Plastered in Paris

Oh this is sure some kinda donkey doodoo – but what can I say. I’ve been out of it for a while and it’s gonna take a while for it all to come back, ehh.

You guys just need to hang on while I find a purpose for my being again. All I can say is that is that some where along the way I’m gonna be walking with wood again.

I’m getting a lot of my strength back – I think anyway – not real sure how much strength I had before the little boo-boo to my brain and hardshell skull. But the Hon says that I am and I ain’t about to fight with her over it, ehh. If she says it then it must be fact.

She told me last week that I’ve been talking in my sleep – talking some shit she says and usually it’s about hockey. So she sat me down last Saturday and tells me that we’ve got to dig into this. Get to the root of the changes in my sleep habit. So she got the doctor to order a sleep study. It got approved right away and I had a sleep-over for the study on Tuesday night. Oh and let me tell you guys – sleep studies are some kinda nuts.

The Hon drops me off at the sleep-over clinic at around 9:30 pm. I’ve got some jams with me, my favorite pillow and a paperback. They get me signed in, show me to my room and the bed I’m going to sleep in. I get into my jams and the technician comes in and puts twenty-four different probes on me. These wired up little do-hickies are stuck on my head, up my fool nose, on my chest, shoulders and legs. And I’m expected to sleep. Are they nuts or what?

I don’t think I slept a wink but in the morning I had to fill out a survey about my dreams. I was drawing a complete blank so part of the program was that I had agreed to an injection of fast acting sodium pentothal and their direct questioning if this occurred.

Nuts!

I really hate shots. But I had agreed to do this I guess, so off to the world of absolute subjected honesty.

They had to videotape this whole truth serum thingy and than provide me with a copy afterwards – otherwise I wouldn’t be able to relate any of the following shit to you. Apparently there is some amnesiac drug included in the serum, ehh.

Let me fill ya in on what transpired. Ya might find it just as stupid as I did.

Ok, so they start out asking me some simple questions like what is my name, how old I am and than dig a little deeper asking more personal questions to confirm my subjection to the concoction that they loaded me up with.

The tech, I’ll call her Joan, finally gets around to asking dream questions.

“Mr. Wheats do you remember dreaming last night?”

“Ahh … yup … sure”, I responded.

“Did you have more than one dream Mr. Wheats?” Joan quizzed me.

“Two vivid ones and a couple of maybe little snips of others. Oh and call me Wheats or Jasper, please, I really don’t like being called mister anything. Sounds too stuffy for me, like I might have my head stuck up my ass or something. Just don’t like it. Ok?”

“Ok, Jasper, I’ll make an effort to be more casual, though it goes against the professional nature of this study. Now let’s go over the first dream that you’ve remembered.” She made a couple of marks on the papers she had attached to a clipboard and looked over at me still sitting in my jams on the edge of the bed and said “Was this dream in color or black and white?”

“By golly” I said, “it for fuckin sure was in color! My dreams have been in color since the seventies. That’s when I used to do all them psychedelics. Whoa baby, those were some crazy times, ehh. How about you Joanie girl? You get colors too?”

She made another mark on the clipboard. “Mr. Wheats”, cleared her throat and continued “I mean Jasper, this session is about you not me. You need to keep your responses restricted to only what I ask. There is no need for you to divulge your personal history to me. Ok? Is this clear?”

“Um-huh. Sure. I gotcha.” Damn if I’m not smiling ear to ear in the video.

Ok, Jasper, back to the dream. Was it a good dream? Happy, fun, enjoyable? Or a bad dream? Scary, fearful, intimidating – maybe a nightmare?”

I responded really quick like, didn’t even have to think. “It was fun and exciting but I was scared in the end. It was a hockey dream and I got hurt.”

“Fun, exciting and scary? Was it a nightmare Jasper? Your heart rate and brain activity during your first REM was highly accelerated during this dream. That would indicate to us that it was possibly a nightmare. You also started making verbal attempts during this dream. It came out sort of like ehh, ehh, ehh on several occasions.”

“Sure, sure … maybe it was a nightmare. I was talking huh?” I said.

“Yes, you were trying to talk and yes we believe that this dream could be classified as a nightmare. Tell me some more about the dream. Were you in the dream?” she quizzed again.

“Oh yeah, I was in the dream. You can bet your bippy I was.”

“And where were you?”

“I was in Paris. Paris, France. Everything in the background was like from a Monet painting. So yeah, I’m pretty sure it was Paris where I was at.”

