Street hockey with a tennis ball and stick, it kept us growing together, socialising, getting along as good neighbours and friends. Play, after all, is the job of children because it gives them a chance to learn these skills for themselves and make friends for life, strong bonds and a broader sense of home.
Hockey is the air I breathed, it is my every waking dream; even my red blood cells are puck shaped, eh?
When the nets came out, the kids did too, piling out of their front doors, gathering their hockey equipment, already shooting and scoring in their emotions. That was our street. Those were good times.
We played hockey upon the blacktop street, the puck absorbing our focus as if it were the only gold we ever cared about.
Hockey on skates or in runners, it was our source of joy and what brought us together as a neighbourhood, a community, a nation. A joint obsession can be a powerfully binding force for good, that stick and puck was ours.