High School Hockey Stats

A few months ago, I shared some awards from my high school hockey days. As fun as it was to look back on those times and link them to card collecting, I also briefly lamented at the fact that many of us didn't keep detailed records of our sporting experiences back then, and how I wished I had more mementos from that time.

It's because we're talking about an era before the internet, and before every local sports league was posting scores and stats on websites, down to its youngest age groups. It was also a time before every parent recorded every second of every game on their phones and then shared highlights all over their social media pages. 

Recreational hockey leagues like ours provided a simple schedule printout at the beginning of every year, and kept paper scoresheets for each game, but that's about all. After the game was over, those scoresheets likely went into a file cabinet, and who knows where after that? 

It's a shame. 

But guess what?

Recently I decided to rummage through some more boxes in the attic, wondering if I could find any other keepsakes from my young hockey days. I knew I didn't have any jerseys from way back then. I wish I still had a couple of them, but it wasn't a big loss. (The jerseys were one-color lightweight mesh, with a screen-printed sponsor's logo on the front and a simple number on the back. It was the same for every team, aside from the color. Very basic. We received a new one every year.) 

 

What I was really hoping to find, at the very least, was a photo or two. 

Well, within about 10 minutes of rummaging, I found a couple of 3-subject notebooks from my high school days.

I was on the right track. 

Not long after, I found a manila folder containing some doodles and notes from the same time period. 

I had some goofball tendencies, for sure.

And then I found another folder. 

 

Do you see the pink, yellow, and white sheets that are peeking out from the right-hand side? That's what got me excited. 

 

They're examples of those printed-out hockey schedules I mentioned earlier!

 

I didn't find a schedule from my freshman year, but the pink one was from my sophomore year, and the yellow one was from my junior year. As for the white one, that's something different from my senior year. We had a pretty cool coach that season who actually kept track of our stats, and wrote out the totals at the end of the season! (I'm not going to show them here on the blog, because they include some personal information like phone numbers and names of friends.)

 

In any case, the initial hit of nostalgia was strong. The schedules contained a separate row for each game we played, including the date, time, location, and opponent. Just looking at the names of the different hockey rinks we traveled to brought me right back to those glory days.

 

And as I looked over each page, something else kicked the nostalgia into overdrive:

 

 

 

 

Next to each game, in the margin, there were hand-written notes from young Gregory! I included any goals or assists I scored, along with some notes on how I played. It was so much fun to read through them that I decided to transfer everything over to Word documents. 

First, here are my high school hockey stats: 

 

 

NCHL Record 

 

Season	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	PIM
1991-92	No data available
1992-93	Devils	13	6	9	15	0
1993-94	Lightning	15	6	9	15	0
1994-95	Devils	12	5	7	12	2
Totals		40	17	25	42	2

 

 

Hey, a point-per-game player is not bad! 

 

I didn't have a big shot, but I was a good setup guy and had some speed. My best skill may have been anticipation. I killed penalties a lot, and was the kind of player who stole passes, blocked shots, got the puck out of the zone, and tried to keep it there. I really enjoyed those aspects of the game.

As for that missing first year of stats, I think our team was called the Flyers. And it would be my guess that my personal stats weren't as solid. I'd only been playing hockey of any kind (i.e., roller hockey) for a couple of years at that point, and I had a lot to learn about positioning and skating. I had a lot to learn about everything. So maybe it's not such a bad thing that my scoring stats don't exist for that first year.

Regardless, I was determined to improve, and the season schedules provide evidence of how I maintained that determination over the years. Here are a few examples of the notes that I wrote to myself after each game:

 

 

1/3/93:      0G, 0A   Could have done better.

12/28/93:  1G, 0A   Game-tying goal. Good forechecking on penalty late in the game with 3–2 lead. 

1/10/94:    0G, 0A   Good game. Good, hard work. Almost a couple of assists.

1/24/94:    0G, 1A   O.K. Need to get in a better mindset.

1/31/94:    1G, 1A   Got in a better mindset! Nice goal.

I'm so glad I took those notes. They provide such a fun look at the ups and downs throughout the seasons.

 

To the Moms and Dads Out There

Now that I'm older, it completely stuns me to look through those hockey schedules. Many of the games didn't start until 8:00pm—or even sometimes 9:00! And quite a few of them were held at outdoor rinks throughout the county, with almost no indoor seating for spectators. 

I'm trying to imagine being a parent like my mom. You come home from a long day of work, get dinner ready, and then instead of relaxing, you have to get your winter coat back on, drive your teenager to a game, cheer from a cold seat, and get home around 10:30 or 11:00pm, only to go right back to work the next morning. 

 

There was one week during the 1993-94 season when we actually had three consecutive games during the week—Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. 

 

Dang! I definitely don't remember such a rigorous schedule.

So to all the moms and dads out there who support their children with their sporting endeavors, an enormous thank you.

