GREEN PARADE

A very Merry Christmas to all my fool puck buddies out there!

Hope that all of you have been good this year and are getting what ya want for Christmas.

Yup and I ain’t going to use some politically correct phrase to greet ya. Its “Christmas“, dab nab it. I’m a Christian by belief and that says that I’m celebrating the birth of Christ at this time of year and you can greet me any old dang way you want but I’m going to use the word “Christmas” when I greet you.

I’ve been writing this hockey humor now for a year and I have no intentions of stopping at this point. I do intend to spread the word a bit more in the coming year and will be posting last year’s blogs on myspace.com. You can probably find me there if you do a search while in myspace and look for either my user name “Hockey Bob” or my email “walkingwithwood”. At some point in time I also intend to develop a website - but not yet cuz I need a bit more free time in order to get started. If anybody wants to help me for free then just shoot me an email. OK?

Last night I watched a hockey game on TV. It was the Sharks versus the Ducks on Fox’s sports network in the Bay Area (San Francisco, CA) and the Ducks again pounded the Sharks on their own ice. I don’t really care, I’m an LA Kings fan anyway (FOOL!), but it was ice hockey and for it to be televised I was quite pleased. It made for an enjoyable evening to hang out with the honey. But shiiish, it was the third televised game between these two competitors in this week before Christmas. By now they must really hate each other, ehh?

While watching and at a point where I was really just listening I heard the announcers mention that Sher-Wood had announced it is going to stop producing their premium wooden hockey sticks. They came back a few minutes later and said that their support staff had determined that only seventeen (17) NHLr’s are currently using wooden sticks.

Blymie! My whole realm of existence is based on wooden hockey sticks. As Jasper Wheats my tag line is “walking with wood” and this news just can’t be true. How many times have I praised the good wood of Sher-wood hockey sticks, ehh? You guys know that I love these beautiful and deadly weapons of our trade. Right? I’ve always had a preference to use a Paul Coffee signature model P.M.P. 5030 droit (right to you English speaking folks). Damn! What is the world coming too?

My first thought last night was that the whole world is just going too green. Hence the title of this blog. It just might be the case when you dig deep enough. I remember back when we were all trying to be so ecological and at that early time it meant using things from the earth that were replenishable. That meant using things from plants and animals and not using things that required petroleum products. Trees can be planted and will grow, right? And cows will give birth to calves and calves will grow. So products made from these were good for us because someday we would run out of oil. Now you guys all know that plastics are made from petroleum products right? Doubt me? Then look it up.

But somewhere along the way green changed its meaning to using products that didn’t use replenishable forests. The tree huggers won, ehh? So instead we now have all of these plastic’s and other oil based wastes going into landfills where it will take ten million years or so to break down and revert back into a natural substance. I don’t think that that is so smart - but then I ain’t no rocket scientist am I? I’m just a little lopsided hockey player that likes to walk with wood. I like to use Sher-Woods and they make those out of wood, ehh. Replenishable. My first hockey helmet was made of leather, not plastic. It was an ugly little wrap around with a spider web top. All leather. I don’t know if it protected me so well, but it fit over a woolen knit stocking cap just fine. And then there’s that stocking cap - wool, not knit synthetics. Replenishable from sheep. And my first good skates were all leather uppers and soles from Bauers. Of course they had a small bit of plastic or glass reinforced resin armor between the inners and outers. You’d take those home and soak’em in hot water and then put them on for the day while they dried up and shrunk to a perfect fit around each foot. Then you’d wax them up with a good saddle soap - again made of replenishable animal fat. Of course I always wished that I could afford a good pair of Tac’s back then. They were made of kangaroo skin leather - again replenishable. By the time I could afford those light weight babies they made it illegal to use kangaroo. Some do-gooder came up with that “swell idea” not realizing that kangaroos are like rodents in Australia and they’ve got way too many of them.

Is Sher-Wood getting on the green parade?

So this morning I decide to google this issue with Sher-Wood.

I come a cross an interesting article by Sean Gordon, the Quebec Bureau Chief of the Toronto Star that was published November 5, 2007. Ok, so it’s old news now - almost two months old, ehh. But so what. I don’t get the Toronto Star delivered here to the cabin. It’s news to me.

Here’s the skinny.

Sherbrook Woodcraft was started up in 1949. The name has now been shortened to Sher-Wood which we are all familiar with and their always popular hockey sticks. Last year they made one million wooden hockey sticks and three-hundred and fifty thousand composite sticks.

So you can see there is still one hell of a market for wooden sticks.

What they are going to do is stop making their signature premium sticks at their factory in Quebec. Leopold Drolet the owner and earlier designer of the Sher-Woods that Guy LaFleur used has stated that it is “no longer possible to make a profit mass producing wooden sticks with Quebec timber”.

Well what the fuck are we going to do?

They will be made elsewhere. China, India, Timbuktoo. Shit I don’t know!

Drolet himself said that he doesn’t use a composite or aluminum shaft stick He won’t play with anything except a 5030. Well what the heck is he doing. About forty folks are going to lose their job at his plant. And that’s about half of them. Nice Christmas present, ehh?

After reading that statement I got up out my comfy recliner, walked barefooted over into the icy mud room and grabbed one of my 5030’s. Not broken yet, its an old Bellows 23 signature model feather-lite. And it felt good in my bare hands. I can still read the price tag: $24.60 USD. I preferred the Paul Coffee version but they must not have had any in stock when I bought this one. Shit, Drolet, raise the price. Here you’ve got one of the greatest sticks in the world and you could be selling it for a few more bucks, ehh. What’s a good composite cost - $80 - $150? You got some room in there to raise your prices.

This is what LaFleur had to say, “The P.M.P. 5030 was the best stick in the world.” And then he said something about gaining ten to twenty miles an hour on your shot with a composite. But what good is that if ya miss the net by fifty feet? The hero, LaFleur, knows what he’s talking about, ehh. Didn’t he score almost 620 goals in his career? I do believe that he also said something about “crap” and questioning what kind of parent can afford a $200 stick for a kid that shows an interest in the sport and is just starting out.

Well, who are these seventeen NHL players that are still using wooden sticks? I want to know. I know of one that is and he’s using Sher-Woods. That’s Jason Spezza of the Ottawa Senators. Yeah the dude is walking with wood, ehh! And you should be too!

That’s it for now.

Jasper here until next year.

Merry Christmas and I hope ya get some wood for the new year.