
DATE: Tuesday, July 15, 1997                TAG: 9707150247

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C1   EDITION: FINAL 

COLUMN: Hampton Roads at Play 

SOURCE: BY CHIC RIEBEL, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:  117 lines

ROAD WARRIORS: ICE AND SKATES REPLACED BY HOT ASPHALT AND ROLLER BLADES

On a steamy Sunday night, Bill Moore was watching the hottest street hockey game in West Ghent from the best vantage point - his front porch at 1407 W. Princess Anne Road.

``This thing started out as like a rookie league, but now it's like the pros,'' said Moore. ``Some of the bigger kids are really good.''

``It's a lot of fun to watch them,'' added wife Michelle Moore, as she watered flowers with a hose. ``They come from all different blocks. Not just kids, either. There are some older guys and mothers who play, too.''

Without much prodding, Bill Moore admitted he was watching the game for more than entertainment purposes.

``I've got this 50 feet or so to keep an eye on,'' he said, pointing to the area between his driveway and that of his neighbor. ``Sometimes I ask them to move the net because they're too close to the cars. Tonight, it's OK, though.''

For the seven guys who were playing, it was more than OK. There were few interruptions from cars trying to get past the nets in the middle of the street, shade started to cover the 1400 block by about 6:30 p.m. and there were enough players to make the game lively. Any one of them could have been home in air-conditioned comfort watching TV or playing video games, but they chose to be skating and running on a hot asphalt street, knocking a light plastic ball into a net.

``It's fast and it's fun,'' said 15-year-old Adrian Leard, one of the founders of this on-going neighborhood game. ``We don't play quite as much in the summer, but we still like to play, even when it's hot.''

It's a scene being played all over Hampton Roads - in cul de sacs in Chesapeake, side streets along the Oceanfront. ... not to mention schoolyards, tennis courts and any paved area where property owners or police aren't shooing the players away.

Once confined mostly to the Northeast, street hockey is gaining popularity everywhere. Credit in-line skates for the explosion.

``Roller blades have made all the difference,'' said Mark Fimian, a 37-year-old construction supervisor who was playing in Sunday night's game. ``Kids find that they don't need ice to play hockey. They can get on roller blades and in two or three times out they're able to do some pretty good moves. It's a lot harder on ice skates.

``Once the kids get started, it's in their blood. They just eat it up. They like the fluidity and the speed. In street hockey, you can change directions a dozen times in a minute.'' The appeal cuts across all ages. The roster for Sunday night's game included 15-year-olds Adrian Leard, Randy Ward and Isaac Leamer; 6-year-old Derek Fimian, 11-year-old Ben Leard, 23-year-old Erik Werner and the absolutely ancient Mark Fimian. On cooler days, there might be as many as 20 people playing in the game, including girls and adult women and men.

No one seems to mind the huge discrepancy in age.

``The more people you have, the more fun it is to play,'' Adrian Leard said with a shrug when asked why a teenager would actually play games, in public, with a six-year-old boy and a guy almost 40 years old.

Nancy Leard, the mother of Adrian and Ben, laughs whenever she thinks about Derek Fimian calling her house.

``He'll call and ask in that little, six-year-old voice, `Can Adrian come out to play?' '' she said. ``It's a scream.''

Although he's scrappy and surprisingly skilled, Derek may get a little extra consideration from the teenagers because of his father. A transplanted Bostonian who played high school and college hockey and still plays in an adult league in Yorktown, Mark Fimian is the neighborhood game's mentor.

``Physically, the kids have made him a god,'' said Mrs. Leard.

``Mr. Fimiam's taught us all a lot of things about the game,'' said Adrian Leard.

The god also teaches etiquette. When Adrian whacked a ball past the net and about 75 yards down the street, all it took was Fimian to say, ``Bye, Adrian'' and Adrian Laird, not some younger or less talented player, was off to chase the ball.

Leamer was relieved to see Adrian go. It gave the lone goalie in this three-on-three-with-no-goalie-in-the-other-net variation of hockey a break.

Decked out in a gold Soviet jersey imprinted with the letters CCCP, wide goalie pads on his legs, a hockey glove on his right hand, a blocker pad on his right arm, a goalie's mitt on his left hand and a helmet with a facemask, Leamer was overheating. The backpack strapped to the front of his chest under the jersey didn't help, either. ``I don't have a chest protector,'' explained Leamer, who used to stuff towels under his shirt.

He had no defense, either. Everyone in street hockey goes to the net. Within a half hour, the score was ``something like 20-17,'' according to one participant, which meant that Leamer was barely out-playing the empty net some 100 feet away. His inability to stop hard wrist shots from point-blank range by the tall and heavyset Ward or the pretty breakaways by Adrian Leard didn't seem to put a dent in Leamer's enjoyment or confidence, however.

``They usually always put me in goal because I'm the best one,'' he said. ``I'm not saying it can't be a pain, though. But when I go home, all I think about is coming back and playing some more.''

While other moms try to keep their children off the streets, Nancy Leard is only too happy to hear that her sons are out running and skating on Princess Anne Road.

``When they tell me they're going over to Princess Anne, I know they're not in any trouble and that they're out there burning good energy,'' she said.

``And I just love it when they all come back for cookies and pizza and talk about the game. It's highly entertaining and delightful to hear.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photos

L. TODD SPENCER

Street hockey is `fast and fun' says Adrian Leard, shooting on

goalie Isaac Leamer during a game on Princess Anne Road in West

Ghent. It's also about heroes. Leard is a huge Sergei Fedorov fan

and it's Fedorov's Soviet National Team jersey that Leamer is

wearing on loan from Leard.

In-line skates have caused street hockey to take off. The kids

``like the speed and fluidity'' of the game.

Thirty-seven year-old Mark Fimian, who played high school and

college hockey in the Boston area, ``is a god'' to kids who play on

Princess Anne Road.

Photo