Page 77 of Hot for the Hockey Player
A woodstove with a window in the door crackled away, heating up the space while gorgeously carved spoons of all sizes, lengths, and wood variations hung on nails against the wall.He had bins of spoons too.All labeled by size and wood type.
It was a tidy space, if not a little overwhelming with all the “stuff” everywhere.
“Sit here,” he said, gesturing to the small wooden stool across from the other small wooden stool with all the wood shavings around it.
My back wasn’t going to be too happy with me sitting for very long on the squat seat, but if it was good enough for Man, it was good enough for me.
I took my seat, and he handed me a yellowish wood block in a very rough shape of a spoon.Basically, it had a narrower portion and a square, club-like portion.“Put the glove on,” he said, handing me a lefthand glove with leather on the palm and fingers.I did as I was told.Then he handed me a knife with a half-circle blade.“This is a sloyd knife.”
Man didn’t bother with a glove since the skin of his hands appeared to be thicker than leather, and he picked up a knife identical to the one he gave me, as well as an identical piece of wood, and started to peel thick shavings away from what I’m assuming was the handle.
“Shape from handle to scoop.From the middle point to where it swoops in.Don’t remove too much.”His hand came out and stopped mine mid-carve.“Slow.Precise.This isn’t a race.”
Apparently, I’d been going too fast.
I took it down a couple of notches and matched his pace.“What kind of wood is this?”I asked, not entirely comfortable with the silence, save for the scrape of our blades against the wood.
“Butternut.”
“What tree does that come from?”
“Butternut tree.”
“Oh.”I studied the way he used the knife with his right hand, but actually pushed the blade with his left thumb as it held the wood.I tried to copy him, seeing as I wasn’t getting a ton of instruction.
“Turn it around.Don’t do too much on the bottom there.That’s the scoop.”He was playing with fire—or knives—putting his hand over my blade like that.I was a noob and could very well accidentally stab him.“See, here.”He pointed to where the scoop part would be.“Round it, don’t shave it down.Or it will be too shallow.”
“O-okay.”
“Watch.”He held his hand in place and just moved the wood.Shavings drifted to the concrete floor as the handle of the butternut grew thinner.I did the same, but it felt weird.So I went back to the other technique, where my left thumb helped push the blade.
He started to round and better shape his scoop, but that also meant he was carving toward himself.
“I didn’t think we were supposed to carve toward ourselves?”
He grunted.“Just don’t stab yourself.”
I nodded.“Noted.I’ll do my best.”
“Stay with the grain.It goes this way.”He went back and forth along his spoon from the handle to the scoop.“Don’t go sideways like that.Go with the grain, but not into it.”
“Right.Sorry.”
Another grunt.
I continued to follow his lead, my hands cumbersome and awkward compared to his, which handled the knife probably better than I handled a hockey stick.
Besides giving me pointers or telling me to slow down—which was quite often—we didn’t talk.Sometimes I felt like he didn’t want me there since my questions were met with grunts or one-word answers, but then when he asked me if I wanted tea, and he also brought out warm, homemade cookies, it seemed to me like maybe he bakedbecauseI was coming over.He was a tough man to read.
“Cutintothe curve,” he said, as I guided my knife from the scoop along the curved portion to the handle.“Otherwise, you’ll take off a—”
As he said it, a big chunk of wood flew off from that very spot on my spoon.
“A big chunk,” he finished, frowning.
“Shit.Did I wreck it?”
“No.Just correct it.Change your expectation of the outcome.Don’t give up.Pivot.”