Fun News

 

I did find one photo.

 

 

There I am, likely during one of those weeknight games, on an outdoor rink. It sure seems like I'm wide open. 

 

When I zoom in and look closely at some of the equipment I'm wearing—specifically the gloves and the skates—I'm going to conclude that this was my first season of rec league hockey. 1991-92. Freshman year of high school. I'd really love to find more photos, but for now I'm happy to have at least this one.

And like I mentioned in the hockey trophy post, I'm happy to have played most of those seasons with a few of my high school friends. That senior year—when our coach tabulated all our stats—was a good one. The four of us finished 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 7th in team scoring. (I was 3rd.) It felt good to represent our high school like that.

 

Other Fun Stuff

 

Here's a clip featuring the video game my hockey-loving friends and I would have played the most:

 

 

 

And here are a few more hockey cards we would have been excited to find in packs. (Brands like Finest, Flair, Upper Deck SP, and Leaf Limited had joined the party—each with some inserts that were rather scarce for the time.)

 

 

1992-93 Score USA Greats #8 Brian Leetch, 1993-94 Upper Deck Silver Skates #R6 Steve Yzerman, 
1993-94 Stadium Club Finest #1 Wayne Gretzky

 

  

The Big Cliché 

At this point of the post, it's almost too easy to say something like, "Where does the time go?" or, "It feels like just yesterday". But you know what? There's a reason why so many folks say things like that.

It's true. 

Those were such fun times, and looking back on those stats and the hand-written notes has filled me more so with good energy than with sadness or a longing for a time gone by. I'd love to go back, sure, but in quite a few ways I still am that teenage kid inside. 

 

And I'm proud of high school Gregory for his laser focus. There can be a lot of distractions in high school, not to mention all the chemical and biological stuff going on inside your body as you go through adolescence. But high school Gregory was determined to play hard and improve his skills on the ice, and to work equally hard in school. He wouldn't let anything stop him. Good stuff. 

 

As for collecting? By the time I reached my senior year, I'd lost interest. And that means I missed out on many of the inserts, autographed cards, and relics that would flood the hobby in the mid- to late-1990s.

 

But it was fine. I had a new challenge coming up the next year: 

 

College hockey tryouts. 

I know I've got at least a few mementos from that time. Could be a mission for my next rummage through the attic. 

 

Stay tuned, and thanks again for reading along. 

High School Hockey Trophies (Or, the Glory Days)

A few months ago here on the blog, I shared an image of the one Little League trophy that I managed to hold onto for all of these years, along with a picture of young Gregory Ninepockets in the batter's box. The trophy was a little bit weathered from years spent in garages and attics, but I was able to clean it up pretty well, and now it resides in a much more pleasant, temperature-controlled environment.

The whole thing generated a pretty strong sense of nostalgia, and it pushed me a few years forward on Memory Lane. Here's the brief story.

From the very start, I was a baseball kid. Every spring, the prospect of a new Little League season generated that special combination of nervousness and excitement inside of me. I loved to play, and practice, and learn. Baseball was just a huge deal for me. But during my last year of Little League, I met a new friend who introduced me to another sport: Ice hockey. And I took a shine to it. 

Now I was well aware that baseball was—and always would be—my first love. So it wasn't like I was going to ditch it completely for hockey, or anything. However, this new friend and all his brothers played hockey all the time. Whenever I went over their house, it was hockey everywhere. Equipment bags everywhere. Sticks everywhere. Jerseys everywhere. I started to really enjoy being in that environment, and learning as much as I could about the game. I even started collecting hockey cards for the first time! 

On top of that, I began playing the sport—first in the street, wearing sneakers, and then on rollerblades. By the time 9th grade came around, that was it. I was hooked, and ready for high school–level ice hockey. Full equipment and everything. Thanks to a generous and hard-working mom and dad, I did play four full years of high school ice hockey. 

And so, after finishing up that post about the Little League trophy, I thought back to those high school hockey days. I knew I had some awards from that time tucked away in a box somewhere. 

That's where this post comes in. Because I found them.

Now before you scroll down and start assuming too much about my hockey skills, I'll tell you that these awards came from a recreational county league that anyone could join. Our high school didn't have a hockey team, and although the county did certainly have travel teams, I'd only been playing the sport for a couple of years at that point, and didn't quite have the abilities to match those guys. A few of them played in our rec league for fun, and I really had to be on my game if I wanted to keep up with them on the ice. You could tell they were on a different level.

Anyway, here's the fun stuff that I found in the box, year by year. 

 

 

 

Freshman Year

 

 

1991-92 All-Star Game Plaque

The "Executive Classic" is the name the league used for its annual all-star game. I think most seasons there were between 6 and 8 teams in the league, and each coach submitted the names of a few players for the all-star game. I was very happy to be selected my first year, and it was nice of the league to hand out a little plaque like this one to each player who participated. The plaques are fairly small—around 5 inches by 7 inches.

