Fabulous fabrications from busted hockey gear

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.