The Garment I Yearned For

 

   Wow, I am not that young anymore.

   In October 1972, the newly formed National Hockey League expansion team, the New York Islanders, played their first game.  Freshly 12 years old, I had heard the local Long Island buzz about the team, yet had a fledgling interest in hockey.  I had watched the N.Y. Rangers on TV with my brother, but didn’t really understand the game yet.  My mind was a blank slate, ready for new information.  There was plenty of room there, I was 12.

   On December 5, 1972, I attended my first Islanders game at the very new and then cutting-edge arena, the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, in Uniondale.  The Isles laced up their skates to take on the Los Angeles Kings. My older brother, Steve, was 20, and his buddy, Mark, was an ice hockey player for local Nassau Community College.  Mark’s team had won the New York State Junior College Ice Hockey championship two years in a row.  How’s that for us down state city slickers?  As the third period began, we were able to move down to the front row, behind one of the goals.  That was allowed way back then when a team would not sell out due to poor advertising or poor play.  We were standing right up against the boards and plexiglass that surrounded the rink.  The play made its way into the left corner where I was standing, face up against the glass.  I was entirely enthralled by the action.  I was 12.  The players, as the action would have it, crashed into the boards with body checks and a corner scrum, all trying to get the puck.  I was knocked backwards violently, almost falling to the ground while my brother grabbed on to me.  He said, “You see, it’s a rough game.  Don’t stand so close to the glass."  I was hooked.  I was a boy totally enraptured by a man’s game.  Professional, major league ice hockey.  I am still a big Islanders fan, dare I say it, these 50 years later.  Yikes!

   The L.A. Kings won the game 6-1.  I looked it up a few years ago and my memory served me well.  A 6-1 drubbing on Dec. 5, 1972.  My Isles went on to a dismal season record of 12 wins and 60 losses, a record for futility at that time.  Eight seasons later, “We” would win the first of four straight Stanley Cups.

   On Christmas 1972, my Mom and Dad got me a football and other clothing items.  As early as 2 PM on Christmas Day, my friends, Tommy and Paul from across the street, and Steve and Bobby from down the street were playing street hockey, with actual plastic street hockey sticks, and two goals, and a goalie stick and mask and goalie pads.  Right in front of my house.  Why was I not invited?  As fate would have it, their parents agreed to get them all street hockey sticks. 

   The 7^th Street Bombers were born!  I ran out there, stick-less, to watch.  Then, a brilliant idea.  I ran back to our garage a got my older sister’s wooden high school girl’s field hockey stick.  I didn’t care about my friends’ ridicule; I was playing street hockey!  The next day, I begged my mom to take me to the sporting goods store to return the football and buy me a Mylec ™ street hockey stick.  A day late, I was an official 7^th Street Bomber. 

   Within a week or two, my street hockey pals had official or near official New York Islanders jerseys, both in home white or road blue.  Adorned with the round NY Islanders logo with Long Island on it, with a hockey stick forming the “Y” in “NY.”  They must have promised their parents the world, as the jerseys were not cheap, say, $20.-$30.00 for the real deal.  This, when my mom had problems with buying me $4.00 sneakers. (That’s a different story).

   My parents were not cheap, merely frugal, with four children to feed and clothe and a house to pay for.  Well, here I was with only a street hockey stick and regular clothes.  My friends eventually got other jerseys to my none.  Again, I begged my mom to get me a New York Islanders hockey jersey.  I would paint the entire house for that jersey, although I recall doing many chores and odd jobs to get the jersey.  My mom came home one day with a jersey in a bag.  I opened it up in rapt anticipation, I will finally be one of the dozens of kids in school now with a hockey jersey.  In the bag, as I unfolded the blue jersey with gold arm stripes, it was a jersey that looked like the Buffalo Sabres team jersey.  And it didn’t even have a logo.  Fiddlesticks!

   As my dad had taught me well, I was gracious to my mom, who knew absolutely nothing about “My” New York Islanders.  I was just happy to wear my kind of official, non-logoed Buffalo Sabres jersey.  Hey, I used to play street hockey, way back when, with my sister’s wooden girls field hockey stick.

   I never did get that elusive “Official” New York Islanders hockey jersey.  Not until I was 18 or 19, when I could buy one for myself.  It’s amazing how one garment, in the mind of a 12-year-old boy, could make or break you.  When at a game today, I chuckle when I see a man wearing an ancient Islanders jersey, fitting him quite snuggly.  It’s not a good look for anyone.  I don’t want to be that guy.

Let’s Go, Islanders!!! 

 

Richard Melnick, July 23, 2022.

Writing from the Heart class assignment from July 16, 2022.