Chapter 8: Born Again

I met my wife-to-be in early 1986 after a couple of near misses.  I was 31.  I'd lived all my adult life without hockey.  My accident occurred just two months after I arrived in California in 1978. I had just turned 23. Over the next 8 years I did lots of soul searching, had two serious relationships that nearly ended in marriage. They would have been disasters, thus the near misses. I had a handful of jobs that evolved into my ultimate career.  Then I met a beautiful young woman with a boy's name. It was love at first sight. 

Her name was Kyle. We both knew immediately we would marry.  But we waited. My sister had been going with her college beau for 7 years and had plans to have their wedding that coming fall.  We scheduled ours for the following July.  

We recently found out from my parents that they took one look at the two of us and figured we were a couple of bubble heads and they would be surprised if we lasted five years.  That was 26 years ago. 

Having a wife named Kyle has caused confusion along the way. Not that there's anything wrong with that. 

Again, no hockey. Kyle didn't know me as a hockey player.  She knew me as a stock broker. I played a little softball. We road bikes. We did a little skiing.  But there was no hockey.  I did still own my CCM Tacks that I was wearing the last time I played.  

Those skates' days were numbered though.  One day Kyle was at our townhouse in Tierrasanta when she spotted a fluffy Old English Sheep Dog wandering down the street.  She brought the dog in the house and we tried to find her owner.  No one ever claimed her so we adopted her and named her Bo.  

Bo was a great dog.  Well, she became a great dog.  She was still a puppy when we found her. We figured she was around eight months old.  She was pupzilla.  We knew nothing about training a dog.  If we had a clue we would have crate trained her but that wasn't known to us at the time.  

What we did was left her in the garage during the day so she wouldn't tear our house to pieces.  She was quite the chewer. She did manage to rip up just about everything in the garage including Kyle's convertible MG.  she tore up the rag top and the upholstery.  She destroyed the headpiece from Kyle's wedding dress. She also ate my CCM's.  I didn't need them anyway.  

Bo outgrew her puppy chewing days and went on to be a great pet.  Four years later on the day the U. S. began its ground invasion into Iraq for Desert Storm, our son Max was born. It was February 24, 1991. We would soon find out that Max was also the most popular name for male dogs. 

By August we'd moved into a large loft space in San Diego's Gaslamp district. I heard that there was a new minor league hockey team that had recently started playing in San Diego in the International Hockey League, the IHL.  There had been a contest in the newspaper to name the team and it was decided to call them the San Diego Gulls after an earlier Western Hockey League franchise...not the same as the Canadian major junior WHL.

We got tickets and took our eight month old baby to watch the home opener at the Sports Arena.  We had a great time.  Max was fixated on all the movement on the ice.  I remember watching and, for the first time in over a decade, really missing the game.  

After the game Kyle, who saw the look in my eye asked me...or actually told me I should start playing hockey again.  

I thought about it. It was a scary thought.  I didn't know if my back could handle it.  It had been a couple of years since my back pain had been exorcised by my client's pain doctor son, Dr. Amundson. 

A few days later we were walking into our loft building when I ran into someone I knew.  It turns out he lived in our building.  His name was Doug Munson. He was on my senior league team when I got hurt and I hadn't seen him since that night in March of 1978. 

It was great to see him. We spent a few minutes catching up then he told me he was on a team and he invited me to come out and play with them. 

I said "what the hell, why not?". But I owned no gear.  Doug told me to go to Barry's Sporting Goods in Lemon Grove. So I did. The problem was I'd forgotten just about everything I knew about hockey equipment.  Most importantly, hockey skates run smaller than your shoe size.  I bought a pair of Bauer Supremes, size 10. The same as my shoes. I bought a helmet with a full shield.  When I last played we didn't use shields or cages. 

I went out to a couple of pick-up sessions to try out my new stuff and see how I felt.  It didn't take long to realize my skates were too big.  I couldn't stand the shield.  I took it off after a couple of shifts.  I couldn't see the puck on the ice in front of me.  I would go back and forth about whether to wear a half shield.  I didn't like it because it would fog up or get scratched and limit my view.  One deflected slapshot that hit the bridge of my nose would end that debate.  

I was terrible.  It did not come right back like I'd hoped.  I took my skates back and swapped them for the right size, 8 and a 1/2s. 

I was nowhere near ready, but Doug told me to come play in their next game. The team was called the Mustangs. They played in the advanced division.  There were ex-USIU players, some ex-minor pros.  A pretty good level of competition. Way above my pay-grade for the shape I was in.  

I was on the third line.  In men's league, that's the bottom of the barrel. At first I couldn't take three strides without falling flat on my face. I did have a rush into the offensive zone where I skated hard to the net. My left wing fed me a pass that I redirected and lifted past the goalie. That felt good and pleasantly familiar. 

I went home and crawled in bed. I was prepared to wake up the next morning and be in so much pain that I wouldn't be able to get out of bed. But alas, I woke up and felt great.  I was hooked.  

This was the beginning of a long and exciting comeback.  I worked hard. I skated two, three sometimes four or five times  a week.  Most of the ice times were pretty late at night.  Kyle was happy to see me having fun. She was able have some quiet time with me out and Max asleep. I worked out.  I jogged, cycled and rollerbladed.  I was reborn.  

We took a family trip back to Connecticut for Thanksgiving. I took my hockey equipment with me so I could play in the annual West Haven High School Alumni game.  

The game was alumni versus the varsity.  It was not a friendly game.  I was still getting my legs back at this point, still not in great shape.  Frank Longobardi was there. Dave Depew wasn't.  Some idiot was smoking a cigarette in the locker room.  I told him to put it out.  He told me to go back to California.  It was 1991.  I think it was the same guy who nicknamed me A-Rab back in high school.

