Street Hockey : Southland Kids Do Without Ice and Make Their Own Pucks

Young boys in football helmets nearby were huffing and puffing through workouts the other day as Sean Curto and Jason Anderson roller-skated onto the outdoor basketball courts at Mira Costa High School.

Summer had come to a sweaty halt for prep football players, but for Curto and Anderson, both 15, this would be just another day of street hockey in Manhattan Beach, slapping a puck off cracks in the sidewalks, firing wrist shots between parked automobiles.

In the streets, ice blades give way to an odd form of roller skates. The puck is often a tennis ball, and finding a smooth surface is difficult.

The courts at Mira Costa are particularly attractive because the asphalt surface is smoother than most. On weekend mornings in the fall, the courts can get packed.

Even “some college guys play here,” Curto said.

It isn’t hockey heaven, though, just tolerable. The yellow-and-green courts are scuffed with black streaks from errant slap shots. When the surface is wet, it plays like greased lightning. Six steel basketball standards supporting fan backboards rise into the sky. They are unwanted obstacles. But it will have to do.

Welcome to L.A., Wayne Gretzky, the land of sunshine and mild temperatures. A place where hockey fans wear Hawaiian shirts in January and the term “thin ice” means there is very little of it to go around.

“The biggest problem for hockey here is a lack of ice time,” said Kevin Phillips of the Olympic Ice Arena in Harbor City, where Curto, Anderson and a group of friends had tryouts recently for the Bay Harbor Red Devils team.

Curto and Anderson, who dream of college scholarships in ice hockey, would prefer to play indoors in an ice rink somewhere. Living in Southern California has its advantages, the pair said, but being hockey buffs isn’t one of them.

Explained Phillips: “The kids are lucky if they can get one practice and one game a week on ice.”

So aspiring players have adapted with a street version of the game that is becoming increasing popular. In South Bay beach communities, Mira Costa is known as the hip place to play.

“It is smooth. No people. No cars,” said Scott Swift, 15. “The streets are too small and rough. Here it is smooth.”

Hockey is hot right now, anyway.

“Hockey in general got on a roll ever since Gretzky,” said Tom Peffer of the Golden Bear Hockey Shop in Lomita. He was referring to the trade that brought professional hockey’s foremost player to the Los Angeles Kings from Edmonton. “The next five years will be big here.”

Peffer said that street hockey increases stick handling and skating.

The players agreed.

“Sometimes you’ll hit a wrist shot in the street and the puck will pop up 30 feet into the air,” said Swift, one of about a dozen friends from Manhattan Beach Intermediate School who got hooked on ice hockey simultaneously.

“There’s never a dull moment. There is always contact,” Swift said.

Anderson agreed.

“Before I got into hockey, life wasn’t like boring or anything, but hockey has just become something that I like.”

The cost to an ice hockey player can be $400 to $600 a year for equipment, according to Phillips, “plus team dues,” which run about $75 a month in Harbor City. Street hockey costs considerably less. Curto paid $49 at a department store for his specially adapted street skates. Because the game is played outdoors and there is less hip checking, most street players don’t need all the girdle pads that ice hockey players use.

Anderson, who forked out $100 for his street skates, said he raises funds for his equipment by baby-sitting.

“I’m glad my parents don’t hand this stuff to me,” he said of the equipment. “It keeps me working. I feel good about it. If your parents buy it for you, it tells you that they want you to play. Then you don’t want to play because they want you to. When you earn it, it means that it is something that you want to do.”

Curto, who raises money by working in his father’s apartment business, does what he can to cut costs on the street. He figures he can save $3 to $4 making pucks out of old snuff cans filled with cement or sand. He converts used ice hockey sticks to street sticks. When he can’t borrow Swift’s net for the courts at Mira Costa, he and Anderson shoot at a pretend goal in the chain-link fence.

To increase mobility, Curto removed the rear brake from his street skates.

“They mess me up. When I make sharp turns they hit the ground and make me fall,” he said.

Football practice came to an end on one field and started anew for another group of boys on a field next to the basketball court. Curto and Anderson were hailed by several of the incoming players, all sophomores at Mira Costa.

“Two of those guys play hockey with us,” said Curto. “They wanted to be here today, but they had football.”

Later, over a milkshake at a McDonald’s, they explained why they play a sport that is out of the American mainstream.

“To be different,” said Anderson. “Everyone plays football. To me it’s not much of a challenge. All you do is jump on a ball.”

Curto agreed: “In hockey you are always in the game. In football you are supposed to knock the guy over that is in front of you. That’s not fun. In hockey you are always having fun.”

For Curto, hockey has become a passion. The street version just wets his appetite. A jarring fall off a surfboard a year ago that required hospitalization keeps him out of the water most days now.

“I just wanted to get into a sport where I can stay for a long time,” he said. “Hockey will always be it.”

He and Anderson figure they practice at least half an hour each afternoon on the Mira Costa basketball courts after school. On weekends they meet at the courts, then ice-skate for fun in either Culver City or Palos Verdes.

None of their friends are licensed to drive, so transportation to one of the few rinks in the area is difficult. Just recently a few began to ride the bus to Harbor City.

To get around, Curto has turned to his skates. On a recent afternoon he could be seen skating down a hilly residential street near Prospect and Artesia. In one hand he held a hockey stick and in the other a puck. He wore black street skates and heavy gloves. The temperature was at least 85 degrees and Curto, in a T-shirt and shorts, was sweating. He began the trip from his home near the Manhattan Beach pier, three miles and several hills away.

As Curto crossed Prospect, the Mira Costa courts came into view. His usually dour face cranked out its first smile.