Joan now asked, “Have you ever been to Paris, Jasper?”

“Nope. Canada and Mexico a few times each. And Texas, too, a whole bunch of times if that counts.”

“Mr. Wheats, try to stick to the questions or we’ll be here all day. OK? Now what was the dream about? Was it sexual? The recordings indicated that you were aroused during this dream.” What can you tell me?

“Aroused? Hah, I had boner, ehh? No shit? What do ya know. The Hon will appreciate knowing that I can still get some wood after my brain injury, ehh. Whacha think Joan? She’ll be happy, huh?”

I couldn’t believe I was talking this shit – must be the meds making me a smidgen uninhibited.

“Yes, Mr. Wheats. Those are the indications but I can’t speak for you wife. Now back to the dream please.”

“Oh, yeah. Right. I was playing hockey. You know, ice hockey. I was playing in a game in the NHL for the LA Kings. Over in France. We were playing against the Islanders. I remember that Butch Goring was coaching the Islanders with John Lennon and Mick Jaeger as his assistants. Crazy – they aren’t even bitched up in hockey like Goring is. And me. I’m playing defense with some French-Canadian dude that I couldn’t understand. But he looked just like Kurt Russell in Big Trouble in Little China. The movie, you know. My Dad was coaching the Kings and Rogie Vashon was our goalie coach. But he was all geared up and would jump up on the bench and jump up and down yelling at us in French and broken English. It was crazy but we were wearing our purple, black and white jerseys; but Rogie was in the old gold and purple uniform. He looked like one of those wind-up toy gorilla’s or monkey’s that spank cymbals together. You know?”

At this point she broke in and interrupted my recollection of the dream.

“Is ice hockey important to you, Jasper?”

“Oh, fuck yeah it is. Nothing but the best!”

“And these people in your dream, are they significant in some way to you?” she asked me.

“Well, my dad for sure is. And Kurt played the part of Herb Brooks, the Olympic hockey coach in that movie Miracle. And Butchie, he’s one of my all time favorite hockey heroes. And Rogie, well, my brothers named their dog after him when they were kids. Jaeger and Lennon – I don’t know about them. No real significance that I can think of. There’s other rock stars that I like better.”

This is kinda cool. I never remembered a dream with such vividness ever before. This cocktail that they shot me up with is something else.

Joan’s making her marks on the sheet and asks me “Do you feel that because your dad was the coach that this reflects his continued control over you?

Without a second of thought I snapped “Naw, ya gotta be friggin kiddin. He’s like a best bud. Been that way for years and years.”

“Ok, continue with what you remember of this dream.”

“Well, I’m still playing in the Paris hockey game, right. I don’t know who any of my other teammates are but we’re going about the business of playing. Skating, passing, shooting, getting in position, checking, getting checked. Being winded and being exhilarated. Resting on the bench. Yelling and getting yelled at. You know regular hockey stuff.”

“Jasper, were there people or fans watching the game? Did you see them?”

I had to think for a minute on that. “No, I don’t remember anybody watching us. I don’t remember looking into the stands at all. It was all on the ice. Inside the rink, you know.”

“Ok, continue”, she said.

“I get a shift with my partner and we seemed to be caught up in some turmoil deep in the opposing zone. All five of us are along my boards and the gloves are off. The Islanders are mixing it up with us. Right now I don’t know what started it but my feelings are that it was something I did. I got one guy holding me from behind with one arm around my neck; sort of in a chokehold. And some guy with fists the size of hams just pounding the shit outta my face. In between blows I can see the guy swinging on me is Keith Tkachuk. He skates for the Blues, not the Islanders. But what the fuck – it doesn’t seem to matter. Right? Ok, so I’m just getting absolutely plastered in Paris and I can’t get a punch in even sideways, ehh. This is the part of the dream that is both exciting and scary. Scary because nobody seems to be breaking up the donnybrook and I can’t even defend myself. This is pretty bad. I can feel every blow that lands on my face. I can taste the blood in my mouth and see it running through my eyes.”

She interrupts again, “So this was pretty violent at this point?”

“Well yes,” I respond, “but normally not in real life. Just exciting there. But here in the dream I can’t use my friggin arms. Right? So that’s what’s scary. Being incapacitated is scary but the fight is just normal old time hockey – no more violent that usual – but violent yes, I guess just the same if your not used to it.”

“At this point, reaching what you describe as the scary part”, she asks, “did the dream come to a conclusion? Did it end?”