It was full contact hockey. The varsity boys wanted to hurt us. Teenagers!  I got nailed into the boards by a little punk. A little later I had the puck in the corner.  I walked out and found myself in the slot where I back handed a shot into the top of the net.  I have it on video on a VHS tape in a box in storage.   I'll never watch it. But I remember it clearly.  Snipe!

Over the next couple of years my senior league hockey team became my passion, my exercise and my social life.  I started going to adult league tournaments in Vegas and Phoenix.  

I was able to start skating with the Thursday night "old pros" group at the San Diego Ice Arena in Mira Mesa. this is the same group I mentioned earlier that has been going for forty years and would not allow a young Chris Chelios a spot before he was then cut from USIU and before he went on to have a hall of fame NHL and Olympic career. 

It was a good group of guys. Ex-NHL and WHA players and San Diego hockey icons like Joe Noris, Sandy Fitzpatrick and Brian "Howie" Morenz.  Morenz was the grandson of Montreal Canadien legend Howie Morenz.  Many of the old USIU guys played. Brian Dobek, who was the top scorer for the 1976 US Olympic team was there. In the summer some of the IHL Gulls, players like Charlie Simmer, Ron Duguay and their coach and future Atlanta Thrashers coach, Don Waddell would show up.  Chris and his brother Steve Chelios made appearances.  You can look these guys  up on www.hockeydb.com if you want to see their hockey histories.  By the way, if anyone from the 70's who played at Uconn happens to be reading this, I've been trying to locate Uconn hockey media guides from those years.  Hockeydb has stats from my freshman and senior seasons and I would love to get ahold of 74-75 and 75-76.  

I know I've mentioned the New Haven Blades previously.  I don't think I went into what a big fan I was back then, in the late 1960s.  The Eastern Hockey League was the basis for the movie, "Slap Shot".  The film was based on the Johnstown Jets, one of the teams the Blades played against.  Also both were teams in our table top hockey league.   Anyway, I studied the rosters and stats of the Blades and all their rivals.  There were some real goons as well as some talented up and coming players.   I specifically remember one Blades player who I idolized.  His name was Michel Rouleau. A French-Canadian with dashing looks and a gift for scoring.  I got his autograph on one of the game programs.

One Thursday night I was on the bench sitting next to a chubby bald guy that everyone was calling Mike.  I heard someone refer to him as Rouleau.  I had to ask.  I told him I grew up in Connecticut and was a big Blades fan and they had a guy I loved to watch play named Michel Rouleau.....He said, "Yep, that's me."  Boy did he change. So I asked him where he went after playing for the Blades.  He rattled of five or six NHL teams.   Cool.  I was impressed.  Now he owned a hair salon and was cutting hair and playing Thursday night pickup.  All roads lead to the beer leagues.  I've said it before and I will say it again.  By the way, I looked him up on hockeydb.com and he did have a half way decent career in the WHA.  He never played in the NHL.  

Willie O'Ree, the first black hockey player to play in the NHL, had played for the AHL New Haven Nighthawks.  The Nighthawks came to New Haven and played in the new Coliseum. O'Ree went on to play in the WHA for the San Diego Mariners with some of the above mentioned guys. I only mention this because I went to buy a car and Willie O'Ree was my salesman.  He went on to recover his dignity and now works for the NHL promoting diversity.  I'm not sure if he ever made it to the beer leagues. One of the few, if true. Either way he's a great man. 

Around this time, Max was rolling around in his little baby walker.  He had discovered a little souvenir wooden Koho hockey stick I had gotten when I went to hockey school in Finland.  Kyle had given it to him. He grabbed it and started whacking everything he could reach.  Kyle set down roller hockey pucks on the concrete floor of our 3rd floor loft.  The stick ended up in splinters.  It had autographs of all the pros from the hockey school: Garry Unger, Carl Brewr, Pete Stemkowski, etc.  We went on to buy many more souvenir sticks.  

Next up, more beer league, getting Max on the ice and the beginning of life as a hockey dad, fan, coach and ref. 

Chapter 6: More on Uconn

Those four years flew by.  I had no more injuries to deal with, but my back was the source of ongoing pain.  I never did do enough stretching.  I recall thinking if I ever coached or had a kid who played hockey I would make sure to stress the importance of stretching.

I thoroughly enjoyed my days at Uconn.   We were a middle of the road Division 2 program. In those days it wasn't the same D1/DIII split that you see today.  Our opponents included some of the current day NESCAC schools:  Amherst, Bowdoin, Colby, Wesleyan, Trinity,  Williams.  We played Army, the Univerity of Vermont, St. Anselms, AIC, Umass(Amherst), Lowell Tech(later Umass/lowell), Babson, Holy Cross, Hamilton and New Haven College. We also faced Nichols, Salem State, New England College and North Adams State.   Quinnipiac was merely a local commuter college at the time with no hockey program.

The University of Vermont was the only legit Division 1 team we faced.  We played them my freshman and sophomore seasons.  They beat us 6-2 and 7-1.  In the game during my freshman year I met up with my old buddy John Glynne.  I hip checked him into the boards and ended up breaking his leg in the process...Not only could I get hurt, occasionally I dished it out as well.  I felt badly, but there was no love lost. (I did a little fact checking to verify this.  What I found was that he was drafted 185th in the 1975 NHL amateur draft.  It states that he missed most of his freshman season at UVM with a broken ankle. Close enough)  One other point, Dave Taylor was drafted 210th in the 15th round.  He was considered to be too skinny to play in the NHL.  Went on to have his jersey retired by the Los Angeles Kings.

