Last we checked, the better part of our old gear was stashed, crushed, mashed and pancaked into boxes beneath the basement stairs. The pads and mouth guards might very well be the breeding grounds for the next penicillin. The old sticks — the braided Christian, the naked Sherwood, the orange Easton —have all long gone to that big ice box in the sky.

And really, that’s all just a long-winded way of saying that the majority of that old gear has gradually made the shift from “equipment” to “junk,” (and in some cases, “toxic”). But it doesn’t have to be that way. We took a few minutes over the past few days to look for alternate uses for that discarded equipment and found a few you might expect: 

We found some DIY sites for modifying sticks into chairs and curtain rods and picture frames:

http://abundanceonadime.blogspot.com/2011/05/re-use-it-project-hockey-stick-muskoka.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.iletaitdeuxfois.com/fun-stuff/fun-stuff/#2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30010891@N05/4664952444/sizes/z/in/photostream/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://cottagelife.com/13401/blogs/cottage-style/reusing-old-hockey-sticks

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And there were some different and less expected variations: Dresses from hockey jerseys. “Snowflakes” and canes from sticks

 

http://yhoo.it/rFE8F7

 

 

 

 

 

http://inhabitat.com/recycled-hockey-sticks-transformed-into-incredible-snowflakes-at-the-montreal-botanic-gardens/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://thirdstringgoalie.blogspot.com/2011/12/third-string-goalie-holiday-shopping.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And then we came across …Well, just look for yourself: 

Apple Island, tiled digital printout and hockey gear on plywood, 96" x 96", 2006. – Liz Pead: http://www.worldofthreadsfestival.com/artist_interviews/032_liz_pead_11.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is just about as creative a use for gear as we’ve ever seen — though the word "creative" hardly comes even close to giving it justice. It's the work of Toronto artist Liz Pead, and if you've got a minute or ten to spare, it's definitely something worth your time. Here's a link to her website. And here's an interview she did with World of Threads Festival with a lot more photos of her work. Check it out.

Maple LEAF Tree, recycled hockey sticks and hockey cards on wooden armature, height is 14 feet tall, 2008.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bayside Field: A View to St. Croix Island, recycled hockey gear and oil paint on plywood, 120" x 60" x 60", 2008.

 

 

When we were growing up, gelatin was formed into blue and red stars, wobbled in our shaking hands and stained our palms with its food-color-ly goodness. It never occurred to us to do much else with it. Because it’s (basically) food and — as any mother will instruct you, ours included, prompted or not — food is not to be played with. Unless you are this guy. In which case, we’d encourage it:

 

 

 

And this is why we love you, Internet. (Thanks Puck Daddy for the link).

More Foo-gos Here

Interesting hockey memorabilia-related story out of Canada that we totally missed yesterday:

Photo: Getty Sports Images. And this should go without saying, but this is NOT the stick in question.

After spending the past three years documenting “the provenance of the vintage sporting artifact, which he bought from a Cape Breton barber who had it on display for decades in his North Sydney, N.S., shop,” 44-year-old Mark Presley is ready to sell.

The owner of a curved hunk of maple wood, carved from a tree cut down about 170 years ago in Nova Scotia, has revealed plans to sell the object — which may well be the world's oldest hockey stick.

By retracing the stick's ownership through several generations of the Moffatt family, a settler clan that was farming outside of North Sydney by the early 1800s, Presley compiled considerable archival and other evidence that the object was probably used in early, shinny-like games of "hurley" at a popular skating site called Pottle Lake.

The 2006 sale of another, somewhat younger stick from 19th-century Ontario, which reportedly went to a private collector of hockey memorabilia for $1.9 million, suggests the Nova Scotia relic could fetch a significant price.

Question: Does the purchase of the “hand-hewn, maple wood hockey stick — believed to be among the oldest hockey sticks in existence” include the Band-Aids, tweezers and gauze necessary to remove all the splinters the buyer’s sure to get while handling the thing or are those items sold separately?

Side Note: Also, in case anyone’s is in the market for a totally awesome stick that we might or might not have broken into pieces when we were seven after slamming it into the ice and blaming it on our younger brother, we are currently accepting offers.

N.S. man announces plans to sell ancient hockey stick - The Montreal Gazette

We need to file a confession:

There are days when it’s not easy to be a member of the media and the challenges you run up against seem insurmountable. Days when you wake up in the morning, bleary-eyed, look up into the mirror after washing away the sleep from your eyes and realize you’re really much too handsome for your own good. Days when it requires you to hide in bushes and behind coat racks to photograph Jackie Onassis, to spend all hours of the night following the most recent celebrity du jour. And of course there are the days when Brandon Prust makes you first apologize for stepping on the Rangers’ crest. And then he makes you kiss it.
 

 
Although the network’s romantic involvement with the crest goes unmentioned in the NY Daily News, we can only hope the kiss is featured prominently in the up-coming release.

HBO '24-7' crew shows up at New York Rangers practice facility; coach John Tortorella could be star - NY Daily News