My family has a blast creating haunted hockey Halloween displays in our front yard. The home team is the Megalodons (the ancestors of our favorite hockey team, the San Jose Sharks). The Los Angeles Kings participated in the inaugural Haunted Halloween hockey game in 2017. The following year, the Anaheim Ducks braved a visit to the Boneyard. In 2019, our arch nemesis, the Vegas Golden Knights (boo!) dared to face the fearsome Megalodons.
Display Inspired by the San Jose Sharks Game of Jones Figure
Each year I try to add a little (or big) something to the display. This year, the addition and cornerstone of the Halloween display was a giant throne for the goalie. This piece was inspired by a San Jose Sharks giveaway–a Game of Jones figure. Instead of the swords used in Game of Thrones, the giveaway figure featured goalie sticks. When I saw the Game of Jones figure, I immediately knew I needed a full-size throne in my Halloween display for Bones, the Megalodon’s team goalie.
Game of Jones Construction
Since we’re a hockey family, we have a bunch of old hockey sticks and pucks at home. However, we did not have nearly enough to make a Game of Bones throne. I reached out to the local hockey community and located someone who had a treasure trove of broken sticks. Converting the broken sticks into full-size goalie sticks took some effort. I created blades for the sticks out of scrap wood (the blade is the end of the hockey stick used to make contact with the puck). My jigsaw got a lot of use that weekend! After a few more hours of sanding and painting the wood blades, I attached them the broken sticks shafts using duct tape (MacGyver would have been proud!).
The base of the throne consisted of hockey pucks. I decided to make faux pucks from styrofoam. I first tried to cut the styrofoam using an exacto knife. It took forever to cut out a handful of pucks, so I ditched that approach. Instead, I headed off to Home Depot in search of a circle cutting bit for my drill. That drill bit was a huge time saver. Cutting, gluing, and painting a couple hundred faux hockey pucks got a bit tedious. Audible to the rescue! The effort became more enjoyable with an audiobook (I love listening to audiobooks!).
Skeleton Team Jerseys
One of my favorite parts of creating the Halloween display is designing jerseys for the skeleton hockey players! The home team logo is a megalodon image that I purchased on a stock-photo site a while back.
Designing the Knight’s jersey was a lot of fun. I searched stock photo sites for the perfect graphic components, including a cartoon knight, a shark fin, skates, and a hockey stick. Using Adobe Photoshop, I combined and manipulated these elements to create a tongue-in-cheek logo for the Vegas Knights.
The blank jerseys were replica NHL jerseys from HockeyMonkey.com, to which I added my logos, names, and numbers. Generating and cutting out the text was easy thanks to my Silhouette Cameo desktop cutting machine. The final step was using my heat press to apply the heat transfer vinyl cutouts to the blank jerseys.
Assembling the Haunted Hockey Display
Setting up the display was a true family effort involving all four of us. My husband set up the hockey boards around the front yard. Our hockey playing son lead the effort to equip and stage the skeletons. He objected when a skeleton used a left- or right-handed stick inappropriately to shoot the puck! What seemed like miles of spider webs were strung about the yard by my daughter. We all worked together to finalize the display, such as touching up the paint, setting up the fog machine, and adjusting costumes.
Megalodons vs Knights Haunted Hockey Halloween Display Gallery
Vegas Knights #21 Creakin (ancestor of Eakin) serves his time in the penalty box in this Halloween hockey game. 
Positive Community Feedback
Our Halloween display was favorably received in the neighborhood and the greater hockey community! Dustin Dorsey, a Community Journalist for KGO-TV ABC 7 News featured our display in a local news segment and an article: SHARKS HALLOWEEN TERRITORY: San Jose family creates scary good Sharks Halloween display. The San Jose Sharks shared a story about our display on their website: Local Family Recreates Spooktacular Game Between Sharks & Golden Knights. In addition, Alyssa Hertel wrote an article for the USA Hockey Magazine website: A Haunted Hockey Halloween.