My final college game was at Lowell. We lost 5-4.  I had what I thought was 99 total career points going into the game. I scored the last goal of the game on a slap shot from the left point. I took the shot, not expecting much to happen and watched it sail through some traffic and into the top right corner of the net.  It's the only goal I remember from all four years.  It turns out when the final stats came out I had a point I didn't know about so I ended with 101.  My anthropology major had no math requirement.  

Our games against Army were never close.  It was always the pot smoking liberal hippies versus the battle ready soldiers.  They wore crew cuts.  We had long hair and beards.  They were in tip top shape.  We ran the stadium stairs.  They played with a level of intensity worthy of storming Iwo Jima. We were hoping to escape with our lives.  We joked about their sticks having bayonets. Of the four times we faced them the closet scores were 7-3 and 8-4.  The other two games ended with scores of 9-1 and 11-0.  They were not fun to face. 

Frank and I played on a line with Our centerman, Gene Cufone,(Gene "on-the-phone" Cufone)  for our sophomore and junior years.  All three of us wore Lange skates and were called "the Lange Gang."   Lange was a ski boot company that decided to get into the ice hockey skate business in the 70s.  The Lange's were pretty good skates with the outer boot constructed out of the same hard plastic material as their ski boots.  They were quite protective for blocking shots.  But they tended to crack near the tendon guards.  The Lange factory was right down the road in Tolland, Connecticut.  We would drive down to the plant and trade in our skates for new ones anytime the shell started to crack.   I went back to CCM Tacks for my senior season.  

You may know that the Uconn mascot is the Husky.  Frank and I lived in a funky old colonial house on Coventry Lake our senior year.  We thought it would be a good idea to get a husky puppy. Chick magnet you know.  Even though we both had girlfriends.  Frank's girlfriend was Pat.  They got and are married to this day.  Mine was Maureen, Mo.  We never got married.  That's another story which I will tell in a bit.  

We ended up getting the cutest little blue eyed, silver gray and white husky puppy you've ever seen.  We called him Keemo. We never should have been allowed to own a dog.  You will see why soon. 

Keemo was probably only eight or ten weeks old when we got him. Puppy breath, fluffy fur, not housebroken.  Frank and I co-parented him. He never was well trained.  He did a great job attracting the ladies, but he was a runner.  We couldn't take him anywhere with having him on leash or he would take off.   

We got him in the summer and by that winter he was nearly full sized. He must have been about eight months old.  When we left each morning for class we left him alone to run and roam.   Coventry lake was huge and frozen.  Keemo would wander all day and greet us when we returned home from hockey practice at dinner time. 

One afternoon we got back and Keemo was nowhere to be found.  The next morning the sheriff showed up and informed us, "Your dog is killed."  Wtf?  He told us that Keemo had killed a farmer's sheep and the farmer shot him.  We never believed this. We thought at most Keemo may have come upon the dead sheep and helped himself.  On the other hand, huskies have wolf in their DNA and we had to admit it was possible.  Regardless, it was as if our child had been shot in cold blood. 

We were in shock. That was and still is one of the saddest moments of my life.  I told you we never should have been dog owners.  This is why.  We had a game that night and I remember Frank and I looking at each other on the bench doing everything we could not to break down in tears. 

The season ended with out much fanfare.  We never made the playoffs. Not once in my career.  My senior season was the worst of my four years.  We went 8-14-2 that year.  My first 2 years we had winning records of 15 and 10 and we went .500 my junior year.  However, I think that last year was the most enjoyable.  All the pot smokers had moved on by then.   Coach Chapman coached another four years before retiring and handing over the reins to my teammate Ben Kirtland.  Ben went on coach for seven seasons...He's now in federal prison due to involvement in a ticket scam he participated in as associate athletic director at Kansas University.  Coach Chapman coached a total of 24 years at Uconn and passed away in 2002 at the age of 76.   I never spoke to him after I left Uconn.

Back then, junior hockey was not such a big deal.  At least not at the level we played.  I,  like most players,  went straight from high school to college.  I did get  an offer from the Yale coach when I was a senior at West Haven High to do a post graduate year at Taft prep school.  My parents nixed that idea.  So I was 21 at the beginning of my senior year.  Lucky for us, the drinking age at that time in Connecticut was 18.  Of course today, it's the norm for players to be 20 or 21 year old freshmen when they get to college due to the almost mandatory junior hockey route.

I mentioned at the end if my last entry I would talk about something that would change every thing.  I'll get to that next time. 

Chapter 3: Mamas Don't Let Your Kids Grow Up to Play Hockey

There were many more days and stories from our time playing hockey on Lake Phipps.  It was the souce of much fun, excitement and mischief.  I enjoyed a few more winters of this kind of tom foolery until I went off to college and then eventually moved away to California.

My friends and I continued to play on the lake in the winters and then on the high school and summer league teams at the rink and around Connecticut.  We all improved, getting pretty good, pretty quickly.  We played JV hockey our freshman year, then 3rd line my sophomore season for the varsity.  

While hockey was my life and my passion, being "the man with the golden hands" I continued to play football for the high school team.  I also played baseball until I got to the Babe Ruth League.  I was an excellent fielder with a so-so arm and an above average bat.  That all changed when the pitchers starting hurling curve balls. Jon Capone ended my baseball career. I was sure that ball was coming straight at my face and then whoosh....it would drop and go right over the plate.  Or it would be coming right down the middle and I'd find myself swinging at a ball three feet outside the strike zone.  I was rendered helpless and looking like a fool.  Thus ended my competitive baseball career.

