How I started the Whitman-Hanson Youth Hockey program.

OK – so it took a little bit of initiative from some other people who copied an idea of mine and expanded it and improved it, and that led to the formation of the first WH youth hockey team (and I didn’t even get to play on it).

I was in high school and didn’t feel like walking over to Urann’s Pond just to skate. I had noticed how melt water would drip onto the cement back steps and freeze into a pretty thick layer. I thought if I could spray water onto the patio bricks, maybe I could form a good enough ice surface to skate on our basketball court. I had learned that an outdoor water spigot won’t freeze if you keep the water turned slightly on, so I did – and waited until after dark when the temperature dropped to below 32. Slowly and patiently I repeatedly sprayed a mist of water onto the backyard bricks. This would freeze rather quickly and I found I could re-spray about every 15 minutes until I had maybe a ¼ inch layer over the entire patio/court. This didn’t hold up well to skate blades, but after a couple of nights of diligent spraying, I had close to an inch of ice to skate on. Jim R. stopped by one night as I was skating and became intrigued at my home-made rink, and asked how I accomplished it. I demonstrated my spraying techniques, and a new idea was hatched in his head. Jim was friends with Charlie Oertel – the grandfather of my friend Russell Dean on West Washington St – who owned a large field across the street from his house and abutted by a small stream. Charlie gave his blessing and a bulldozer was brought in to scrape clean and level a spot for an outdoor hockey rink. Assisted by a borrowed generator and pump, we would take shifts spending a few hours late at night pumping water onto the rink. Before long we had a solid 2 inch ice surface surrounded by telephone poles layed flat for the “boards”. A good snow storm and a lot of shoveling it off to the sides made the boards a little easier to get checked into. Jim had a couple of goals built at his work, invested in the nets, and also bought some plywood for sturdier boards behind the goals. On our new rink, we would have pickup games with all of the kids (and a handful of Uncle Mac’s friends, who just so happened to have kids too). But Jim was friends with a guy from Duxbury who was involved in their youth hockey program. A scrimmage game was set up with them, so of course we needed a team to play against them. David and Eric were about the right age to participate. An assortment of 4th to 6th grade kids– basically anyone who claimed to have a clue about how to play hockey - were assembled. After a couple of practices, they didn’t look very formidable. Much to my dismay, because I was clearly too tall and old to possible sneak in, I couldn’t play. Even worse, Chipper Cane – who was in my grade – got to play, simply because he was very short for his age and a very good hockey player, therefore giving us a cheating chance at being competitive. A few games against Duxbury were played that winter, and not long after that The Hobomock Rink was built in Pembroke by George Gould (also a friend of Jim’s). The Whitman Hanson Youth Hockey organization was officially created, with Jim as the President, and along with Pembroke and Duxbury were the very first teams to play at Hobomock Arena. And to think it all started when I ingeniously iced the backyard patio brick basketball court at 30 Phillips St. just to save a few steps.