On the off chance that no one else has privately e-mailed an answer to Jeff's
question I offer the following highly-apochryphal info:
 
"Shinny" was a pre-cursor of the modern game of hockey.  My failing memory
seems to think it was played with appropriately-shaped trimmed branches or
any home-made approximation of today's high-tech sticks, with a "puck" of
 indeterminant shape and substance -- could have been a ball, a crushed can,
a rock...???  It was called "shinny" because, in pre-equipment days, players'
SHINS took an inordinant beating...??  I think my Dad (now in his 80's) may
have engaged in this crude game in his prehistoric childhood, and passed this
folk-lore along.
 
"Pond hockey", OTOH, is just what you would infer from the name -- hockey
played on a pond or other frozen outdoor surface, sans boards, lines, real
nets, etc.  With no discernible boundaries, players are free to roam far and
wide, teams are spread out, and a good deal of fancy skating and stickwork is
possible because of the lack of opportunity to "pinch" or box 'em off in a
corner.  Hence the expression for a free-skating game w/o much body contact
and lots of sweeping turns as "pond" hockey.  BTW, I firmly believe that the
opportunity to play "pond" hockey, in pick-up games with variable numbers,
ages, and abilities of players, is a terrific structureless "workshop" for
developing individual skills away from the discipline and rigidity of the
formal "practice".  And not enough of it seems to be done anymore, at least
not in my neck of the woods.
 
A quick check of my many reference materials failed to yield a better
explanation; however, I readily admit that the above re: "shinny" may be 'WAY
off base.
 
Anybody else care to take a stab at it?  If I'm wildly wrong, I won't be
offended by a more accurate or better-substantiated answer.
 
Not hard to tell it's SUMMER on Hockey-L, is it?
 
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