Football was another matter.  It was in my DNA....and it helped my hockey game.  I was more physical and a better hitter thanks to football.  I was also stronger and in better condition because of it.  The other thing that helped me with hockey was the fact that before I got my drivers license, my friends and I rode our bicycles everywhere.  I developed a massive hockey butt and thighs from all the leg work.

For football, we had spring training, weight lifting and what we called triple sessions in the muggy, sweltering August heat the week before we started back to school.  The biggest drawback to me for football was that it went until Thanksgiving day and the hockey team started practicing the first week in November.  We weren't allowed to overlap, so those of us on both the football and hockey teams had to wait until after the final game in late November before  we could start practicing with the hockey team.  

My friends and line-mates Dave Depew and Frank Longobardi and I were expected to be a big part of the hockey team for the upcoming season, my junior year of high school.

I was the starting tight end for the football team.  Tom Hunt was the head coach.  He was an old school tough, hard ass of a coach.  I think he had a cup of coffee with the Denver Bronco's but he had bad knees.  There's a good chance he would make headlines were he to be coaching in today's more sensitive atmosphere where beating and berating players is frowned upon.  But that was a different time.  So we were beaten and berated on a regular basis.  And we didn't complain.

It was Thanksgiving day, 1971.  We were playing Hillhouse High School, a New Haven, CT inner city school.  Always a tough opponent.  It was a cold, drizzly miserable Saturday morning.  

I was on the kick receiving team for the opening kick off.  My assignment was to go across the width of the field from the left side and block a kid who happened to be a 230 lb all-state tackle.  I weighed about 170.  He was bigger.  My advantage is he had no idea where I was coming from.  His advantage was 60 pounds of muscle.  

The kick off ensued. I sprinted across the field and dove, stretching my body out in front of said large tackle as he made a beeline for the ball carrier.  I nailed him.  He never saw it coming.  He went flying ass over tea kettle over me. I noticed the effect of his unsuspecting knee which sunk deep into the middle of my gut.  I rolled on the cold hard ground and got up clutching my left side, making my way back to the offensive huddle for the first play call of the game.  I could not catch my breath, much less a football.  The pain in my gut was immense.  I had to keep my left arm tucked into my stomach to try to contain the pain.

The first play was called.  Great.  Thanks.  It was a pass play.  A crossing pattern about ten yards deep, to me.    I ran, if you want to call it that, the route.  I made it across the middle.  Pete Riccio, my quarterback from midget football (no midgets played) fired a bullet in my direction, slightly above and away, just out of my reach.  I could not lift my left arm away from my stomach.  I couldn't reach it.  The ball was catchable.  But not for me.  I got my other hand on it, but to no avail.  Incomplete pass.  Second and ten.

I limped back to the huddle.  That was the last pass ever thrown my way. The rest of the half was a blur, which mercifully ended.  I played every offensive snap. During the break I went to Coach Hunt.  "Coach" I stammered, "I don't think I can go anymore".  

Coach Hunt turned and barked, "Herzog-you're in.  Balaban is a pussy."

I never played another play.  I sat on the bench huddled up, clutching my side.  I was covered with the Blue Devils poncho in the drizzling rain for the second half of the game.  I don't remember if we won or lost.

I rode the yellow team school bus for the twenty minute ride back to West Haven High School. Bouncing and bumping, feeling every little vibration, I continued squeezing my arm to my side all the way back to the school.

I got myself changed out of my football uniform and into my street clothes.  I don't remember how I got home, but the next thing I recall is sitting in the dark downstairs on the couch.  My sister got home.  She had been at the game.  I doubt she had a clue about what I was going through, but she recognized my pain when she came downstairs and saw me sitting there.

This was another moment in a life long string of instances of me not acknowledging pain.  I told her I was fine.  Thank goodness she didn't buy it.  "You aren't fine! You are as white as a ghost".  My parents weren't around.  She got Mr. Steinberg, Mark's dad, to come over.  He drove me to the Milford hospital.

Next thing I know I'm waking up with my mom telling me at least I won't have to go to Viet Nam.  "Say what?".

As it turns out that knee in my gut on the opening kickoff ruptured my spleen.  A spleen I no longer possessed.  All I had left was a large scar on my belly and the realization that I was done for the year.  No hockey.  I needed about six months to recover.  Damn it.  

As for Viet Nam, it turns out my lack of spleen meant I was susceptible to Berry Berry or some tropical disease and I would not be eligible for the draft as a result.  I think I would have rather gone to war if it meant not missing my hockey season.

So that was that.  I didn't play that year. I don't even remember one thing from that hockey season.  I did show up for spring training for football but I quickly realized I wasn't willing to risk my senior hockey season.  So I gave up football.  There were a lot of people disappointed in me, but I stuck to my guns.  Quitting football was a big deal.  I probably could have handled it with more maturity.  I honestly don't recall much that went down then but I still have the letter from my big brother, who was away at Brown University by then.  He expressed his disappointment at me being a quitter.

*(update-It turns out I did play some of my junior season.  A few years ago I ran into my team-mate, David Hanson and he told me that I'd played and he produced a newspaper article of WH beating Hamden.  There was a picture of me missing an open net on a pass from David. I still have no recall of that season)

By the way, Herzog.....Donny Herzog, the tight end who replaced me the day I got hurt, grew over a foot and went on to be named all-state defensive end the next season and then went on to play college ball at Northwestern.  The team, the West Haven Blue Devils or the Westies went on to go undefeated and win the state championship.....without me!

