And the Best Pond Hockey Story Contest Winner is…

Shauna Kelly from Glace Bay, NS! Congratulations!  Here is Shauna's winning story:

It is February 1943 in the small fishing village of Port Morien, Nova Scotia – the middle of World War II. My father is 10 years old. It is minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit and my father finishes making his hockey stick out of the pile of lats stacked against the bank used for making his father’s lobster traps. He tapes magazines to his shins and heads to the pond. He carries a black puck in his hand and tosses it up in the air and catches it all the way up the road. His grandfather tells him how fortunate he is to have pucks ‘these days’ for back in his time, they were forced to use frozen horse dung. My father reaches the pond, 1 of the 5 that were actively used in the small village. He takes off his gum boots in a snow bank and laces up his skates. All the boys have started to play hockey. There are no assigned teams; no limit to the number of players, just unwritten rules, a great sense of camaraderie and a love of hockey.

There are only 6 teams in the league in 1943 and every boy has a favourite team and a favourite player. My father loves Toronto and his favourite player is Syl Apps! The game continues until lunch and all the boys unlace their skates and put on their gum boots to go home for lunch. The gum boots are frozen and it is difficult to wiggle your foot back into the boot.

They run home to eat. My father can smell the homemade bread at the top of the lane. He dreams of melted butter and brown sugar as his mother cuts him a thick slice but he knows this dream won’t come true anytime soon as butter and sugar are rationed because of the war. His mother takes the quart milk bottle filled with molasses and the thick black syrup oozes over his warm bread. The hot cocoa warms his hands.

When lunch is over, my father heads back to the pond. He is playing nets. Jimmy Peach arrives in his Navy uniform with his skates slung over his shoulder. He doesn’t have a hockey stick but my father loans him his and he continues to play nets with an old board. My father’s stick gets broken during the game and Jimmy Peach, looking so important in his navy uniform, walks up to my father and says, “When I come home after the war, if Hitler doesn’t get me, I’ll owe you a hockey stick.” My father doesn’t care, for there are lots of lats stacked against the bank.

The sun has gone down and the game is over for the day. The boys leave the pond but they’ll be back after school tomorrow. And in 1945, Jimmy Peach arrives home from the war with a new hockey stick for my father.

My father's name is Eddie Murrant. He is 79 years old and resides in Glace Bay, NS.