The "Kill Carriere" game - circa 1982 - Emily Carr Middle School

I used to get 'lightly' beaten up on a semi-regular basis at EMCS. I dunno exactly why, maybe it something I said, maybe it was the glasses, but several guys had this game they used to play called "Kill Carriere" (maybe it was just the iteration ?) It started halfway through the school year in Grade 8 and by April I was pretty tired of it so I planned a little episode to put a stop to it.

So, the lunch bell rang. I was informed by my three tormentors that the Kill Carriere game was indeed on that lunch-hour, and it was off to the races. I was always a pretty fast runner so I could keep ahead of them no problem, but I had no long distance gas and eventually they'd catch up to me and blammo! KILL CARRIERE! They'd leave me semi-beaten on the ground and I'd be late for the noon return bell.

This day was a little different however. The ice had melted in the little outdoor arena just west of EMCS and in front of the outdoor pool. I ran into it, all the way to the back. It had high wooden boards and chainlink fencing on all sides and I figured it would hide what was about to happen. No witnesses, no questions, no reprimands, = no trouble!

So they pretty much had me cornered near the goalie net in foot-deep snow, (not easy to climb the fenced walls in winter boots). So they came in to get me, 20 feet, 15 feet, 10 feet - and then out came the bullwhip!

I had this bullwhip back then you see ( well, it wasn't really a bullwhip, it was a hunk of rope covered in hockey tape that I made after seeing a whip lady at the circus and a few years afterwards, the Indiana Jones movie came out.. nuff said) and I had this little holder I made so I could clip it to the armpit of my big winter coat and carry it concealed.

CRACK! I hit one of them in the side of the head, WHOOSH, missed the other guy but he fell in the snow. The third guy had already started to run so I laid one on the guy on the ground who was picking himself up and trying to run after the 2nd guy. I chased them as far as the arena door and stopped. Coiled my hockey tape bullwhip up, snapped it into place inside my coat and walked out. They were no where to be seen and no one saw us.

The funny thing was, the guy who kinda scrambled away first, had turned around because he had no idea what I had just pulled out and tried to hit him with. When he saw it was a whip-like thing, he actually started to laugh as it was hitting his buddies and he yelled "Way to go Carriere!". sorta like a compliment (the psycho!). Then I started after him and he ran too.

I carried it around all the time after that. Once when we were skating at the Blackburn arena I had taken my coat off and left it and the bullwhip on the benches in the lobby and the handle was sticking out. As I came around the endboards on my skates I saw some grade 6's had found it and were trying hard to smack themselves with the 'towel snap'. I popped right off the ice, went in, grabbed it from them (little bastards) before a teacher saw it.

Ahh memories!