retired
Reflections on five decades on ice (originally written in summer 2013)
7176 Chestnut Ridge Road. Lockport, New York. My cousin’s house and the address of my first ice rink. Only it wasn’t so much an ice rink as it was a pond. Well, not even a pond. Just a frozen patch of ground in my cousin’s front yard. Winters were cold in Western New York, so every night we would shovel out a large rectangle in the grass and then my Uncle Phil would flood the middle with a hose. The snow banks made a temporary barrier for the water and Mother Nature did the rest.
I was five years old and didn’t own a pair of skates, but that didn’t stop me from bundling up in my snowsuit, big boots, stocking cap and gloves to join the game each morning with my cousins. We’d pull the nets—a homemade “product” my uncles made from narrow piping and chicken wire—onto our rink and just like when we played in the driveway, I’d tape on some foam rubber or strap on the plastic Mylec pads and pull my white mask (made famous by Jason in the Friday the 13th movies) right over my hat. We didn’t have goalie gloves, so I made do with one regular hockey glove and a metal trash can lid. Let me be clear. I was not a good goalie. But that trash can lid was the great equalizer. Looking back, I’ll bet it was Gram’s idea.
My cousin Mike, was the best hockey player I had ever seen. He weaved in and out of his older brothers and their friends with ease and never failed to remind me just how bad a goalie I was by turning me completely inside-out before sliding the puck into the net behind me. At the ripe old age of six—not quite a year older than I was—he taught me how to skate and shared some of his best moves with me. Watching him is what got me out of the net for good, but except for a few seasons in high school, we never played together on an organized team.
the start of something
In 1977, I stepped onto a real ice rink for the first time in a real hockey jersey. Lockport’s Kenan Center Arena played host to a number of teams in different age groups. We were the Hall’s Mites. We had heavyweight brown jerseys. Mine was #14.
Word got around back home, and we soon outgrew our front yard rink. The uncles rented a back hoe and we spent one summer pulling weeds in what would become Gagliardi Arena. We made new, stronger nets, ran electricity from the house to a large light at either end, and even built a shed with a couple space heaters in it so we could have our own locker room. My Uncle Phil got the bright idea to spray the pucks with orange paint, making them much easier to find when they caromed off into the snow behind either net. It was both everything and nothing like the “black ice” in Mystery, Alaska, but it was ours. And when we played—just about every weekend, every winter from sunrise to sunset when we weren’t with our real teams—we were in our own little world.
It didn’t take long for me to realize this sport was going to be a big part of my life. I loved the speed and the cold air in my face when I skated. I loved having something in common with my cousin. And I loved the game itself. When we weren’t playing, we were watching it on TV.
Of course we were Buffalo Sabres’ fans, but growing up so close to Canada, we had nearly twice as many TV channels as most people in the Seventies. Those three extra channels—9, 11 and 5, brought us some of the worst (The Mad Dash game show comes to mind) and best (Maple Leaf Wrestling) TV of my young life. No show was more influential than Hockey Night in Canada every Saturday at 8pm during the hockey season. It’s where I learned the language of the game, where I sat glued to my spot on the floor watching Showdown between periods and where I met some of my first and best hockey friends—Peter Puck and Howie Meeker. It’s also where I fell in love with the blue and white mystique of the Toronto Maple Leafs, who haven’t come close to a Stanley Cup in my lifetime.
I loved those legends. Whether it was Salming, Sittler and McDonald on the Leafs or the Sabres’ French Connection, they made life feel easy even when it wasn’t. Maybe it was the cheesy mustaches of the day, or the glamour of them fearlessly flying around the ice without helmets. But we all wanted to be them. Looking back with the experience of a couple broken noses and more than a few stitches, I can’t imagine playing without a face shield any longer. Yet something about that spoke volumes. I think it was the freedom it represented. At least to me.