At least I could now prepare for my upcoming senior hockey season.

more to come......

Chapter 2: Skating On Thin Ice

Fresh Ice! Lake Phipps-from my back yard

Besides Mike McDermott, two adult mentors came into my life at that time.  First was Vern Gesner.  Mr. Gesner was the ice czar of Lake Phipps.  He was the one who everyone relied on to determine when the ice was thick enough to skate on.  And he had played for the Blades.  The New Haven Blades were the local semi-pro team.  They played in the old Eastern Hockey League at the New Haven Arena.  ( I did some checking and Mr. Gesner actually played for the New Haven Bears, a predecessor to the Blades). The hockeydb.com website inaccurately spells it Gessner with two S's. 

Mr. Gesner was a wizard on the ice.  My instant hero.  Everyone's actually.  For a living, my hero was a plumber and a lobsterman. He could stick handle through everybody and make the goalie look like a fool.  Two boots were the make-shift hockey goal.  There was no "lifting" the puck so you had to be able to either shoot it past the poor sap who was playing goalie or you had to be able to deke him and shovel the puck past him.  

The Gesners lived directly across the lake from us.  They had lights on their dock.  Mr. Gesner would shovel an area in front of his property to form a hockey rink/figure skating area and then flood it to keep the surface smooth.   His wife had skated in the Ice Capades and his daughter, Gail, was a figure skater.  We hated her. 

 My first real job as a teenager was working with Mr. Gesner in the summer on his lobster boat. I would wake up at 4:30 five days a week and row across the lake to his house.  He kept his boat in the harbor in New Haven. My job was to empty the lobster pot once Mr. Gessner would pull them out of the Long Island Sound. I had to separate the lobsters from the rest of the creatures we caught. Then I would separate the males out, measure them and peg their claws.  Everything else was tossed back into the water. Then I had to put my hands into a trash can full of rotten fish and bait the traps. I got sick the first day out. The only good things were that we were done by noon and the money was good. Of course I spent almost every dollar on hockey. 

That winter of 1967-68 hockey became my life. I was in the 7th grade at Gianotti Junior High.  (Proudly in our hearts you lie) Everything I did was centered around playing hockey.  I couldn't wait to get home from school.  I would do everything in my power to avoid trips to my grandparents.  That was just time I couldn't skate.  We would get home from school and play until dinner then come back out and skate the length of the lake in the moonlight.  All you could hear was the scraping sound of the steel blades cutting the ice, wooden sticks banging pucks and the occasional freezing cracks that would scare the uninitiated but was comforting to us.

My other mentor was Whitey Bensen.  Whitey was our supplier.  Our dealer.  He was the source of us getting our stuff.  He sold hockey sticks and equipment out of the trunk of his car.  As soon as I could I saved enough to buy a pair of Riddell kangaroo leather skates.  They were green.  They were awesome! But I think I would have probably used the word groovy or cool.  

I was so happy.  Whitey took me and my friends under his wing, kept us outfitted and out of trouble for years to come. Whitey, and his son Kyle, went on to become the largest hockey and lacrosse retailer in Connecticut.  I still stop in and say hi and buy sticks for my son when I'm in Connecticut.  They supply many of the Connecticut high school, prep school and colleges, including NCAA Natty Champs, Yale.

Weekends were always the best.  All of the local high school team players and some college kids would show up and we would have these large games that would last all day long.  The legendary local high school hockey coach, Art Crouse was always there.  He lived at the other end of the lake with his family.  His son's Arty and Marty would be there.  Arty was the robust backup goalie on the team.  Marty was a diminutive but fast little skater.  Other high school players included; starting goalie, Richard Goldsmith,  Defensemen Tony Amendola and Mark "Duck" Williams, forwards Arty Friend and Kerry Bertrand.  Kerry could lean and turn on a dime making the tightest turns I'd ever seen.  He would almost be parallel to the ice.  I always tried to copy that.  There were the Degennaro brothers and many more, but it was always a great, fun community event.

We were there too. The next generation.  Me, Steiny, Mike McD, Frank Longobardi, Frank Vingiano, Bob Blakeslee, Dave Depew, Paul Sikorsky, Dave Hansen and our goalie, Scott Dufresne.   Italians, Polish, French, Jewish and Irish....but mostly Italian.

As the winter turned to spring, the lake melted and we fished.  We also scoured the lake bottom along the shore line for pucks that were lost during the winter.  Hockey gave way to baseball.  For a bit.

That spring held the greatest surprise.  The city of West Haven completed construction of the rink at the high school.   We lived about a mile from the school and the new rink.  Instead of having to wait until the next winter, we got to keep playing starting in the early summer.  Whitey Bensen held a hockey camp.  I still have my "report card".  I would get better!  But it did say I had talent and great potential.  I'm sure they said that to all the kids.

In the fall, during my eighth grade I joined the West Shore Youth Hockey League.  I can't remember the name of my team. (note: I just found this picture...The team was "American Legion".  I guess I was the Captain.) We played in the Bantam level.  Hockey always did have strange names for the different age levels....there's mites, and squirts, peewee's and bantams, then you get to midgets and juniors....you either sound like a noise one makes while peeing or you are a politically incorrect slur....

Once in the midst of my son's youth hockey days I was telling someone I worked with he plays "midget" hockey.  This level goes from 15 to 18 years old, right before you graduate all the up to "Junior" hockey.  Whoa, you are finally a Junior.  Anyway this co-worker found it kind of interesting that there is a hockey level for midgets.  He didn't say it, but he was thinking how odd that my son was a midget.  I straightened him out but I think it was he who had it right.  It is a bit odd.