“Shit no! Rogie jumped off the bench, skated over to the fracas and straight-arm slugged the bastard that was pounding me right in the back of his neck with his blocker, smacking his head right into the jerk holding me and they both dropped like a cow drops pies. I slipped out of the whole mess, picked up the puck skated toward the slot and threw into the Islanders’ net and we won the game. Completely illegal, but I won the game, shit for sure. That’s how the dream ended. Yup. What else do ya want to know?”

Joan was marking away on her clipboard, looked at her watch and said that I’d be coming out of the drug fairly soon and we’d have to end the session with just a study of the one dream.

“You were probably trying to talk in your sleep while you were getting beat up. I’ll give this report to the clinic’s doctors and they’ll make an evaluation. It looks like you might need some psychiatric help here, though. I’d say that you’re probably nuts Mr. Wheats, but I’m only a technician and, oh my goodness, I probably shouldn’t have told you that, I guess.”

Joan was surely disturbed over that faux pas. It didn’t bother me in the littlest little bit. I kinda appreciated the acknowledgement of my disposition, ehh.

So anyway, I’m waiting for the diagnosis from the docs and whatever follow-up might be required. Patience, they say is a virtue. I can wait. And the Hon is satisfied that I had this looked into. She’s not to worried about me being nuts – as far as she’s concerned I already was when I fell for her.

Jasper here, just walking with wood again, maybe.

The Penalty Time-Keeper

Ya, the days are gone by where bench clearing brawls were the norm. The game of hockey has been revised considerably from the time where the sticks were up and elbows were flying. Hell, you can’t even tap a guy with your stick anymore without getting two minutes – I think that they’re calling that “hooking”.

Hell, I’ll show you “hooking” any day of the week and twice on Tuesdays.

Hockey has always been a rough sport. Lots of bruises, stitches, knocked out teeth, an occasional broken bone or dislocated joint is standard fare from a season on the ice. I’ve certainly had my fair share of injuries from playing the greatest game in the world. Lets see, this has included stitches from pucks and sticks to the face (had my lower lip completely split in half and took a stick blade to my right eyeball to name a few), broken wrist, broken humerus (that’s the upper arm bone ya noggin heads) from a cross check, torn knee cartilage, separated shoulder, and complete right hip joint replacement (my demise).

And I have played some dirty hockey too. The sin bin has been my refuge upon occasion. It is the bane of many a determined player too. You play your ass off and you still get beat in your own end; so you trip the guy to stop him from going in one on your goalie.

Was it worth it?

Ohhhhh ….. you’re damn tootin it was Olie!

So you’re doomed to the box for two minutes again. Your teammates give ya shit later for letting the guy beat ya. Yeah ya hear them say “Wheats, ya get beat on the right side every time. Ya gotta move em to your left before they cross the blue line you dumb-ass!”

What’s worse the box and maybe a missed shift or the razzing?

Fuck the razzing. It’s that missed time on the ice, baby.

Oh yeah and how about the intensity of getting a little rowdy and taking coincidentals only to jump back onto the ice and take up where the two of ya left off a couple of minutes ago? The fans love that shit, ehh?

I coach a bit ya know. I teach the kids to go in high, keeping their elbows up. Sure don’t want them skating like a damn Texas armadillo with their noses down to the ground now do ya? Keep your head up, go in hard and come out with the puck.

The worst of all penalties, though is too many men on the ice. Man, that is just a mistake to get that kinda shit-ass call. Whoever is running the bench should have to eat two donuts or something to serve that fool penalty.

Another one of my gripes is that goalies don’t serve penalties. Now to me, that is a real crock of shit. I think it would really open the game up. Ehh?

Have ya ever wondered about the guy that’s taking care of the box? In the NHL, he’s an official and has to keep track of the time and other sorts of pricy shit (that’s why ticket prices are so high – it ain’t the players’ salaries). In youth hockey this person is usually one of the parents that volunteers or is coerced into the position by the domineering team mother. In the infinite number of beer leagues out there it’s usually just an interested fan that just wants to help out – maybe loves the game but can’t play anymore – maybe never played but is the biggest wanna-be in the world. Kudos to these folks cuz they walk with wood too.

