#set of “the rink”

[chaplinfortheages]

Charlie Chaplin on set of “The Rink”, 1916. With him, famed Irish Tenor John McCormack (large gentleman to his right).

[boxturret]

2003, The Era of Sport, The Era of the Hockey Men

I'll be honest, I wanted to do a big multi part write up in a similar vein to the one I did on the Bohrok Pens, but after getting all the sets in hand I just...didn't have much to say about them. I took a ton of photos but when it came to actually putting a post together I just wasn't having any fun, felt like I'd end up reciting set numbers and other things that anyone can look up on other sites, so screw it. In no particular order, here's my rambling thoughts about the 2003 Bionicle Hockey sets:

They're okay.

Function

The spring part at their core is neat, it's bidirectional, so both ends of the spring are set up in such a way that when its rotated it will return to centre.

There are two configurations of hockey men, they all use the same basic functional parts:

The first kind mounts the spring vertically and by pushing on the head the stick rotates slightly

The second one mounts the spring horizontally and pressing the head swings the stick in a wide arc.

There's four different kinds of sticks, two for each configuration.

Each has a different shape to it to affect how the hockey puck is hit, but in practice the horizontal mount is by far the more powerful of the two.

This one fires pretty straight.

This one is curved so it kinda flicks the puck in the air.

This one destroys everything in its path.

And this one is pretty much the same, but with a slight bend in it.

And that's it really. Despite there being 8 different hockey men across all the sets, there's only those four configurations.

When looking at some of the parts, like the spring and the base, I saw how they were mirrored, and was hoping that maybe you could reverse the mechanisms at the very least, but nope.

Sadly the main wedge parts are chiral, so they can't be flipped around. Which seems rather a shame, having left and right handed hockey men would have added some variety.

Masks

On the topic of variety, one of the more interesting aspects of the hockey men is the masks. This was really the reason I got them. I'm really in to the pre-Bionicle idea of Voodoo Heads, and some of these masks seem like they would have fit in well with that theme.

The hockey men actually use a Tohunga head, the same as in the 01 Bionicle sets, but in light grey. So their masks are completely compatible with Bionicle.

The way they were released though was very odd.

There's 7 different masks, which works out perfectly for the number of sets, 4 canister sets, a two pack, a mess, and the omni man who can be anything you wish:

The masks were on sprues, three to a wheel. The first row of three was on one, the second on another. The seventh mask was released on its own.

What's so odd about the sprues is how...different they are.

The first one has a much thinner wall to the ring, there's no support spokes, and the masks are supposed to be held together with a little 3 pronged bit of plastic in the middle, though none of the ones I got had that part in place. In fact, one sealed set I got that was supposed to come with this ring just had the masks loose, with the bit of plastic along with them. Note how the masks all have horizontal parts jutting out from the mouth peg, that slots in to the mouth of the Tohunga skull, just like a Bionicle mask would.

The second wheel is much thicker, with additional supports along the edges, and three spokes holding everything in place. Now you'd think this would be a later revision, but look at the mouth pegs, they're lacking the parts that lock in to the mouth, meaning they're harder to align properly.

The seventh mask is lacking any sprue marks so I think it was done as a single part and has the side parts on the peg. Its also quite similar to one of the ones on the first sprue, so for a while I didn't know it was its own thing.

They're quite odd. Neat looking though.

Mess

Speaking of the seventh mask, here's the set it came with.

Its best described as a hot mess.

In theory its supposed to be a puck feeder, shooting pucks out for you to attempt to hit, but the motor is so weak, and the construction of the feeding mechanism is really prone to jamming.

It barely has enough power to get through the included pucks, which it just limply drops out of its ramp.

If that isn't good enough for you there's alternate instructions for a...thing instead.

Its super awkward to wind up, and you get seconds of a hockey stick shaped thing flailing around a bit, the bulk of the mechanism itself filling most of the goal on its own.

Its also even more susceptible to jamming than the first build!

Goals

Okay, back in to more positive things, the goal in that last set was a stripped down version of the goals that came in the two pack set, which I think are some of the better things to come from the theme.

Featuring lovely long red axles and a special net, they really look the part! shame about the blue friction split pins, this was right on the edge of when everything fell apart colour wise.

What's better is that if you got the big multi pack which came with the two pack and two of the omni-men, you also got the huge hockey rink base which had special tabs just for locking the goal in place.

The rink is a really cool thing, its made from this milky plastic and they printed everything on the back side, so the prints are viewed through the semi transparent plastic. This makes it look very authentic to how ice rinks really look (I'm Canadian I know these things).

Its huge though, it needs a lot of table or floor space. Its larger than toy hockey rinks, and is getting close to some smaller air hockey tables I've seen.

Couldn't even take a full photo of it easily.

You can fit all the major sets on it, but its pretty tight, but that doesn't really matter that much, as I don't think you'd be able to play the game like this at all.

Really I don't know how playable this game is, even with the rink, there's some sets that are purposefully designed to flip the puck in the air.

