I worked way too hard one Orillia summer, a 15-year old with my buddy Ron Clarke, hauling creosote-soaked railway ties a hundred feet to the shoreline so these evil things could be pounded into place to make some sort of breakwater. The job paid $1.75 an hour, and by the end of August I’d saved enough money to buy a pair of C.C.M. Tacks, the skate that, along with Bauer Supreme, the pros wore.
I remember taking a bus to Toronto to the C.C.M factory because I’d heard that if you went to the factory, they would sell skates fitted to your feet.