Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes, banana blades. I belonged to Stan Mikita. He played for Chicago, and friends called him "Stash." I never called him much. I was too busy working or aching most of the time. I started like any other kind of stick, just a straight blade, taped from tip to heel in regular black tape. But one day in the dressing room, I heard my boss talking to a friend of his, Bobby Hull. They were fooling around and talking sticks when lo and behold Stash put me under a hot water tap and then without even drying me put me under a door and twisted my blade almost until I snapped! I bent and I bent, and just at the last minute when I was in so much pain…he stopped. He dried me off, wrapped me in tape, and smiled. His friend Hull did the same thing with his poor stick, too.

That night in the warm-up Stan and Bobby took slapshots that dipped and dived, curved and flew faster than anything anyone had even seen before. Players on both teams looked at the shots and were amazed. They were impressed and scared and couldn't believe the difference in speed and trajectory. But it wasn't easy for me. I looked different, and all the other timbers knew it and made fun of me. At the opening face-off, a straight stick screamed at me from the other side of centre: "Hey, curly! Think ya can play the game?" He laughed, and all I could do was sit there and take the joke. Another time, my boss Stash was skating like crazy, and a nice pass went off my backside and inadvertently ricocheted to the other team. I could hear a stick from the other side say, "Get off the ice hunch-back!" It was awful.

Stan had a breakaway, but when he moved to his backhand the puck harmlessly slid off the tip of my nose and rolled to the net. Even the goalie pads laughed and told me what an easy time they'd had in stopping THAT pathetic backhand. I didn't think I could go the rest of the season like this. In the third period, a pair of skates called me banana boy, and I nearly lost it. I thought, fine, I'll just break myself and get out of this game for good.

But then something happened. Late in the period, Stan got a pass on his forehand with some empty ice ahead. I corralled the puck, and as Stan stepped in over the blueline he unleashed a slapshot. I gave it every bit of wood I had in me, and the puck flew faster than I'd ever seen before. It hit the back of the net before the goalie could flinch his glove, and the crowd screamed with delight as the referee took the puck back to centre ice. Goal!! Stan lifted me high in the air to celebrate, and his teammates mobbed us both and had big smiles, especially Bobby Hull because he knew why the puck had gone in. I was the reason. Me. Curly. Hunch-back. Banana blade.

At the next face-off, the straight stick across from me was silent. A few minutes later, another opponent broke a stick and his new piece of lumber sheepishly told me, "I'd like to be just like you." It was then that I knew I had made the NHL. I would be here for a while, the most popular blade around.