Bone-chilling hockey in Kenilworth

Hockey is alive and well on the North Shore — except for one game on Melrose Avenue in Kenilworth.

That game is as dead as can be.

The Reed family has taken its Halloween game to new heights this year, posing more than a dozen skeletons in a not-so-friendly game of puck.

The elaborate display was a natural progression for the hockey-loving family that has created a skeleton scene all three Halloweens they have lived in Kenilworth.

“I think this is the ultimate. … We try to elevate it every year,” she said about the hockey setup, which features skeletons facing off, others in a fistfight, one laying a brutal cross-check and sending an opponent over the boards, another stretched out in full goaltender gear, and three skeleton fans climbing the rink’s netting.

Hockey is a family affair for the Reeds, who came to Illinois from California a couple of years ago. Mike Reed is Canadian and a hockey fan, and that has led to the family’s two sons getting involved in the sport. Kate Reed said she promised the boys they could build a hockey rink if they ever moved to a cold-weather area.

Now in Chicagoland, the family does have a takedown rink, and Kate Reed saw more than one advantage to putting it up in October this year.

“The first two years we put it up it was just plywood and boards; it was too cold to paint,” she said. “So I said let’s set it up earlier, paint it and use it for our Halloween display.”

Her younger son, Kyle, helped put it all together.

Kate Reed said plenty of folks stop by to enjoy the haunted hockey game, but that’s not the only scare they see.

Outside of the main display, Kate Reed likes to add a new horror each year. This year that haunt is a wailing woman in white who rises up over the yard. There are also undead dolls along the fenceline that share a few words with passersby.

“Every year we add something spooky,” she said. “That’s how much I love Halloween. I think I’m the only one. All my kids think I’m crazy.”

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