Whatever our team was called we wore Boston Bruins colors and we lost our first game by score of 13-0.  So much for talent and potential.

Things picked up and we did much better.  I made the all-star team.  I also got hurt.  I took a nasty spill on a hit from behind in the corner.  I came down hard, flat on my seat.  This was significant.  I'm still paying for it.  I'd injured my back but I also learned how to hide my pain.  They said I broke my coccyx.  All I know is it hurt like hell and I was not allowed to play for a month.  

As soon as possible, I was back on the ice.  In addition to the Bantam league, the lake was now frozen again and we continued to spend every available free moment skating.

We would also sneak out late at night and go to the New Haven Arena to play after midnight. Someone must have known someone.  I was getting to be pretty good, along with my buddies.  We would go and skate with the older high school kids.  Somehow we convinced my brother who had his driver's license to take us to New Haven.  We would play until 3:00 am.  I'm fuzzy on the details.  I don't recall how we got around my parents.  I don't remember if we snuck in or if someone let us in.  I do have vague and slightly disturbing memories of us all playing hockey wearing only our jock straps at 3 in the morning.

Tony Amendola(Back row, 2nd from Right)
Also Whitey Bensen and Gunner Garrett in the
front row

If memory serves me, it was the following winter that I had my near death experience.  I had gotten a very bad grade in my freshman algebra class. I was threatened by my mother with having hockey taken away until my grade picked up.  It was during one of those late night skating sessions that I shared my woes with senior defenseman Tony Amendola.  Tony was a bad ass.  He took shit from no one.  His advice to me was to tell my mom to go "f-herself" if she followed through with her threat to punish me.  I was inspired.  Great talk.  Thanks Tony!

So then that happened.  Sure enough my mom brought the hammer down and I came back with a poorly timed and ill-conceived retort.  All hell broke loose.  I will spare you the ugly details but suffice to say that I "ran away" for a few days.  I stayed with another buddy, who was not the best influence...his name was Blakeslee.  Bob Blakeslee.  Bob lived on the other side of the tracks.

Bob was my age.  A talented defenseman with a blistering slap shot.  He ended up going away to a prep school, Trinity Pawling or TP for our junior year.  I think Whitey Bensen helped him get a full scholarship....today those go for close to $50,000.  Probably about $5000 back then.

I'm not sure why he returned to West Haven for our senior year.  Something about drinking and weed most likely.  Oh, the prep school life.  But he was was back on the high school team for our senior season and helped us get to the state championship finals that year.  He also brought Lacrosse back with him so we had a club Lacrosse team that spring.

I returned home after a few days in exile to serve my month long stint in the penalty box.  When you live on a lake and your life is consumed with hockey you end up learning all kinds of terms and distinctions for weather and different types of ice conditions.  I imagine it is similar to some degree to how Eskimos have so many words for snow or the way surfers have so many terms for waves and wind.    Same with skiers.   Also true for pond hockey players.

There was a day during my prohibition when my parents were out of town.  When a lake freezes for the first time of the season it creates a beautiful sheet of mirror like "black ice".  It's called black ice because it is clear and with the dark water visible beneath the frozen surface it appears to be black.

There is nothing better for skating than black ice.  After a day or so of a cold snap the ice continues to freeze, getting thicker but it also expands.  Like ice cubes in a glass of water, the ice surface develops cracks.  They happen constantly.  The ice splits and cracks making all kinds of cracking and pinging sounds.  Sometimes a fissure will fire up right between your own two feet.  Others will come from an angle and intersect with an existing crack.  There is really no risk of falling through the ice.  It's too thick by now.   The risk is potentially catching your blade in one of these cracks, getting your foot stuck and possibly twisting an ankle or a knee.  Mostly the worst that happens is it causes a skater to lose their footing and wipe out.

Over a few days the ice forms many cracks and lots of snow from all the stopping and starting.  We simply move to new virgin areas for fresh ice.  It was always good to know which property owners were finicky about us playing in front of their homes.  A winter version of "get off my lawn".

As the days passed the ice would get thrashed and we would adapt.  When it snowed it would cover the ice and hide the cracks.  There was no use trying to play until the snow stopped.  But we would skate.  

Snow Covered Lake Phipps

When the snow stopped falling we would get our shovels and clear away a rink sized patch.  This area would now be surrounded by banks of snow on all sides.  Plenty of pucks got lost in these snow banks.

The ice was never great after a snow storm.   We had to take breaks throughout the day to shovel all the snow that came from blades stopping and starting during each game.  The worst conditions came after a snowstorm if it would rain and then freeze up right away.  In these instances a hideous crust formed.  There was no way to skate on this.  We know because we tried anyway.

Hopefully and usually, after this crust formed we were lucky enough to get a warm spell and  maybe even some rain.  This served to completely melt the surface area of the ice.   The shoreline and under the docks would melt entirely.

When the next cold snap arrived the watery surface would refreeze, as would most of the shoreline.  The last to freeze was the water under the docks.

This freshly refrozen melted surface and rainwater was the next best thing to play on besides the initial black ice.  It was this type of condition that we had one fine cold sunny Sunday morning while I was still on suspension with my parents out of town.  Hmmm.

So I did what any self respecting kid would do.  I got my hockey bag, I bundled up and I snuck out down to the other end of the lake to spend the day doing what I loved best.  And what a day it was.  Perfect weather, temperature in the teens.  Perfect Ice.  All my friends were out.  The entire local hockey community was there for this glorious day.  Vern Gesner, Art Crouse, the high school team, my pals...it couldn't have been more perfect.  Uh oh.  

