VICTORIA, British Columbia _ In the Ultimate Hockey Fan Cave, hockey sticks make up the floor _ the entire floor. Four chairs are made of hockey sticks. Hockey sticks constitute the frame of one of six televisions. They form the edges of picture frames and make for a snazzy wine rack. Standing outside the monument to sports obsession is a 4-foot tall figure known as "Clint Easton," who is made entirely of Easton hockey sticks.
Go to the bar, which is made out of a shuffleboard table, and you can do shots out of a hallowed-out goalie stick, or "shots on goal." There is a stick that plugs into the wall and provides a mist in the room on a warm summer day, or a "mist stick." There is even a stick autographed by Canada's favorite son, singer/songwriter Michael Buble.
Just how many sticks can you cram into 500 square feet?
The answer is more than 2,500.
That's how many are in the fan cave, the impressive and obsessive brainchild of construction worker Kenn Shaw, a 59-year-old Blackhawks fan who built the two-room house of hockey worship over the last three years in the backyard of his home in Victoria.
"You hear people say I'm going to do this and do that, but nobody ever does it," Shaw said. "I don't hunt. I don't fish. I don't golf. This is what I like to do. The neat thing is I get to build it for my friends, for my son and family. We just love it."
Shaw became a Blackhawks fan when the team came to Victoria for an exhibition game when he was 9. Shaw, an aspiring goaltender, met his hero, Tony Esposito, and from that moment he was a Hawks fan for life. He still has the lineup card from that game in his "Hawks Nest," one of countless pieces of hockey paraphernalia in Shaw's fan cave.
"Tony was just sitting on the bench and I was there talking with Tony Esposito as a 9-year-old," Shaw said. "I played goal when I was a kid and that was why I cheered for him."
He was hooked. He has a little black book he used to collect autographs of his favorite players _ Esposito, Bobby Hull and Stan Mikita among them. Now Shaw has framed autograph jerseys of Mikita and Esposito hanging in his fan cave.
Shaw has never been to Chicago to see a game at the United Center or the Chicago Stadium. Blame it on geography.
Victoria, the capital of British Columbia, is a city with a population of about 80,000 people on Vancouver Island in Western Canada between Seattle and Vancouver (though Vancouver, the city, is not on Vancouver Island).
It's one of the top tourist destinations in Canada given its tranquil inner harbor and a downtown that has a New England vibe, especially during the fall. But it can be hard for residents to leave the island given the few means of transportation off it.
"You feel stranded here," said Jordie Oberg, Shaw's 32-year-old neighbor who helps promote the fan cave on social media.
Flights can be expensive and even trips to Vancouver can be costly and time-consuming by ferry or plane. Shaw said he spent $1,200 between ferry, hotel and parking costs to take his 17-year-old son, Landen, to see a Hawks-Canucks game there last season. And Shaw knows he would have to pay a small fortune to visit Chicago.
"It's so expensive to take a family to an NHL game," Shaw said. "So we decided to bring the experience to us."
It is quite the experience.
