O'LEARY - There was a time when rugged hockey players looked forward to the arrival of the Eatons or Simpson-Sears catalogue, but not necessarily for the opportunity to order new equipment.
From the use of old catalogues as shin guards to substituting frozen horse manure for pucks, a group of researches are learning many interesting things about the game of hockey and how it relates to O'Leary.
"We're really looking to collect stories," said Scotty Joe Smith, coordinator of the O'Leary Hockey History Project.
With funding through the Youth Employment Strategy, the Island Narratives Program was able to hire research teams to gather local history in 15 communities across P.E.I. Each participating community selected its own topic.
Since starting their work on Dec. 13, the O'Leary team has come to discover hockey was an obvious choice for their project. O'Leary hosted a Philadelphia Flyers training camp when Eric Lindros was making his NHL debut. The community made it to the final stage of the very first Kraft Hockeyville competition and the Maroons are a recognized hockey name all over P.E.I.
But the four-member team is not just interested in recent history. They've come up with lots of interesting stuff about the Maroon Sisters from the 1920s and '30s
"Quite different from what we wear today," said team member Joni Arsenault who has years of experience playing hockey in Tignish. She pulled on the woolen hockey sweater and socks Bessie Dennis had worn while playing with the Maroons Sisters decades ago. There'd be no room in the uniform for all of the gear players wear today.
Although they have already heard the Lindros and Hockeyville stories, Smith said the researchers are concentrating on some of the older movers and shakers of the game in O'Leary before looking into the more recent history.
Their goal, he said is "just hear their hockey stories, hear their experiences from volunteering to coaching to anything ice-related, specifically hockey and Maroons."
"For a community this size it seems to have a rich history of (hockey)," said researcher Darren Kennedy.
"Hockeyville proves it," added Emily Ramsay.
Kennedy admits he is really getting caught up in how hockey became such an important part of O'Leary's being.
"What I find amazing about the rink is how its role changes all the time as a community center or as a center of the community," he said.
"That's what they live and breathe," Smith said. "It really seems like it is a dominant topic."
The History of O'Leary Project is based out of the Future Tech West Building on Main Street. This Thursday from 2 to 4 p.m. and 6:30 to 8 p.m. the project workers are hosting a kick-off event and they are inviting everyone with a hockey memory to share to drop in. Workers are interested in seeing any hockey memorabilia, including equipment, scrapbooks and photos relating to hockey in O'Leary.
