From the days when proto-humans lashed animal jawbones to sticks and whacked wildebeest-poop slapshots in Olduvai Arena to today’s super-high-tech computer-assisted extravaganzas, one by-product of the hockey game has gone unnoticed and untapped. Until now . . . In 50 Things to Make with a Broken Hockey Stick, Peter Manchester transforms the agony of a fractured stick into the thrill of creation. Instructions and explicit cartoons show woodworkers of all abilities how to fashion items for outdoors, items for indoors, and items without any purpose at all. No basement artiste will ever throw away a broken hockey stick again. The finished projects will delight friends and win the respect of detractors, even those in the maker’s own household. Using broken hockey sticks as tomato stakes is elementary compared with crafting a Walking Stick or a Piňata Stick. But Manchester goes far beyond making a stick out of a stick; his inventions encompass the full potential of this free and almost infinite resource. Even in this age of miracle materials, ordinary recreational hockey sticks are a tough, flexible composite of resin and wood, and the broken pieces are just too good to throw away. Truly practical designs include a modern Travois, a springy, long-range Catapult, and a Toilet Paper Holder for the well-appointed fishing camp. Science fair projects leap from the pages of 50 Things to Make with a Broken Hockey Stick: a Wind Vane, a combination Sun Dial and Snow Depth Gauge, and a Geodesic Dome that requires plenty of duct tape. Accessories for the home include a Curtain Rod for the bedroom of a hockey-crazed kid and a Lamp that really works. Fathers and children can bond as they manufacture gifts and sporting goods: a Pot Rack, a Wind Sail, an Ice Croquet Set, and a Bathroom Occupancy Designator. The book’s pièce de résistance is the Mock Moose, a trophy made from a skate and at least four stick blades.
Peter Manchester was born in the East Coast of the US, Lived for many years afterwards in New Mexico and then suddenly found himself in Eastern Canada. Some suspect this was due to matrimonial promises that were made. Others suggest that it was the gypsy in him. In any case he ended up in the Maritimes and rediscovered broken hockey sticks. He did play some in his youth, but was forever shamed by showing up on the ice in figure skates! Well being an iconoclast is in his nature.
As an illustrator and artist and occasional author, Peter Manchester found fertile pickings with busted hockey sticks. He penned his original text for Goose Lane Editions, and for a brief shining moment, it was a Canadian best seller. Not to be left gathering dust, another volume was written a few seasons later which culminated in 100 dubious constructions made from hockey fodder. Well, there was some things his fodder never told him, and that was to stop with the puns already.
Lately he is working on a series of paintings, like book covers, only in large format. They can be viewed at: http://blog.petermanchester.ca/
These are yet again, more creations from a brain that never sleeps, depicting things that might have been.
