Tag Archives: Sports

Chicago’s hockey legend is padded up in LEGO

Here come the Hawks, the mighty Blackhawks! I am not a sports guy, but I respect athletes who have brought a semblance of glory to their hometowns. Especially when I have lived in that town for over a decade, and exceptional athletes become the local heroes. Teacher and LEGO artist Dave Kaleta has built a large sculpture of a Chicago Blackhawks player Jonathan Toews. Being a Chicago native, Kaleta chose the Blackhawks team captain as the subject to commemorate the new hockey season. This build not only serves as cultural imagery for hockey fans and Chicagoans but as just a realistic and detailed representation of a talented sportsman. In addition to the dynamic posing of the skating Toews, this massive sculpture is packed to the brim with interesting building techniques.

One can examine the photo for at length to see how he has assembled the details like the numbers and the Blackhawks logo. Since I don’t have much to say about hockey, I can talk about the build itself!

Read about the details and a little bit of LEGO-related hockey trivia I could conjure up!

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Watch out for the high stick!

If you’re a hockey fan, you should be pretty excited to learn that hockey will continue to be a very popular sport in the future. With this striking model of a High-tech hockey player by JakTheMad the sport gets some impressive upgrades, including a jetpack for body checks, and some serious skate feet, made with the weighted ring from a Ninjago Spinner base.

Holey moly this is one cool sports shop!

Welcome to a sporting goods store that sells itself before you even walk in! The look is inspired by a real store in Japan, but in LEGO it can’t be more gorgeous. What’s even better is that this render, created by Aukbricks, is actually completely buildable, with all the parts existing in their appropriate colors.

But if the outside isn’t beautiful enough, the inside is incredible. The zoom-worthy photos will make you fall in love even more. Every detail is perfectly placed, and essentially covers every bit of minifigure sports equipment LEGO has ever made. Even the brick-built equipment is perfect, from the treadmill to the ping-pong table. And I’m a big fan of the frogs used to create a rock wall on the third floor.

If you love this you should also check out Aukbricks’ Friends kitchen and family house. And for something totally different, she even made a giant minifigure!

Snow’s up, dude!

“Dashing through the snow, on a rocket powered board. O’er the slopes he’ll go, with his elven horde. Jingle build! Jingle build! Jingle all the way! LEGO 7‘s clever Santa makes us shout ‘Hooray!'”

With the singing out of the way, I love this unconventional portrayal of old Saint Nick. Santa’s pose captures the spirit of snowboarding, right down to the jumper plate representing his mouth shouting “woo!” His white beard flowing in the wind conveys a sense of speed.

See more of this radical Saint Nicholas

Sumo is the greatest sport on earth

I’ve explained elsewhere why sumo (traditional Japanese wrestling) is the greatest sport on earth — it’s fast, complex, and incredibly exciting. I won an apple in my first sumo bout at age three, and I’ve been hooked ever since. Cindy Su apparently agrees with me, because she built this wonderful rikishi (or wrestler — sumo is the name of the sport, not the name of the wrestlers). She layers various round tiles to bulk up the underlying BrickHeadz form, and gives this mountain of a man a stand complete with a Japanese flag to pose on. He has huge arms to shove opponents out of the ring, with an expressive face that seems to say he’s relieved to have just finished a winning bout.

Interestingly, many of the top wrestlers these days are foreign-born, from countries like Mongolia and Georgia. As someone who spent 15 years getting called gaijin (foreigner, with connotations of “outsider”) in my own home country, I’ve taken a perverse pleasure in rooting for the foreigners in recent sumo tournaments. Of course, sumo wrestlers aren’t born quite so big. They bulk up by eating a special stew called chankonabe, which Cindy has also faithfully created for this rikishi to enjoy.

Tlachtli: The Mesoamerican ballgame

The Mesoamerican ballgame is an ancient sport played throughout Central America starting more than three thousand years ago. While some games may have been played purely for exercise or entertainment, there is strong archaeological and historical evidence for highly ritualized games that could even end in human sacrifice for some or all of the losers. W. Navarre has captured the action of a ballgame from the Aztec era, when ballcourts included rings through which players tried to bounce the rubber ball. The builder uses forced perspective to achieve a backdrop with a stepped pyramid temple — even the blazing blue sky is built with bricks.

The microscale pyramid includes decorative elements made from cut stickers — only official LEGO stickers, of course! The cheese slopes work wonderfully for the pyramid’s steps.

Going for the strike

This bowling alley vignette by David Zambito captures all the vibes of a classic pastime. There’s just the right amount of details to draw your attention to key features such as the bowling pins and the players. Even the gutters are there to remind some of us how much more practice is needed. Here’s hoping our minifig bowler scores a strike!

Watch folks race in the Nordic sport of folkracing

For those who are not familiar with the sport of Folkracing, it’s a popular and inexpensive form of rally racing with older beat-up cars, which originated in Finland. The races take place on specially designed gravel tracks, and Nybohov Creation Ltd has created this beautifully colourful LEGO track for some micro rally cars to race around. The details and textures look fantastic, with everything from trees and foliage to landscaping with a couple of colourful buildings.

See more details of this tiny race track

Ping pong ...is not the macarena

Some creations, even if simple, just look perfect. As is the case with this table tennis build by David Rajcok (Fire-Ninja Jedi). There is nothing I could think of to make this scene any better. The table with the characteristic gap, the net – everything is just as you would expect it, and I mean that in the best way. But atop of that, David presents his creation with a beautiful photo, where even the reflections look good.

If you want pictures of the full table though, you might be disappointed. The builder informs us that what you see is literally all of his dark green pieces! But I would take that as a good thing; this is a creation that pushes his collection to the limit, which is the best way for a builder to grow.

Game, set and match

Builder Martin Harris took a break from his usual Star Wars fayre to build something requested by a family member. The result is this charming minifig scale tennis court. There are so many neat little touches here – the choice of pink for the playing surface, the brick-built line markings, the ball in motion (thanks to a few transparent pieces) and use of older fence pieces to create the net. The inclusion of lights, bleachers and a cast of minifigs brings the whole scene to life.

Riding the wave

This windsurfer figure by Dmitriy and Anna is awesome, but just glancing at the picture hurts as my summer vacation is still too far away! Even though there are no huge waves around and the board has no actual sail, the posture of the figure is what makes this vignette so good. The figure on the board’s edge, with its body leaning back, makes it look as if the surfer was struggling with a pretty strong gust of wind.

Pretending I’m a superman

This LEGO skateboard by French builder Jimmy Fortel reminds me of my middle school days of skating and playing Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. The detailing in the trucks and the bends in the nose and tail look realistic, and the skull deck graphic ties the whole build together visually.