I’ve got a story to tell about the penalty box official at the tournament I played in last week. Got to play in the Snoopy games out in Santa Rosa, California. Wild Bill knew some guys down in Marshall, Minnesota that needed a couple of players to fill the roster for the over 45 team they were putting in the tournament. We decided that it’d make a fun little vacation, so we coughed up the bucks each and told the guys that we’d hook up with them out west. Wild Bill was coming down from the northwest with his wife and daughter and I’d be heading out of the back woods with my honey. All to play a minimum of three games with the Marshall Meat-Packers.

The honey and I flew into Sacramento, rented a car and drove over to Santa Rosa via Napa and Sonoma Valleys so that she could do some mighty fine (and awfully damned expensive) wine tasting. You guys know that I don’t drink the stuff (brewskies brothers – pour me another!) but if it makes her happy it makes me happy.

The Meat-Packers had made arrangements for all of us to stay at the same hotel which gave us a fair discount over normal rates – and I’ll tell you that’s awfully danged important when your staying in a hotel for over a week. Good group of folks, those Meat-Packers, though they were a little disturbed that Grain Belt wasn’t on tap at the hotel pub and that they couldn’t find it in the liquor stores either. We had a team meeting the first night to get introduced to all and lay down some strategies and shit. As I figured most didn’t play on the same team but had gathered for the tournament from a beer league in southern Minnesota. I brought a couple of cases of Moosehead to the meeting to appease their Grain Belt withdrawal. I had found it at a Bevmo liquor store that we had driven past and turned back to as we had driven over from Sacramento (sheeeet – I was looking-out for myself cuz the honey – I just knew – was gonna be really wined up). The meeting went well and it seemed like the dude, Mike, that was running the team, was afraid that we all would spend too much time in the penalty box. Warned us to play “nice” and kept referring to all of us as “ya bunch of brawlers”. The first time he used the phrase I glanced over at Wild Bill and gave him the thumbs up. Our kinda guys. Could be this whole team was composed of close relatives of the Hanson brothers, ehh?

Wild Bill and I told them that we’d prefer to play defense mainly. Bill had been a forward from my days of playing with him back a generation or so ago but had now maybe slowed down to my pace or something. I really think that he wanted to skate as my partner – which was really cool. Our first game was going to be Sunday evening and Mike said that we’d be wearing numbers 2 and 3, he’d bring the jerseys and socks.

I don’t know, but we really didn’t click in that first game. It’s about ten or twelve minutes left in the third and were down 6 to 2. Wild Bill’s playing left and I’ve got right de. The opposing team’s center whipped the puck back into my corner from the opposite side outside the blueline as their left week jammed in skating like a Junior A allstar. I turned and skated like hell to try to cut it off behind the net. Wild Bill was tracking their rightwing as he came in hard too. I realized that I couldn’t make the cutoff and turned to the slot as their center started to pick a perch high. Wild Bill must have had the same thoughts as me as we both punched to the high slot to pick this guy – both of us clobbering him full blast in an ass sandwich like the old days (got to do something to rile the old team – cuz right then we sure for shit hadn’t been skatin with wood). Oh and don’t you know it - the fuckin whistle blows.

Both of us get called for roughing ………….

Running time: three minutes each. It’s the shit!

The gate keeper at the box opens the door and Bill goes in first; swearing up a storm. I jump in and sit down with my stick out in front of me and start to take my gloves of when the dude shuts the gate and turns to us, (damn if he doesn’t look just like Ernie Rucks from the old days of skating Sunday pickup – in retirement, Ernie was an NHL goal judge down in LA and came from the Canadian north woods) oh yeah lost my train of thought there, ok so he turns to us and says “You boys ought to play nice now”, taps the right side of his nose two times with his index finger and ………….

Holy shit its cold! I look over at Bill and he’s looking back at me. What the fuck????

We aren’t in Santa Rosa anymore. Were outside and it feels like it’s about 50 below. Were standing next to the gate at a crude outdoor rink with some sort of antiquated equipment on. Our uniforms are harsh wool sweaters and socks with about twenty stripes on them. My gloves have got hardly no padding or length to them and on the jersey it says “St. Paul Hockey Club”. And my skates are pretty wobbly feeling – all leather it looks like.

In and instant, I knew it and I know Bill knew it too – that we had been somehow transported back in time. To another era, to another game. Utterly amazing. But we had a game to play and we knew that we both had to jump on the ice.