 

 

Sophomore Year

I didn't find an all-star game plaque for the 1992-93 season, and I really don't remember whether or not I was selected. I do know that I didn't deal with any injuries or missed games, so maybe I had an off year, or maybe our team had a lot of good players that season who were selected in front of me. 

 

 

 

Junior Year 

 

 

1993-94 All-Star Game Plaque

Back in the saddle for the all-star game. You can see that the league changed up the plaque design a little bit. And that's not all for my Junior year. Check this out:

 

 

 

1993-94 All-Star Game MVP Plaque

I was the the all-star game MVP! If I remember right, I had 2 goals and 1 assist in a victory for our side. And my Junior season was even better still, because. . .

 

 

 

 

. . . our team won the league championship! 

I really don't remember a whole lot about the season in general, but I do remember that we had an excellent squad, which included a couple of travel team players. And although I don't remember the final score of the championship game, I think it was pretty close for the first couple of periods.

  

 

 

Senior Year 

 

 

1994-95 All-Star Game Plaque

I wrapped up my high school playing days with another all-star game appearance. A couple of my classmates were rec league all-stars over the years, as well. It always felt great to represent our high school in that way.

 

And playing with those classmates is what I remember the most about those days. There were four or five of us in the same grade who all loved the sport, and we joined the rec league year after year. From what I remember, the league always tried to place us on the same team, which made things really fun. The day after a game, we'd get together in school and talk about how we played, and who we were playing next. The fact that we were such a small group only made it more special.

As for that friend who introduced me to ice hockey a few years prior? He was one of those classmates on the team. We ended up developing such good chemistry on the ice that we often played together on the same forward line. And guess what else? He was a card collector like me. That made things even more fun! 

Here are a few cards that we would have been excited to find in packs around that time.

1991-92 Upper Deck #21 Teemu Selanne, 1991-92 Upper Deck #AW9 Mario Lemieux, 
1993-94 Topps Premier Black Gold #7 Wayne Gretzky

They take me right back to those high school hockey days. And I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but how cool is it that a few little pieces of cardboard can help preserve such great memories? I only wish we documented more of our hockey experiences and kept more physical mementos from that time.

 

What about you readers and collectors? 

If you played any sports or were part of any clubs in high school, do you still have some trophies, awards, or other mementos?

 

I want to hear some stories! Share in the comment section. 

This Custom Card is Going Straight to the Principal's Office

Over the past few years I've created some custom cards featuring dudes who many would consider troublemakers. Harry Callahan, Logan (a.k.a. Wolverine), Rick Vaughn, El Mariachi. 

 

But never have I featured three on the same card like this:

I mean, just look at those guys. You know it's only a matter of time before they'll be sitting in detention.

 

The card is based on the 1971-72 Topps hockey "leaders" design. The subset featured goals, assists, and points leaders from the previous season, along with goalie wins, shutouts, and goals against average leaders. And although a penalty minute leaders card wasn't featured in that set, a few other hockey sets in the 1970s did include one, and that notion of three miscreants on a card provided all the inspiration I needed. I really like the bright yellow color bar and big, bold red text that runs across the top, as well as the look of the player images inside the blue ovals.

But that's not all. I also designed a card back.

I figured Bender would be the overall leader in absences, followed by Spicoli and Bueller. Note specifically how many absences Beuller has. Fans of the film Ferris Bueller's Day Off will know exactly why I chose that number.

 

Principal Rooney: So far this semester he has been absent niiiinnne times.

Ferris' mom: Niiiinne times?

Principal Rooney: Niiiinne times.

 

Ferris' mom: I don't remember him being sick niiine times.

 

Principal Rooney: That's probably because he wasn't sick. He was skipping school. 

Of course that number would suddenly be reduced to 2, right in front of principal Rooney on his computer screen, but we all know 9 absences was the actual number.

To fill out the top 10 on the leaderboard, I added a cast of characters from other films that revolved around the high school experience, such as Danny Zuko from Grease, Lane Meyer from Better Off Dead, Gary Wallace from Weird Science, and both Bill S. Preston and Ted Logan from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.

 

Sharp-eyed card collectors might notice that quite a few of these ne'er-do-wells, slackers, and mischief makers attended the same high school—Shermer High—even though they appeared in different films. That's because filmmaker John Hughes was the man behind quite a few of those iconic movies, and he used the same high school name each time.

 

I really wanted to get Chris Knight from Real Genius onto the list, but it turns out the school in that film was a college, not a high school. I also thought about adding a couple of characters from Parker Lewis Can't Lose, but that was a television show, while all of the other characters on the card are from feature-length films. So I decided against it.

Regardless, I had a lot of fun designing this card, and I hope you're getting a big kick out it.

Do you have a favorite high school–themed movie? Favorite character?

 

Share in the comment section, and thanks for reading, as always!