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The legend of the wooden stick

Our Princeton Posse boys travelled to Kelowna for a mid-season game with the Kelowna Chiefs on Saturday night.
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Coach Duner holds up the strange artifacts (wooden sticks) his Posse players were forced to play with after someone forgot their composite ones.

Our Princeton Posse boys travelled to Kelowna for a mid-season game with the Kelowna Chiefs on Saturday night.  Upon arrival, it was discovered that our rookies forgot to pack one of the stick bags for this trip - that bag held all of our right-handed sticks for the team. Well, of course, the immediate responses were, things like “it’s not my fault,” “I swear we packed the bags on the bus”, and “Maybe they fell out on the trip up!”  In the end, it was realized, they just didn’t get packed. This should not have surprised me as some of the boys had also forgot to pack their game socks for the previous nights game in Penticton!

I decided to go buy a dozen wooden right-handed sticks for the game. I ran down to “Sport Chek” and managed to buy 12 sticks for a shade over $300. This made me chuckle inside as I know the kids now use one piece composite sticks which run $250-$300 each!

I rushed the sticks to the boys barely before the game warm-up. Again, out come the most ludicrous responses from the boys. “Wow, feel how heavy these sticks are!”  “Haha, I’ve never used a wooden stick, this is gonna be weird”, and “How do you shoot with these things?”  As I stood there listening to this, I merely mentioned that “Wayne Gretzky got over 200 points a year with wooden sticks and half you “Bingo Cards” only have one goal.” “Heck, you, Kempinski, you don’t even have a point this year!”

The boys eventually got their sticks cut, taped and ready for the game. Some made it out for warm-up, many were very late.

Two minutes into the first period, Cody Williams (with a wooden stick) scores the Posse’s first goal with an assist going to Tom Kempinksi (wooden stick).  Tom’s first shift in a game with his wooden stick and he gets his first point of the season!  Cody Williams (wooden stick) has a three point game and Eric Kubis (wooden stick) scored the game winner in a 4-2 victory.

What really made me laugh about the whole event occurred when we got home from the trip. The questions the boys now had were “Where do we put these sticks?” and “What do we do with these now?” It was like it was taboo if the wooden sticks were to be placed in their stick racks next to their “fancy schmancy” composite ones.

The wooden sticks are leaning in the corner, seemingly abandoned by their users, against the wall in the dressing room. I’m thinking of cutting up one of the broken ones and making it into a picture frame to go around the puck that got Kempinski his first point in the KIJHL! Haha.