No more. It’s what used to be the case, when hockey players used to whack each other on the shins. In old time hockey, it was all done with wooden hockey sticks. Over the weekend, a story in the National Post asked who killed the wooden hockey stick? “No two were ever the same. Each was as unique as the individual player, as unique as the individual tree. Once ubiquitous, wood is in full retreat. Now a relic, a poor man’s twig that not a single NHL forward or defenceman.. still employs. Meanwhile, in the wider hockey world, wood sticks have dipped to a 25%, and dwindling, market share.”

These days, if NHL players were on the ice, they’d be whacking streaking wingers’ shins with costly composite sticks rather than “laying the lumber” with traditional “Sher-wood”, similar to the weapon my uncle Pat demonstrated many years ago on my family’s Prince George backyard rink.