Combination Models

Speaking of flipping pucks in the air: the hockey Kaita. Okay I don't have a good link to this part.

I think these guys really highlight the weakness of this system. even when using parts from multiple sets the functions stay identical, the extra parts are just tossed on haphazardly.

Also, even though this one says its a combiner of those two sets, you can make it without touching any part of the second one.

It doesn't come though on this scan, but the face plates in these photos are clearly 3d printed.

Mini Guys

As is traditional, the theme also features several small sets. Its quite confusing as there's a lot of different versions, some come together, some separate, some in bags, some not, but at their core there's 6 figures, two pairs of each size class; large, medium, and small. The larger ones sometimes had goals, depending on the version.

The mini guys all have the same function, which honestly is pretty ingenious, using a Slizer foot to wedge the two feet beams apart on one side and snap them together on the other side to shoot the puck. Honestly its a bit more fun than some of the full sized sets.

The one issue is that hitting them too hard on the softer plastic of the armour piece does feel liable to bend it. Something to look out for, especially with the set exclusive yellow one.

That part came in a very wide array of colours in this one theme.

Female Bionicle M.O.C.s for decades after owe a lot to the hockey-men.

Bottle

And I guess to end things I'll briefly touch on the bottle. Much like the Roboriders and Bionicle sets, they came in canisters, in fact the threading is cross compatible between many of these various canisters.

The canisters always had a purpose, the Roborider's lids could be used in the combiners, the Toa's canisters were an important thing in the story, and the lids represented the suva and could store 7 masks, and the Bohrok canisters represented their hive and doubled as a way of displaying them.

The hockey canisters are functional water bottles.

The nub on top can be pulled out and drunk from. Its a fairly standard water bottle design, though I think more recently its fallen out of favour. the lid is lacking a gasket of any kind however, so the water tightness of this bottle is questionable.

Conclusion

And that's all I have to say about the hockey men of 2003. Turns out it was quite a lot, but it wasn't quite as comprehensive as I was intending. I took a lot of photos that I didn't end up using, so I'll put them all up on my drive HERE. In my attempts to get all the sets I just incidentally ended up with practically all the boxes and cans, which is pretty funny considering all the effort I went through to achieve the same for other themes.

Overall, they're kinda neat, interesting to mess around with a bit, but the system was really needlessly limited and some functions were quite lacklustre. If I had to give them a number ranking it would be an eight point three.

****

I'll leave this post on a bit of a mystery I'm not invested enough to get to the bottom of:

There's an odd amount of inconsistency between how the sets are depicted, whether its a straight image or doing this effect where its a single image projected across multiple screens. I got all the canister sets at once, and they all came with their instructions, so unless the person selling them was mix and matching them, which is possible but seems unlikely with the condition they were in, I have no clue what's going on here. Some match, some are one way, some are the other, its all very odd.

Well, have a nice day.

Ah yes! One last thing:

Like the Slizer boxes, the Hockey Men all come with a nice blank tile to write your name on.

Which is, I believe, a crime in oleg fan circles severe enough to warrant execution.

[tmntkiseki]

"Good filler episodes do not exist--"

TMNT 2003: Hold my golden puck

[gayofthefae]

Mike's behavior in 4x02 is unnecessary, it is dislikable, and most importantly, it is distracting.

And THAT is why he's queer.

It is. distracting. Where they could have had Will jealous in a way that could be nothing but romantic because of how it contrasts Mike's totally normal behavior to make us question Will (i.e. Mike tries to hug him because it's always been normal in their relationship for him to be physically affectionate but Will is suddenly weird about it for no reason, warranting a reaction), instead they created an overly-empathizable situation in which any of us would have reacted the way Will did to a friend doing what Mike did.

Now we have no questions. Now we are not questioning Will's behavior as his sexuality because there is nothing about it that is out of the ordinary. The situation warrants sadness. Mike's behavior warrants reaction. The way to establish a question in the audience's mind to set up for its impending answer for them to be invested in is to make them act in a way you WOULDN'T. Have Will be "rolling his eyes [and] moping" but actually uncalled for. Have the fight, Mike initiates it anyways, but have us on his side, seeking answers with him. And maybe he goes too far in a similar but not as out of character way and that shift to the apology prompts him to forget to question Will's behavior for the rest of the season to put the plotline off.

But that's not what happened. We. were. distracted. After the comment about Will acting "weird" and the rejection of the girl in his class, I'm sure some people were starting to put two and two together about Mike and even anticipating, curious what "weird" behavior he would have with Mike....He did not get a single instance of this. Because Mike did not get a single instance with it absence. In not having Mike act normal to contrast Will acting "queer", if you get my double entendre, there is complete deniability in everything Will does to the extent of possibly erasing those questions entirely from some viewers minds. If my friend ignored me for their partner all day, I would feel hurt and rejected. I would get grumpy. If they became defensive about something I was never accusing them of, which also implied things about me that I had been bullied about, I would be hurt. Normal. On all accounts.

