 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Toy hockey games have been part of the Canadian scene since the days of the Great Depression. While
these games can be divided into several categories (including board games, magnetic hockey, air hockey,
bumper hockey and knock hockey), the image that usually comes to mind when one thinks of table top
hockey is that of a miniature ice rink with players mounted on small spikes spinning and moving with the
twist of their steel rods.
The earliest type of these mechanical hockey games was built by Donald H. Munro, Sr. in his Toronto
home in 1932-33. Made of wood and scrap metal found in his neighborhood, Munro built his first game as
a Christmas present for his children at a time when he could not afford to buy gifts. Soon after, Munro
built a handful of these games on consignment for the Eaton's department store in Toronto. They
turned out to be an instant success. These early games, referred to as "the wooden game" by collectors,
were produced every year until 1955. During this period of 22 years, many improvements were made in
the playing quality and appearance.
Despite these many improvements, the early wooden hockey games bore only a passing resemblance to
the on-ice game. Players, for example, were simply wooden pegs with wire loops that moved back and
forth like pinball flippers. Still, these games were exceedingly popular. One of the main reasons for this
popularity was the design of the hump or high area in the center of the playing surface. This innovation
allowed the puck (actually a metal ball) to roll to either end of the game and made it possible for both
players to be actively involved at the same time (one on offense and one on defense). Until this time,
bagatelle games (and even modern day pinball games) all were played on a single slope enabling only one
player at a time to participate.
Due to their size (about 14 by 36 inches), the early Munro wooden game were sold mainly in department
stores and through mail order catalogs, though occasionally they would be carried in sporting goods and
hardware stores. The games sold for between four and five dollars during the 1930s. The first recorded
price was listed in the 1939-40 Eaton's Fall & Winter Catalogue where the Munro Standard Model was
advertised for $4.95. The number of games produced in these early days would range from a few
hundred to a few thousand.
In the 1940s, the Munro Standard Model was expanded to include a DeLuxe version where the ball would
roll out of the net after a goal and into a small cup mounted at each end of the game. A Club Model,
with a heavier wooden frame and stronger wire parts, was introduced for the many Boys Clubs that
existed in Canada at this time. In 1945-46, Munro's partner, Stewart Molson Robertson, manufactured
games in Rochester, New York under Munro's American patent, but despite the popularity of the games
in Canada, the venture proved unsuccessful in the United States. Sales in Canada were increasing to
several thousand games per year, and by 1954, the last full year in which these wooden games were
made, prices were $8.95 for the Standard Game, $10.95 for the DeLuxe and $14.95 for the Club. The
DeLuxe was by far the most popular model.
During the era of the wooden game, three different mechanical hockey games surfaced. The first was
built by Gotham Pressed Metal Products of The Bronx, New York, who displayed their version of "Ice
Hockey" in their 1937 catalog. Like the Munro game, Gotham's playing surface featured a hump in the
center to keep the puck (again a metal ball) moving from side to side. However, the Gotham game
featured only one player at either end who both guarded the goal and pivoted in a complete circle to
shoot the puck into the other end.
A second competitor to Munro was introduced by the Reliable Toy Company of Toronto in 1953.
Patterned after the Munro Game, the "Foster Hewitt Hockey Game" was made of plastic and came
equipped with figures shaped like miniature hockey players molded out of die-cast metal. The game was
comparatively small (approximately) 12" x 24") and was sold for only a few years before being replaced by
the more modern-style games.
The first of these modern-style games (and the challenger that finally ended Munro's wooden era) was
introduced by the Eagle Toy Company of Montreal in 1954. Eagle's National Hockey Game was endorsed
by the Montreal Canadiens and was an immediate success for several reasons. It was the first Canadian
game to feature players printed in color on flat tin cutouts shaped like real hockey players who stood on a
surface that resembled ice. Eagle's game was decorated with team pennants from the NHL and was the
first Canadian game to feature metal rods that allowed its players to pivot a complete 360 degrees. The
Eagle game measured 16" x 36" and sold for $10.95. Soon, both Munro and Eagle were issuing similar
games that not only had rods to allow the players to spin but also had slots that let them slide up and
down the ice surface.