And off we went, skating our asses off playing with sticks that looked like they had been made from a single piece of wood. The game was seven on seven with a rover. Somehow we knew. It all came together in an instant. Our rover was Francis “Moose” Goheen, probably the second best if not best American hockey player of the time, next to or equal alongside of Hobie Baker. What a deal. This guy’s was from White Bear Lake, Minnesota – Herb Brooks’ hero when he was growing up. Silver medalist from the 1920 Olympics. This dude was good! And he walked with wood from one end of the ice to other. Untouchable.

I figure its got to be somewhere around 1925 based on the way the folks were dressed that were watching and the looks of cars that we could see over at the street.

Wild Bill skates across my lane and yells at me as he passes, “Jasper do you see who’s skating rover for Boston over there?”

Bewildered I look around and astonishingly realize that the visitors’ rover was none other than Bobby Orr. Damn if this ain’t something. He musta been somehow transported here from the late ‘60’s or ‘70’s. And oh, could he skate. He was made for the position of rover!

The scoreboard, being manned by a guy with a handlebar mustache, fur coat and the weirdest hat that I’d ever seen, said that we were tied at 4 to 4.

Game on kids!

The puck skittered up the boards on the rough ice to Wild Bill and he took off on a meandering journey into the opposing end. Shit he was skating damn near as good as young Moose Goheen. He got in about 40 feet out – and I could tell – he tried to take a slap shot. No dice – it couldn’t happen – the slap shot wouldn’t be invented for another forty years or so. Bill fell flat on his chest like he’d been close-lined.

Orr picked up the puck and took it behind his net to apparently regroup and eye the up-ice layout and off he went. Smoothly left, smoothly right … Goheen swooped in to cut him off and Orr just went horizontal in flight mode or something with the puck almost slipping through Moose’s skates. He kicks it forward and heads after it. Orr, still horizontal, spins in midair and takes off superman style after Goheen, sweeps in with outstretched downward angled stick and takes it off Goheen only to come back down to ice behind his own net again smooth as silk.
Orr eyes up ice again and takes off through the center. I pick him up as he cuts to the boards to my right. Again the smart bastard goes airborne to my left and picks up the puck off the boards on the other side of me. WTF! I’m all over myself and Orr’s on net. Oops, did he lose the puck on the rough ice or is it a deke. Wham – bam – thank you mamm– if he didn’t stuff it in the puck from between his own legs and he’s off flying again.

The fans start booing as Orr keeps flying around celebrating his goal but the game is different. No face off after goals – just pull the puck out and take it behind the net while everyone gets on side and take off skating again. Mr. Moose Goheen picks up the puck while Orr is still celebrating. He seems pumped, the crowd’s booing now sounds excited rather than angry. A teammate skates by and yells “Watch him now. His family calls him “Boo” and that really riles his ass!”

He weaves, he dekes, elbows out, he stiff arms one guy like a running back and goes in on net like a bull in a matador’s outfit. He’s putting a little drift to the left and I can tell he’s got it set to pull the goalie with him with quick plans to go upstairs in the right corner.

Its in my mind – I know it …. And poof – Wild Bill and I are back in the box in Santa Rosa. Ghosts of Charles Schulz or what. Damn! I look over to Wild Bill. “You go on first.” He’s white as a ghost and as the penalty box time keeper opens the gate he steps on the ice and falls flat on his face. Not realizing what happened I stumble over him as I hit the ice. Both of us out there like a big pile of shit.

Bill twists his bloodied up face back towards me and asks “Wheats, what the fuck just happened?”

“Sheeeesh! I don’t know, but we better get back in the game, ehh.”

The center that we had crunched getting our penalties stopped in front of us and tapped us each on our helmets with his stick and laughed as he said “You turkeys, ya might as well head back to Marshall and get back to that business of packing meat.”

Ya know you guys – some days ya walk with wood and some days you sure for shit don’t.

Jasper here. Skate hard! Stay out of the sin-bin ….. or not.

ZAMBOOMBA

I’ve written some previous BS about a valuable early hockey stick that was worth an immense value in US dollars (ya not too much Canadian though). At the time of that writing I figured that some of my old sticks were probably worth a good bit of moola too.

Here’s an update on that story: I haven’t had single ding dang offer for my old wood. What’s the deal with that, ehh? I mean shit howdy if I didn’t get some good play out of these ancient puppies. And they’ve got my signature on them besides. What more d’ya want? That “Wheats” script is worth a couple a thousand bucks right there and several of em have a few notches indicating goals and noting that they’re some good wood. Ehh? You guys are just really pissing me off with this lack of interest.

Shite!