This episode and Will's jealousy are (supposedly) not supposed to think he's MORE normal. But he is left being straightman (forgive me) to Mike's abnormalities.

It's distracting. Mike is COMPLETELY distracting us from every scene where Will's behavior otherwise indicates his queerness. Because it DOES. He IS romantically jealous over Mike. But they gave us an alternate reason for his behavior in making Mike ACTUALLY ignore him. Now, we have no idea if he would behave the same had he not. There are still signs and because queerness is still one OF the explanations for Will's behavior, I can't exactly argue that it erases Will's plot here to serve towards his queerness entirely...but I'm going to! It totally does, for some viewers at least! Mike's behavior makes you unable to confirm for yourself, or even confidently question, that Will's behavior is "weird" as his sister described. Worst case scenario, you now think that she's WRONG because he's acting normal and she doesn't have the best history with social cues - and she's acting pretty weird herself right now.

All this to say, the writers sat down in a room and said: "It is important enough to have Mike behave this way that we are willing to sacrifice valuable screentime to establish Will's queerness, a very important and focal plotline of this season."

That is an active choice to make. The only reason to write a pointless, contrived conflict that is desperate enough to be out of character and end the same way things were before it, on normal terms, is if you are completely barren of ideas. NOT if you already have an arguably more important plotline to put in the same spot that you are sacrificing to it.

That is a difficult choice to make. They had to say "Will's queerness, something we have held dear to us, are very excited about, and have given great weight since the conceptualization of this show, is not as vital to the story here as Mike being a dick for one day then immediately apologizing and stopping forever."

Now, what an odd thing to say...

[chirpsythismorning]

You basically sabotaged the whole day.

Seconds after El literally just got assaulted…

But no Mike’s hung up on Will moping being the cause of the day sucking even though Mike looked pretty much unbothered in all those moments he’s referring to

[pwhl-mybeloved]

when I call myself a hockey fan this is the image I see btw

[qulizalfos]

in another life rink o mania is a gay club

[icewindandboringhorror]

If you became super rich and could design your own house, but could only add THREE unnecessary/random/expensive home additions (like how people will have bowling alleys, movie theatres, closets with museums of shoes, car display rooms, spa rooms, wine cellars, etc. in their mansions) - what three would you choose?

[yxkanna]

ALSO HAVE UNFORTUNATE NICK FACT 4

nick looooooves hockey, it's his favorite sport and really the only one he watches aside from sometimes baseball. there was a period of time where he tried to play it back in middle school, unofficially with other kids he was reasonably friendly with.

the problem with this is that he was very runty when he was a kid. this meant he had a lot of speed to him, so if he got the puck he could fly with it, but also meant if he got checked it obliterated him. and there was one time he got checked by a kid twice his size, and he cannot remember anything after that until a few days later when he was at home in bed with the worst headache imaginable.

he'd been awake a few times between those two points in time but was so severely concussed that he just cannot recall what happened. no more hockey for nicky after that.

[buff-electra-truther]

the Starlight Express Alumni Podcast is fascinating because you have

-multiple stories of people accidentally falling into roles that suit them perfectly, in very different ways

-Reva Rice basically never got hurt and one of the only times she did was OFF SKATES when she fell down the stairs

-Dolan Jose REALLY wanting to cover the “girl components” and being SO excited to at least be Wrench

-the mental image of a 6’6 Vegas Showgirl looking guy as a couples therapist

-the perpetual challenge of casting Poppas lol this constantly comes up in different Stex interviews

[chaplinfortheages]

Charlie Chaplin on set of “The Rink”, 1916. With him, famed Irish Tenor John McCormack (large gentleman to his right).

[klaissance]

is this anything???

It’s a dreary January Tuesday when Lance laces up his first-ever pair of ice skates and steps out onto the ice at Garrison Tech’s hockey rink, newly opened for free-skate to students and staff on weekdays from 12-2. The rental skates are ruddy, creased and caked in mud and dust and general oldness that has soaked in and turned the white a grimey yellow. They’re a little pinchy and a little loose in all the wrong places, the backs rubbing hard against his exposed ankles, unstable as he wobbles through his first steps on knives on ice. He lifts one foot, then the other. Just like walking, McClain. A deep breath. He’s gone exactly nowhere. The ice sprawls out before him, and only now, as he drifts listlessly away from the wall, does it occur to Lance that this might have been a very bad idea.

[selkiefinalist]

.

[chirpsythismorning]

how yall doing

[sunnykeysmash]

I can't shake the feeling that the flashback in ep8 will be mac and dennis' meet cute and it will be an entirely fabricated memory born from the pain of their actual reality

[freezegirl]

❄️ ↪ @ncrthernl1ghts (terry)

"you're a bit too old for the snowplow sam of it all---" the skating program for pre-schoolers. "---but if you want to get on the ice, regardless, you can get rentals right over there."