The innovation that led to metal rods and slots had actually been introduced in Sweden during the
1930s. Aristospel A.B. of Stockholm manufactured the game, which was sold to several European
countries. A Canadian patent was issued in 1941, but although the design of the Swedish game was
unique at the time, it was a difficult and costly game to manufacture. Not until 1954 would a Canadian
company (Cresta Limited of Toronto) introduce and manufacture the Swedish-style game. Also in 1954, K
& B Toys of Burlington, Ontario copied the Cresta game and issued their own version under the name "3
Star Hockey." K & B was only in business until 1957, while Cresta lasted until 1958. Neither proved able to
compete with Eagle and Munro, who had both unveiled their own rod-and-slot hockey games at the
Montreal Toy Show in January of 1956. From that point on, Munro and Eagle produced nearly all of the
hockey games sold in Canada and the United States.
Over the years, Munro and Eagle were the undisputed leaders in designing and creating models that year
after year became more realistic in their appearance. The games also played better through such
innovations as goal lights, period timers, puck droppers, and "glass" above the boards. Three-dimensional
players were first introduced by Munro back in 964, and while both Munro and Eagle experiment with the
design of their players, the flat tin men remained the most popular. In 1971, safety concerns forced a
switch to plastic men with self-adhesive team labels that customers applied themselves. Eagle's games
had the official endorsement of the NHL and could replicate exactly the uniforms of its teams. Munro
relied on the endorsement of top stars like Bobby Orr and Bobby Hull for their games and could only
approximate the NHL uniforms.
The televising of NHL games during the 1950s and the league's expansion in 1967 greatly enlarged the
North American market for table top hockey games. Whereas thousands of games had been sold
previously, the numbers were now beginning to reach the hundreds of thousands and were climbing
every year. To meet the rising demand, both Munro Games and Eagle Toys were sold to U.S. companies
in September of 1968—Munro to Servotronics and Eagle to Coleco. Their dominance of the Canadian and
American markets would continue—with games growing larger (24" x 34") and prices ranging up to 30
and 40 dollars during the 1970s—until the advent of video games relegated table hockey to a "second
choice" toy item.
By the late 1980s, a resurgence of table hockey occurred with Irwin Toys acquiring Coleco's tooling and
companies like Stiga (a Swedish firm tat had long been selling their games in Europe), Playtoy/Remco,
Radio Shack, and Kevin Sports developing new games in North America. A Wayne Gretzky-endorsed game
was introduced by Kevin Sports in 1990, selling for $120. Bubble top hockey games of the type found in
bars, arenas, and other venues have also become very popular. In recent years, a deluxe table hockey
game in Greenwich, New York ("TableHockey" by Rick Benej) retail for about $700 U.S.
Like a celebrated person whose exact birth date and time of arrival gets recorded in history books, the
very first Chexx hockey table shipped out the door of ICE’s suburban Buffalo plant at 11:45PM on Feb. 3,
1983. This single event not only marked the entrance of a non-video sports game into a video-oriented
business, but the beginnings of a brand new coin-op game factory that would stick around rather than
simply dip its toe in the water and run like so many others in those times.
Over these past 20 years, ICE would grow and go on to make and market one of the most important and
diverse product lines in the history of the coin amusement business. From a machine roster that counted
this one, single game in early 1983, the company today has nearly four dozen different machines in its
active catalog…“active” meaning that if you want a new one, you can order and get it.
The partners who launched that first production model of this “under-the-dome” ice hockey table, Ralph
Coppola and Jack Willert, called their company Innovative Concepts in Entertainment, hence the acronym
ICE.
ICE sold over 5,000 Chexx tables in the ine’s first year, 7,000 in the first 18 months,
and promptly paid off some outside investors. This was quite a feat if you bear in mind that the
amusement business in 1983 was still very much video dominated,
though it didn’t yet know that the roller coaster known as the “video boom” was ending.
So, the timing was on ICE’s side. Some welcomed this more “basic” sports novelty while others wondered
if the sliding video game market was only a hiccup or was here to stay. The slide, it turned out,was no
hiccup. But the tom toms began to beat out a message that this coin-op version of the old table-top kid
game made money, the most important “ingredient” in any machine.
At the time, this “Buffalo” company actually built and sold its games from a shop located at 590
Young St. in the nearby township of Tonawanda (ICE was incorporated the previous October). The
place was not far from American Wurlitzer’s fabled jukebox factory in North Tonawanda.
This hockey game, by the way, is still on the production line today in its Super Chexx form.
Counting all the improvements done on the basic game, (e.g. Chexx 2 and Ultra Chexx), ICE has moved
close o 20,000 ice hockey tables in all. It even made its way into the
home sports retail market with a non-coin version.