The ice was milky white.  There were no freezing cracks other than the one's happening during this day. It was freezing cold, but sunny with clear skies.  The shoreline had refrozen for the most part but you did need to pay attention as there were weak spots.  Not hard to spot or avoid though.

The area underneath the docks remained open water.  Occasionally a puck would be lost to one of these holes.  But they also had a plus side.  You could drink ice cold lake water from them when you got thirsty. This is something we all did many times throughout the day.  There was little that could quench your thirst better than this.

Here's what you had to do.  You would skate up to the dock, lay your stick and gloves on the dock or behind you away from the water then you would get on your hands and knees  and shuffle up to the waters edge.  Then you lay flat on your belly on the ice.  Carefully you  reach your head over the edge and you literally suck the water right out of the lake.  

We all did this many times.  This time as I was gulping this magnificent refreshment, with my body stretched on the ice and my mouth in the water the entire shelf of ice I was laying on collapsed.  Suddenly I'm submerged in the ice cold lake water kicking my feet realizing that trying to swim with steel blades on my feet was not going to work.  I can't say my life flashed before my eyes.  I was, however, wet, shockingly cold and before I needed a breath, I reached out and grabbed the wooden post of the dock.  I was able to quickly pull myself to the ladder and climb out of the water.  

Did I almost die?  Probably not. Would my parents kill me if they found out?  Definitely!

Once on the dock and out of the water I was relieved.  But now I'm realizing how wet and cold I was in my soaking clothes and hockey gear.  Being in the water was shocking but surprisingly it was not a sensation of coldness as you might imagine.  Being underwater, unable to breathe, sinking from the weight of my skates, everything was a reaction.  Being on the dock, out of danger, but cold and wet was just plain miserable.  Immediately everything began to freeze while underneath everything remained wet.

I went over to Blakeslee's house to thaw out, warm up and laugh about the ordeal.  As evidenced by the fact that I'm here to tell this tale, my parents never found out and so did not need to kill me.  Yep, I just called my mom to verify...she never knew of this.  Someday my kids may tell me things.  

More to follow.....

Chapter 1: I'm A Hockey Guy

I'm a hockey guy.  I played, I coached, I reffed but most of all and to this day I'm a hockey dad.  I fear those days are numbered.  For as long as I can remember, I've had as one of my favorite jobs and purposes to drive, support, fund and cheer as my son worked and played his way through the youth, prep school, junior and now college ranks.  I'm his biggest fan.  This role has been the target of much of my energy over the past eighteen years, ever since his mini-mite days at the age of four.  Occasionally there is pain, frustration, disappointment and heartbreak.  I'm talking about for me.  Lord only knows how it's been for him.  I'll let him tell that side of the story.

I'd never heard of hockey.  I was twelve years old.  I grew up on a farm in the Florida panhandle.  We played football in the fall.  Basketball in the winter and baseball in the spring and summer.  We hunted, fished and played army.  I was pretty sure I would play football at FSU or the University of Florida some day.  

That is until my dad ruined my life and moved us to Connecticut in the summer of '67.  I'd just finished the 6th grade.  I thought my life was over.  I left all my friends behind, including my girlfriend, Becky Messer. Becky was a dream.  I was shy.  It took me since the 1st grade to finally get the nerve to be her boyfriend.  I was in love with her from the first day I set eyes on her on my very first day of the 1st grade.  I specifically remember my mother saying goodbye as she left me at Mrs. Kates' 1st grade class room.  I had a lump in my throat and was on the verge of tears....then I saw Becky and all was good.  Bye Mommy!

But alas, poof.  Off to Connecticut.  I told myself it was only temporary, but it soon became evident it was over.

That first summer in Connecticut was spent in a rented beach house at Gulf Beach in Milford.  I made a few friends.  We swam in Long Island Sound.  We played baseball every chance we got.  I spoke to Becky every Wednesday night at 7pm.  Soon the calls ended and I've never heard from her since.  Every so often I check on Facebook, but nothing.  I'm sure that young beauty that I lost is a big fat momma living in a trailer park somewhere.  My curiousity remains.

*(Update- Since I wrote this, I have reconnected with Becky.  She's married and living in Virginia. Her daughter lives very close to where we live in San Diego.  I had a chance to meet up with Becky and her daughter last year.  I was wrong.  She's a lovely person, did not get fat and I'm so happy to have been able to close that loop.)

At the end of the summer my parents bought a house in West Haven, the next town up the coast.  It was a cool house, made of slate rocks and redwood.  It was split level and sat on the shore of Lake Phipps.  We had a row boat.  We bought a canoe.  Plenty of time was spent fishing, swimming and rowing around the lake.  

There was no shortage of kids in the new neighborhood.  My first friend was Michael McDermott.  His family lived on the other side of the empty lot that separated our two homes.  Mike and his younger, red-headed brother, Timmy were the kids of Ed and Barbara.  Mr. McDermott worked at a funeral home.  I suppose he was an undertaker, but I really have no idea what he actually did there.  

My other friend in the neighborhhod was Mark Steinberg.  We called him Steiny and later, Bird.  We, along with other kids in the neighborhood played a lot of touch football on the small "green" nearby.  This patch of land was on a slope and had a huge cedar pine right in the middle.  It's a miracle no one got hurt.  But isn't that the case with much of what we did as kids.

Continuing my promising football career, I went out for midget football that fall.  I played for the team sponsored by the Armstrong Rubber factory.  I earned the moniker "the man with the golden hands".  Once I caught a long bomb from Pete Riccio and scored a touchdown.  They announced someone else's name over the PA system.  My mom straightened that out immediately.