We, of course, had to wear helmets and full masks when we played. Safety first, right? But ironically, it was the mask that gave me the same freedom I saw in my heroes. As I aged into my teen years, I began to feel somehow different from the other kids. I had friends and we did all the things kids did back then, but real or imagined, I never quite felt like I belonged.
high (and low) school
Except for the music, the early to mid-Eighties were dark days for me. In the midst of trying to figure out who I was, I lost my best friend for a time. Lost is the wrong word. I knew where he was, but in truth, I abandoned him. I’m not even sure why. What I do know is that I was a very negative person back then. I didn’t feel deserving of much—including happiness—and I pushed away a lot of people who cared about me. I felt unliked and ugly. I hated my glasses. I hated my stupid curly hair so much that I used to wear a winter hat to bed to straighten it out. I felt deep down that people didn’t like me. Like no one really wanted me around. Except when I was on the ice. Hockey was my escape from all the troubles that seem insurmountable when you’re a teenager. On the ice, I felt like I had something to contribute. It didn’t matter if I was in Burlington (Ontario), Detroit or Gagliardi Arena in the town of Lockport—when the skates went on, everything else just drifted out of my mind.
When I took my surly, brooding ass to high school in 1985, I was already a part of something. Although the longest relationship I had had to date was coming to its end—something she and I both knew was coming but took turns denying—I had something to look forward to. I had traded the glasses in for contacts, and with #14 still on my back, when I pulled that mask over my face, I was a Lockport Lion.
Playing for the high school was a special experience for me, especially in the early years. It was the only time Mike and I were ever on the same team. More than that, it was a chance to give something back to my Uncle Barty. He was born and raised in Canada and loved hockey like almost nothing else. He always dreamed of Mike and I playing together for the Sabres someday, and I looked up to him more than I did any other adult male in my life. It made me smile to see him standing in his usual spot behind the glass at the Kenan Center during home games. When he died suddenly in October 1985, my world changed forever. Now hockey wasn’t just where I went to find me; it was where I found him too.
Over the years, the venues changed. The Kenan Arena closed its doors to hockey, so we moved our home rink about 25 miles south, to Holiday Twin Rinks. We had also moved out of Gram’s house, so Gagliardi Arena gave way to Willow Park’s wading pool (where we’d stuff cases of beer into the snow banks and play midnight games every weekend). But hockey remained a great escape for me. Sometimes I’d drive to Gram’s to visit and skate for a few hours. It always gave me a sense of home to be there with the three things I was closest to—hockey, Gram and Uncle Barty.
In most ways, I was a lot like other high school kids. I dated. I found a group of friends and we hung out almost all the time. Guys tend to joke about which one of them gets the fat chick when they go out in groups. There seemed to always be one. Not necessarily a fat chick, but one who everyone perceives as less attractive than her friends. Well, it wasn’t lost on me—even then—that if we joked like that, the girls probably did, too. And I guess I always felt like I was our group’s fat chick. I never felt like I was good enough to be a part of them. But hockey was my constant. Thanks to Mike, I could play. So on the ice, I felt like I was worth something more.
a knee full of thoughts
The light bulb didn’t really come on for me until college. I was thrilled to be able to play hockey at that level. But life has a funny way of changing the game just when you start to learn the rules. Six games into my freshman year, my season came to an abrupt halt in the form of a knee injury. In truth, I had had the injury for some time, but I didn’t tell anyone. I was so afraid of losing the ability to play that I would tape ice into my shin guard during games and then wait for everyone to leave the locker room before limping back to my dorm to get more ice. I was crushed when my season ended in surgery just before Christmas. My self-worth took a huge hit, and junior high me returned. When my knee healed, I spent lots of time walking around town late at night. I’d sit on a bench by the creek and just watch the water flow by. Nothing thinking about nothing.
Sophomore year brought on more of the same, only this time I played in six fewer games. My season was over before it began. My friend—the head athletic trainer—and a couple friends from the rink decided to take me out to my own impromptu retirement party, where I think I drank every kind of alcohol known to humans. But instead of getting drunk, I got clarity. Sitting on a bar stool at Coughlins in downtown Fredonia, New York, I realized that I was happy and that I probably had been for quite some time. Not only was I happy, I was damned lucky. The people in my life weren’t there for hockey; they were there for me.
