In his breakaway bestseller
50 Things to Make with a Broken Hockey Stick
, Peter Manchester transformed the agony of defeated sticks into the thrill of a new creation, with a slap of good humour that kept readers chuckling all the way through the book. Now, with the publication of
Fabulous Fabrications from Busted Hockey Gear
, the hockey stick handyman has turned his creative talents to the rest of the equipment left to fester in the basement — helmets, pads, gloves, skates, and even cast-off hockey uniforms.
In this oh-so-Canadian book of how-to humour, a wonderland of "construct-o-rama experiences" awaits devotees of rink junk. Who would have thought of an electric guitar for only $15 or a drum set made entirely of cast-off helmets? A leather skate becomes a bird or a ball cap; a dismantled helmet becomes a mask; a pair of pants becomes an amazing sling chair. Basement artistes can build a lap steel guitar from sticks, fashion a guiro from a bit of stick and a plastic knee protector, mount a row of helmets into a set of timbales, and presto! a garage band like no other. A tent, a crouching dog, a mechanical cheerleader — with Manchester's step-by-step instructions and clear, humorous illustrations, all these things and more can rise like, well, like a squawking bird, if not a phoenix, from a mound of hockey detritus.