it didn't leave a mark. It traveled fast enough to knock lamps over. The key was the stick. My dad would take real hockey sticks [broken in the shaft] and cut 2/3 of the blade off from the toe and then chop it about 15 inches up the shaft. You were left with a great stick that was to about 1:5 scale of a real stick.

Good Times.

[PredsFan77]

sounds painful and full of fights.

[cycle_it]

sounds painful and full of fights.

you sound like a wimp

[dempsey_k]

This is great. I wore out a pair of Calgary Flames joggers in knee hockey. I played in the living room with my brother. It was a huge living room, and great being a rectangle and same proportion to an ice surface. We broke lots of stuff and wore out the carpet we played so much. It isn't that bad have no valuables left in my parents will. We busted everything.


I would recommend getting better sticks and a softer ball. We had a cushion ball that you could really shoot hard, but it didn't leave a mark. It traveled fast enough to knock lamps over. The key was the stick. My dad would take real hockey sticks [broken in the shaft] and cut 2/3 of the blade off from the toe and then chop it about 15 inches up the shaft. You were left with a great stick that was to about 1:5 scale of a real stick.

Good Times.

On that note - it'd be a great thing for a goalie to have one of those old time Jason masks ... goes a long way to saving your face from bruises.

[Transplanted Caper]

Good times. I remember back in the day playing this across the road at my friend's place. Great times, we were 10 or something, but the most fun would occur years later when we started playing again at another friend's place.

In good ol'Pakenham there once was a Home Hardware, above which were 2 apartments, one where the owner and his family lived, and another where some random guy lived that rented it out. Anyways, one faithful day the random dude moves away and the owner lets his oldest son move into the upper apartment. Well, we were all 17 at the time, so needless to say this became the place to be, and once the days got shorter, and the lawn/road hockey games came to an end early, we'd go up for a rousing game of mini stick hockey.

Me and the fella who lived in the apartment were pretty good. We were able to stay on our knees (TWSS) and shifted around to make the saves. However, my other buddy and my younger brother were awful for making a shitload of noise. Instead of staying on their knees, they stood hunched over in a crouch so anytime they made a save they fell like a bag of potatoes to the floor.


....and then the phone would ring

"Yeah?"
"ARE YOU KIDS PLAYING MINI-STICK HOCKEY????"
"No man, ..ummm...the cat just knocked over the big lamp"
"YOU KIDS BETTER NOT BE PLAYING MINI-STICK HOCKEY!!! NO MINI STICK HOCKEY!!!"
"Yeah, we're not,. don't worry"

...and so it went on several more times throughout the night, but the other two still never got it and were always as loud as ever.

Some games we played sober, others, we'd wait until we were hammered and decide it would be a good idea to play. With no coordination at all, the crashes and bangs, and the subsequent phone calls were more frequent

What made it even better, was my buddy's Dad wasn't really a hard-ass at all. Far from it, he'd come and we'd be hammered and he wouldn't give a shit. He'd let his kid take his truck, minus a driver's liscense, he even came and drank with us on more than one occasion. He cursed like a sailor, gave his kid all the freedom in the world (let him have his own apt after all), had all the "Northern Europe" channels on his satelitte dish. But he fucking HATED mini-stick hockey.


Post-Script:

We used to play any sort of hockey, the four of us. Lawn hockey, road hockey, basement hockey, mini-stick hockey and ice hockey on the outdoor rink which was invariably like playing in slush.

Road hockey was actually the least likely scenario, although it would be played once in awhile. We'd always don jerseys, usually all Red Wings my buddy was a huge Red Wings fan. Bigger than Kira. And we'd play for hours in the summer, three of us would be ready to faint, but the Wings fan wanted to play forever, and he was the fucking goalie.

Lawn hockey: oh lawn hockey, how I miss it so. So dysfunctional, but some so fun. Using a tennis ball and the cheapest sticks you can imagine. But there was full-body contact. I think we played entire playoffs, three times a night.

Basement hockey - this was hard on the socks. I think i went through dozens of pairs, and ripped up good jeans and khakis too playing it. Low ceilings can be dangerous as fuck too, especially when drunk. Many were concussed.

[dempsey_k]

Everyone should start mini hockey / knee hockey leagues on their own. Start up facebook events and groups on it. It's so much more fun than beer pong for a drinking game.

[Vic Rattlehead]

I played a variation of this in grade 8 ITT class. It was awesome playing hockey with saws and vices all around us. Our teacher really didn't give a shit about the class and just watched us played hockey.