Like any good retirement, the Sugar Ray Leonard in me wouldn’t stay down. I worked hard throughout my junior year and got ready for my last chance to play competitive hockey—as a senior. But fate decided that I ought to have a third knee surgery instead. I wasn’t thrilled, but I was okay because by then I was a different person. I knew hockey didn’t define me. It was something I did… for fun. There are lots of fun things to do, and many more fun people to do them with. Now, those who know me also know I continued to play. It’s been a big part of my life—and make no mistake—an important one, for 36 years (the last 14 with #21 on my back, in honor of Mike’s high school number). That’s longer than I’ve been doing anything that isn’t an involuntary bodily function.
parting shots… short side low
So why this sometimes depressing narrative? I’d love to say there was a grand design behind it. Some life lesson I wanted to impart. But there wasn’t. Faced with my real retirement after surgery number five, I just started remembering hockey throughout my life and it took off from there. It turns out I remember a lot about hockey and the hockey players I’ve been fortunate enough to know:
I remember using our fireplace as the net in our homemade Showdown Series.
I remember the famous “fog game” and “the bat incident” in the 1975 Stanley Cup final, the year our Sabres lost to the Philadelphia Flyers.
I remember meeting all three members of The French Connection at a charity horse race when I was a kid.
I remember where I was in 1980 when the Miracle on Ice happened.
I remember the high school team I coached talking about that same event 24 years later when the movie came out, as though it was just a movie.
I remember every minute of the Jekyll & Hyde summer that saw me center a future NHL legend and witness some of the darkest moments of my young life.
I remember being part of a state championship high school team in 1988.
I remember meeting my old rivals in college—when we were part of the same team—and realizing for the first time that hockey players from everywhere are one community.
I remember the first and only goal of my college hockey career.
I remember the cast of characters that was Jamaica Joes—my first men’s league team.
I remember the first real game I played in Rochester with my best friend, Scott Kelly.
I remember the day I met Wayne Witt—captain and founder of my first Nashville Men’s League team—who reminded me then and does today of my Uncle Barty.
Unfortunately I can’t forget the mystery funk growing off most of Aaron Selby’s equipment.
I remember standing by the casket with the rest of our team when we laid Wayne’s son, Ryan to rest far too soon.
I remember Flo Pilote loudly calling out our teammate Howie for wearing a toupee to the funeral.
I remember Wayne calling me on the day of Gram’s funeral, just to say he had my back.
I remember meeting Hall of Famer Pierre Pilote at Flo’s wife’s funeral in Nashville. With all due respect, Pierre, Flo is one in a million and I’m proud to call him my friend.
I remember Tony Carroccia gluing my face back together in a Walgreen’s bathroom after my first broken nose.
I remember my first Hap Day game, my first Red-Green game, and all the games since then.
I remember Vince Trama sending the referees home rather than taking a forfeit victory, just so we could all play the game.
And I remember numbers 18 and 10, not because they were my most recent linemates, but because they form the best parts of the line on which I had the most fun.
I could go on, but it seems appropriate to stop at 21. And I think it’s no accident that these—my most vivid memories—are mostly of the people I played with more than of the game itself. Now, let me tell you a few things I know:
I’ve been fortunate to have been able to play a game I love in parts of five decades. I’m choosing now to not play that game any longer to enable me to be as active as I can for as long as I can. For my family. For my friends. And because as anyone from those two groups would agree, I can’t imagine the thought of being inactive. Hell, I can barely sit through a full movie without having to get up and walk around.
I also know I’ve met a world of wonderful people through this game. From Vancouver, British Columbia (yes, for those of you who have read my novel, the character of Sara Rivers was inspired by a real person) to Miami, Florida. But not playing hockey anymore doesn’t mean I don’t have to see those people.
Finally, I know I have a lot to be thankful for. I know I’m worth something more than the game. Not because I’ve done anything special. I haven’t cured any diseases or invented anything revolutionary. I’ve simply tried to be the best human I can be. I’ve tried to be those friends who took me out that night in Fredonia—for others who might need nights like that. I know I’m worth something because my best friend forgave me and is still my best friend. I know because those wonderful people want me in their lives. And that’s enough for me.
Cheers!
