Hockey pic of the day

Pond Hockey in White Bear Lake, MN, a photo by scostello22 on Flickr.

Can you imagine having this in your backyard? No drive to the rink with the hockey bag? Sigh.

The photo was taken in 2008 in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, which is outside the Twin Cities.

--S.H.

Great hockey pics of pond hockey championships

The New York Times has a very short feature on the recent Pond Hockey National Championships held in Wisconsin. Click here to see a truly awesome pic of the event. The above photo is from Flickr and was taken by Kent Landerholm.

Here's an idea for the smart marketing people in California mountain towns: find a lake near a road and hold a state-oriented event. A lot of the guys on my beer league team -- including me -- have never had a chance to play outdoors and would be willing to travel many miles and spend many dollars to do so.

I'm talking to you, Mammoth Lakes. I'm pretty sure that Twin Lakes along Lake Mary Road freezes in the winter. I know I've seen pics of people playing hockey there. If not there, hold a tournament at your financially beleaguered outdoor rink in town -- the scenery is still pretty great and I bet you can get enough teams to pay a decent enough entry free to cover your nut.

--S.H.

Watch this documentary on pond hockey

With the Winter Classic on tab tomorrrow in Boston, I thought it would be a good time to post this link to a feature-length documentary called "Pond Hockey."

The film is posted on Hulu and is described as chronicling the "the changing culture of hockey from the open ice to climate-controlled arenas."

I just started watching. It's great. The first part of the film involves the U.S. pond hockey championships, which are held in Minnesota. At the front end of the movie, there's some great footage of a game and a testimony to a pond hockey tradition -- the post-game bonfire.

After my Wednesday clinic last night, I was just talking to one of my classmates and we agreed how frustrating it often is to live in a warm climate and not be able to walk outside to the local park to practice hockey. Most of us on Wednesdays are at that stage where we just need to noodle around for hours to learn some of this stuff and that's hard to do given limited stick time hours locally.

Anyway, watch the movie. It's great. And Happy New Year and may all your hockey dreams come true next year.

--Steve Hymon