So today I’m reading Tim Wendel’s Sports Collectable article from today’s paper in the USA WEEKEND magazine insert and there are a couple of high priced hockey items listed.

The most valuable item is worth $400,000. Its one of the original Montreal AAA club’s sweaters from 1893. If your sweetheart can find one of these in her hope chest handed down from her great-great granny or if you’ve been using it as a car rag - big mistake. Ehh? Cash it in now before the moths get it. The Hockey Hall of Fame, where Cheever’s gear resides, is looking for one or two of these jerseys. Rumor has it that there were only nine players on the team that won the first Stanley Cup. Chances are that you don’t have one of these, but check your gear bag and if ya got a sweater that smells real, real bad ya better give it a good look-see.

The item of lesser value that was mentioned in Wendel’s article was a three wheeled Zamboni that was used to clean the ice at the 1960’s Olympics. They don’t know where this contraption ended up. The article says that it would be worth about $175,000 but I don’t know who’d cough up that kinda cash for a dilapidated piece of shite. Crap it was missing a wheel back then. Bet they had to add some ballast to the opposite side so it could take a fairly even cut. What were those guys thinking at Zamboni? Here they are having a chance to use their machine for the first time during the Winter Olympics and they send a defective unit. Shit for brains - I hope they fired the marketing guy behind that plan.

I’ve skated a few times at the rink down in Paramount, California that the Zamboni’s owned. It’s been ages since I was there so I can’t remember if they just had pictures or the real things, but I recall how much the early units looked like farm equipment. Maybe they converted this one into a combine, blew it up, or salvaged it for fixing other units. Who knows, ehh?

So that’s a hint to you ‘mers out there. Take a look out behind the barn or one of the corn silos, heck check your neighbor’s property (more then likely they don’t live on it anyway) and see if ya see some really strange piece of equipment that’s missing a wheel. If ya see something that’s got some hen scratches on it that look like names then ya might have something. A really stupid rumor is that the entire USA Gold Medal Team etched their names on this Zam. Stupid, ehh? Story goes that they used their skate blades. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Well if that’s the case then I can see that it might be worth the bucks that I mentioned earlier.

I’ve got an idea for a new ice cleaning machine that I’d call the Zamboomba. “Zam” of course because I’d get Zamboni to manufacture it and to market it with their current fabulous network. The first one could end up being pretty valuable so after it gets used a few times I’d snag it back and store in my garage to sell later and use to pay for my grandkids’ college.

Got your interest in this, ehh? Want to invest? Need some more information to convince you? Are you questioning Jasper Wheats’ ingenuity?

The wifey got a chance to hear this when I was proofing it and she says to me at this point, “Jasper, these guys that read this probably don’t think you got it in ya for grandkids.” Well, EAT SHIT AND DIE – JASPER WHEATS IS WALKING WITH WOOD!!!!!

First of all the Zamboomba would be computerized. It would be set up to operate like them damn sneaky little vacuum cleaners that cleanup by themselves. The commercial version would contain a big old rechargeable battery that would run the motor for the scrapper blade and a heater to melt the snow for rewetting the ice.

Yup, your thinking, “How’s this little piece a shit going to clean the ice between periods?” Ehh?

Well, you’d use about a hundred of them at one time. All scurrying around on the ice, just tidying up the place. They’d all be preprogrammed to hit every spot but they’d also be programmed to add some damn good entertainment.

When they first come out on the ice they’d be programmed to act like they didn’t know what the heck they were doing. They’d be scurrying around and running into each other, smacking the boards, flipping over, etc. Kinda like robo wars on late night cable. Then they’d get their act together and get the job done. Of course a couple of times in the middle of this ice resurfacing they’d take off into wee bit a synchronized shit and makes patterns and spell things out like some hot for shit marching band with each unit programmed for sound to be a specific musical instrument. Lights and all, too, for a damn fancy lightshow.

Yup, the commercial version of the Zamboomba will be walking with wood.

So now you’re wondering what the standard retail unit is like.

Well, it would be a bit bigger and wouldn’t have all the bells and whistles. It would have a solar cell array on its back to keep the battery charged up. You could use it for your backyard rink or the cleared area out on the pond. Just set that baby loose when ya leave for school or work in the morning and when ya come home later ya got a damn nice patch of ice. No more gettin the shovels and hoses out to get yourself and your buddies some good ice.

Jasper here with his Zamboomba - just trying to make your ice time just a little bit better.

Skate hard! Keep walking with wood!