Rush to the Rink

The hockey player glides surely onto the ice, takes a couple of casual turns around the rink, leans raffishly on his stick and says, "My remarkable ability to shoot from either side makes me invaluable. My fierce checking makes me the most respected defenseman in the league." Brad Park or Bobby Orr in an uncharacteristically boastful moment? Not a chance. It is that famed canine fantasizer Snoopy, who has taken to the sport like a dog to a T bone. He is not alone. In the past five years Americans in swelling numbers have nurtured their own fevered dreams of slap shots and shutouts and begun a rush from rumpus rooms to hockey rinks. All vintages --and both sexes--have laced on skates, taped their sticks and taken to the ice. The result: an unprecedented surge of interest in amateur hockey.

The Amateur Hockey Association of the United States, the governing body of leagues for kids, had 10,298 teams registered last year, more than double the total in 1969. Some 200,000 youngsters compete in six A.H.A.U.S. classifications, from Mites (for eight-year-olds and under) up to Juniors (17-19). Some of the rink rats graduate to high school and college hockey, both of which have had an equally high growth rate.

There are also numerous senior leagues for diehard oldtimers. New York cops stay in shape by playing on a team sponsored by the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association. Minnesota Governor Wendell Anderson, a member of the 1956 U.S. Olympic team, gets in his weekly licks in St. Paul. Out in Santa Rosa, Calif., Snoopy's creator, Charles Schulz, 52, built his own rink and trades hip checks at least three times a week with other ancients. "I find hockey to be a necessity," says Schulz. "I go out on the ice for an hour and forget everything."

Women have got into the act. The Massachusetts Port Authority sponsors a distaff six called the Massport Jets, who ran up a record of 90 victories and two losses before slipping a bit last year --when they began to schedule games against the boys. There is very little difference between boys' and girls' hockey. Says Gene Doherty, whose nine-year-old sister Patty looks forward to joining the Jets when she's old enough: "You wouldn't think it was girls, the way they're checking and mouthing off."

The sport is not for the faint of heart or the weak of wallet. Skates can cost upwards of $100, gloves $65, shin pads $35, protective pants $50, helmet $22, elbow pads $20, shoulder pads $25, a stick $8, and other accessories $25. The parents of a small-scale Bernie Parent have to shell out even more. Goalie leg pads alone cost up to $150. Yet even in the depths of recession, business has never been better. At the Boston Bruins Pro Shop, sales of equipment are up 57% over last winter. At Atlanta's Igloo Ice Skating Rink, parents are eagerly enrolling their kids in a twelve-week mass-instruction course to the tune of $65.

There are more costs; ice time may run up to $50 an hour, and insurance fees mount as players get older and stronger. Mrs. George Gubbins of Hamel, Minn., whose son Tom plays goalie in the local Midget division, also budgets for stitches. "I can't get over it," she says. "At one place it costs $13.95, and at another hospital it costs $42."

Hockey fever has led to a surge in the construction of rinks. In 1967, the year the N.H.L. created an expansion team in St. Louis, there were six rinks there. Now the city has twelve indoor and six outdoor rinks. Ben Schaffer, an administrator with the Essex County, N.J., park commission, says that the county has five rinks. "Five years ago," adds Schaffer, "there weren't even five rinks in the whole state." The demand is not slackening. Barry Wolkon, who has just opened a $3 million, two-rink complex in New York's Rockland County, says he plans to be in operation year round. "Eventually, we expect to be booked 24 hours a day." Already the scarcity of available ice time has driven parents out of bed in the small hours to get their children to the rink on time.

Is it worth it?

For the lucky few who in ten years may parlay stickhandling skill into N.H.L. loot, there is little doubt. Some Canadians feel, in fact, that the combination of more young players and increased emphasis on the sport means that the U.S. will eventually dominate the pro game. But for most, the reward will continue to be the fun of playing.

The fun is often tempered by injuries as youngsters try to copy the more muscular pros. The A.H.A.U.S. keeps no statistics but for most youngsters the most common wounds are gashes that require sutures. Less common but more painful are the broken noses when unskilled kids bang headfirst into the boards girdling the rink.

Marilyn Taylor of Ramsey, N.J., watches with trepidation when twelve-year-old Bobby skates into the corner, endangering the family's $1,600 investment in orthodontia. "It's not easy to be a hockey mother," she says. "Sometimes we have to get up at 3 in the morning to make a game. But it's never any problem. I just go to his room and say 'Hockey,' and my boy is right up."

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