Before the rise of the Internet and the peak of big-box retail, the go-to place for hockey equipment in south-central Pennsylvania was Kenny Smith’s Sport Shop, later known as Kenny Smith’s Sharp Edge in Mount Joy, Lancaster County.
After a spectacular junior career in Canada, Smith signed with the National Hockey League’s Boston Bruins in 1944. He scored 20 goals and was the runner-up as the league’s rookie of the year.
The next season, he split his time between Boston and its farm team in Hershey, before four full seasons in Boston. It was during a training camp in Hershey that he met his future wife, Dottie.
Smith played 331 games with the Bruins, including another 20-goal season while gaining recognition for his forechecking prowess. This despite Smith’s diminutive stature. At 5-foot-8, 140 pounds early in his career, Smith was said to have been the smallest player in the NHL. “The Small One,” he was called.
The remainder of Smith’s playing career, from 1950 to 1957, found him in the American Hockey League, with stops in Pittsburgh, Providence, R.I., and, the final three seasons, in Hershey.
In 1972, Kenny Smith’s Sport Shop opened at 65 E. Market St., Mount Joy. It later moved to a former theater at 103 E. Main St. before settling at 20 E. Main St. until it closed in 1996.
The design, taken from an ad in an old Hershey Bears program, is printed in metallic gold ink on black, echoing the Bruins’ colors.
Before the rise of the Internet and the peak of big-box retail, the go-to place for hockey equipment in south-central Pennsylvania was Kenny Smith’s Sport Shop, later known as Kenny Smith’s Sharp Edge in Mount Joy, Lancaster County.
After a spectacular junior career in Canada, Smith signed with the National Hockey League’s Boston Bruins in 1944. He scored 20 goals and was the runner-up as the league’s rookie of the year.
The next season, he split his time between Boston and its farm team in Hershey, before four full seasons in Boston. It was during a training camp in Hershey that he met his future wife, Dottie.
Smith played 331 games with the Bruins, including another 20-goal season while gaining recognition for his forechecking prowess. This despite Smith’s diminutive stature. At 5-foot-8, 140 pounds early in his career, Smith was said to have been the smallest player in the NHL. “The Small One,” he was called.
The remainder of Smith’s playing career, from 1950 to 1957, found him in the American Hockey League, with stops in Pittsburgh, Providence, R.I., and, the final three seasons, in Hershey.
In 1972, Kenny Smith’s Sport Shop opened at 65 E. Market St., Mount Joy. It later moved to a former theater at 103 E. Main St. before settling at 20 E. Main St. until it closed in 1996.
The design, taken from an ad in an old Hershey Bears program, is printed in metallic gold ink on black, echoing the Bruins’ colors.
