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30 // MARCH 2020 USAHOCKEYMAGAZINE.COM Youth Hockey Teams Uphold A Time-Honored Tradition At International Tournament PHOTOS BY Bob Batz, Jr. S T H E F I E L D O F 3 2 Y O U T H H O C K E Y T E A M S g a t h e r e d f o r the opening ceremony of the 58th International Silver Stick Finals tournament in Port Huron, Mich., you could describe many of the players as being unusually sharp. That's because many of them were roaming around McMorran Place Sports & Entertainment Center with pockets full of hock- ey pins. And the trading was on. "Does your team have pins?" "Do you have one of these?" "Do you want to trade?" R e g a r d l e s s o f w h e r e t h e hobby of trading and collecting hockey pins started, you can put a pin in Port Huron as one of the places that keeps the tradition alive. It's one of a dozen towns on both sides of the border that hosts finals for this sto- ried tournament that fosters citizenship and goodwill between the United States and Canada while teams compete "for the covet- ed sterling silver championship pin." That pin goes back to when Silver Stick started in the 1950s and 1960s, but teams making and trading their own pins seemed to become a big thing in the 1980s, especially at these finals. So says longtime tournament marshal Ron Churchill, who retired from that role last year, but who still works in the McMorran pro shop, where a collection of pins decorates one wall. For finals weekends, he covers the counter with some of his thousands of additional pins depicting teams from all ends of North America and beyond. Keepers are pinned to green car upholstery fragments from when he worked for Ford Motor, Company. Pins he's willing to part with are on a yellow hand towel, the old-school way of displaying them. "I think a big part of the appeal is, it's been around for so long," says Churchill, who grins as people of all ages come in to ooh and ahh over his collection. More pins are displayed in the office of the current marshal, Tim Schmidt, who's happy to let people come in to have a look at pins he's acquired. This year, the coach from the Mt. Lebanon, Pa., Hornets dropped off his Bantam AA team's 2020 pin and pointed out the decades older one from a team he played on. While passion for them seems cyclical, "Pins are starting to come back all over," says Schmidt, who already was working with other volunteers on the design for next year's souve- Stick A Pin In It Betty Vargo, who has volunteered at the International Silver Stick tournaments in Port Huron, Mich., since it started there in the 1960s, displays some of her pins during the 2020 finals at McMorran Place Sports & Entertainment Center. By Bob Batz, Jr.