As the weather turned cold, my first winter approached.  Mike McDermott was at my house and he noticed I had a table top hockey game still in the unopened box that it came in.  It turns out Mike played hockey and from that moment on my life would never be the same.  He immediately began to pull me into his world.  

Keep in mind, I'd never seen anything related to hockey in my life other than this hockey game.  For some unknown reason the Christmas before we left Florida, my parents(or Santa?) got me this game as a gift.   I have to ask them if they recall and what were they thinking that  would have them get this game for me.  I was confused when I saw my first hockey puck.  As far as I knew it should have been large enough to come up to knee height.  That's how big it was in the table top game.  What was this little bitty thing?

So we opened the game.  We carted it back and forth between houses depending on whose parents minded less.  We played games.  We held tournaments.  We kept stats.  We developed plays...my favorite was where you push the right wing down his lane with the puck then from the corner he makes a pass to his centerman who is being pushed down the middle at the same time.  If you time it right, he jams it past the goalie with a one timer at the perfect moment.  The other play was to have that same right winger  rip a spin-a-rama slap shot from the blue line.  The men were made of metal, probably tin.  It was the Montreal Canadiens and the Toronto Maple Leafs, two of the six teams that comprised the National Hockey League at the time.  The players were flat with the face and uniform painted on each side.  We curved and angled the blade of their sticks so that when they took their slap shots the puck would angle up off the surface and often would find its way into the goal.  Top cheddar!  

And we fought.  Mostly Michael and I.  We were developing somewhat of a rivalry that would last through high school. There were numerous disputes, arguments and allegations of cheating that erupted into the two of us going after each other.....we never threw punches, but we fought.   Funny enough with one exception, in all the years that I would go on to play ice hockey I never fought.  Never had to.  Except once in Thursday night men's pickup, but that's another story.

This new and growing interest in the game that Michael McDermott played eventually spilled out onto the driveway where we played ball hockey.  Our equipment was tennis balls, welded goals, old worn down wooden, straight bladed hockey sticks which, if the nail had already fallen out, was worn down to a dangerous spear.   More tournaments, playoffs, scrapes and fights.  It's amazing no one lost an eye.

Schiavone PeeWees with Mike McDermott, John Glynne
and Kyle Bensen

Soon enough the hockey season was upon us.  Mike played peewee hockey in New Haven.  Mike and his dad invited me to go with them to the games at the New Haven Arena.  We would stay up late watching the Rangers on black and white TV, then wake up at 4:30 in the morning to get to his game.  This was my introduction to cold weather.  Nasty cold weather.  Too cold.  

Mike was a bit of an enigma.  He was introducing me to this new world...for that I will be forever grateful.  But he was a goofy kid.  So it was not easy to look up to him.  He had a chipped tooth.  A hockey badge of honor.  His team was Schiavone's.  Schiavone's was a wrecking company.  Bodies went missing from time to time.  You tell me!

Mike was ten or eleven at the time.  I was twelve.  He loved hockey, but he wasn't all that good of a player.  John Glynne!  Now he was a good player.  He was the best hockey player in the league, absolutely amazing to watch.  I was in awe.  He skated and carried the puck with grace..and boy could grace skate.    But I kid.  I would meet John Glynne again years later, first in our high school rivalry with Hamden High(Jonathan Quick's hometown) and again later in college where I would break his leg at the University of Vermont with a hip check.  He went on to have a minor pro career in the AHL and in Europe.  I hear it was derailed by drugs.

So I went to the games every weekend with Mike and his Dad.  Once I had a chance to go ice skating at Ingall's Rink at Yale.  I'd never skated in my life and it was not much fun.  I couldn't get going.  It made no sense to my brain.  I had no control of my feet.  Thank goodness for the boards.  

There was nothing about that experience that made me want to do it again.  I'm not sure where I got them, but I ended up with a cheapo pair of ice skates.  Winter was coming and the lake would soon be frozen.  Big deal though.  I couldn't skate.  I'm not even sure I wanted to.

Our house was a split level redwood and slate rock structure with an upstairs in the back overlooking the lake.  There was an open terrace upstairs above the kitchen and living area.  We've since had it enclosed and is now what we call, even forty years later, the "new room".  

One day late that autumn the terrace, which was covered in pebbles was submerged in a puddle from the rain.  It had no railing, just a flat top roof with nothing to protect you from walking or falling right over the edge to the ground below.  A cold snap turned the entire pool of rainwater into a solid sheet of ice....yay!  A second story skating rink with no boards.

I got my skates and put them on.  No one was home.  Just me, the skates, the ice and a fifteen foot drop.  

I shuffled onto the ice and waddled out to the middle.  I pointed one foot, turned the other and pushed.  I slid a few feet and tried it back the other way, making sure all the while to stay as far away from the edge as possible.  Well, just like that, I learned to skate.  It clicked.  The mechanics made perfect sense.   I would never be the same.

The dock in our back yard

Mike McDermott's house to the left

Soon thereafter the lake froze and we went out.  I had it down in no time.  I learned to stop, both ways.  I learned to turn, to skate backwards.  And I was hooked.

I bought a stick.  A Northland Pro, a heavy piece of lumber with a straight blade and as was soon to be discovered, it was held together at the toe with a nail. Next I bought gloves, then shin pads, a helmet and a jersey.  I sent away to the Gerry Cosby Company at Madison Square Gardens and got a #7, Rod Gilbert Rangers jersey.   I had to iron on the letters and numbers.  I spent many hours pouring through hockey equipment catalogs dreaming about getting new gear.

To be continued.....