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This past week was a very busy one for me in playing Alumni hockey. After joining the Flyers Alumni for a benefit game in Oaks, PA, earlier this month, I just played in three games in three nights with the NHL Alumni squad. The team consists of former NHLers from various eras of hockey and a variety of former team affiliations. The team plays in approximately 30 charity hockey games each year throughout Canada.
It was a great NHL Alumni hockey tour this month, with lots of instant memories. I can’t wait for the next one!
The NHL Alumni group does an excellent job helping and assisting its members -- actually it is the most proactive of all of the Alumni associations. You can check out all of the great things that the NHL Alumni does by going to their
NHLalumni.net official website.
The three games that I recently participated in were like a trip down memory lane for me. The games were being played in London, Owen Sound and in Sarnia, Ontario. I always volunteer to playin the London game, as it is my hometown and it gives me an opportunity to not only see my mom but to bring her to the game as well.
The three games being played on this road trip are all a fundraiser for the Special Olympics, and our opposition for each game are the local police officers in the various towns. Now the police have no problem putting together a team for these games, in fact they could probably ice two or three different teams for each game.
The games are meant to be fun, but quite often some of the games are very competitive! Which was the case for game 3 of this road trip.
First up was the game in London, my hometown and where I played my Junior hockey. The Junior hockey fan is quite unique, as many of them do not have a favourite NHL team – they only cheer for their hometown Jr. A team. To them that Jr. A is all that matters. They will cheer for a NHL team, but only if one of their beloved Knights is on the team.
The London Knights Junior A franchise is celebrating its 50th anniversary as one of the most successful franchises in all of Canadian Junior hockey. While I was in London, the local newspaper published season, it has been and continues to its top 50 players of all time.
Yes, I made the list!
The panel had me slotted in at #11 which was pretty cool. In the top 50 were 11 of my former junior teammates, brought back a lot of smiles reading through the list. We had a pretty good team back in junior, probably should have won the championship, especially in 1977 but that is a story for another day. For the record the top ranked former London Knight was Corey Perry.
Back to the game, each game consists of 3 periods with the 2nd period being a skills competition. The skills are fun, and even though we are old, we still got it! The skills competition consists of a puck control relay, target shooting and of course the penalty shot. For today’s game I did the the penalty shot. I scored! For me it is always fun to score – it doesn’t matter where or on who.
And of course my mom was there watching, always great to score one for your mom. We won the game 9-7.
Game 2 was in Owen Sound, we won again. I was in the penalty shots skill again but I missed this time! For this game, two things stand out: the goalie and a cup of tea.
On my drive to Owen Sound (approximately two hours north of London) I stopped in Durham, a small town of about 2,500 hundred people, I stopped to visit Mrs. Hopkins.
Mrs. Hopkins is the mom of my best buddy Dean Hopkins – Dean and I played Junior hockey together and have stayed in touch ever since. It was really neat to sit and visit and reminisce about Dean and my teenage years!
Usually in an Alumni game there are one or two players on the other side that stand out as noticeably higher-grade than the rest of their team. In this case, it was the goalie for the police team. He was amazing! He made big save after big save to keep the game close.
Rick Vaive, who is a former 50 goal scorer, must have had 20 shots on him. Now Rick is a pure goal scorer. The hands never leave the skill players even as the rest gets taken away by Father Time and deconditioning. Rick still loves to score, shoots to score, shoots hard and knows were he is shooting. After being stoned for several shots, including a highlight-reel glove save, Rick’s next shot was high, just over his left shoulder, glancing off of the goalie's mask.
Rick wasn’t shooting to score this time. He was shooting to send a message. Rick’s next shot, about a foot off of the ice, went glove side. Score!
This battle continued throughout the game. It was really neat to watch. I already forget the score -- it didn't really matter -- but we won the game.
The third game was in Sarnia and was the most competitive Alumni game that I have ever played in. The police team iced a squad of babies against us. Yes, they were police officers but I think these young men must have been right out of police college. They could play and they could really, really skate.
Skating legs are a great equalizer in hockey. Ever see a double or triple overtime game in the NHL where, by the end, the fourth line forwards suddenly become the best players on the ice? That's because they still have fresh legs while the top guys are getting tired. Suddenly, the usual roles reverse and it becomes the role players who skate circles around the skill guys and make plays the average fan doesn't think they are capable of making.
Well, that's what happened in this game. The young, fresh legs of the police team enabled them to outskate us old guys. They really took the game to us, as a matter of fact. The score was 4-1 in their favor after the first period.
Ouch, a lot of work to do! These games are for fun and for good causes but we are still competitors and our pride as NHL Alumni was at stake. There were a few words spoken during intermission, but not many. As veterans, we all knew what had to be done! It was time to use our savvy and hockey sense -- as well as the hands of the guys who are scorers -- to overcome the skating deficit. That meant we had to outwork those guys for pucks and take away space. We were serious about it.
It was a long climb but, thankfully, we came back and eventually won the game 8-7. It was a much harder-fought win than I think even the young guys on the other side could truly understand and appreciate. For the record, I hit the post in the penalty shot competition.
Most of all, it was a nice feeling to be in that environment again. After the game, the dressing room banter seemed livelier, the cold beer tasted better and even the shower felt more refreshing. It felt like old times.
Maybe the neatest part about this game was the venue where it was played. I first played in this same arena over 40 years ago. I was 14 years old and was a member of the Junior B London Squires and at that time the Sarnia Junior B team was the best team in Ontario.
During the opening ceremonies, I pointed out the banners hanging from the rafters to my defence partner for the night, Bryan Muir. The banners read:
* 1972/73 League Champions / Sutherland Cup Champions
* 1973/74 League Champions
Bryan replied, “Hey, that's the year I was born.”
I said, "Wow! I guess I am really old! I was 15 by then."
Well, here is the rest of the story. This is some REAL old-time hockey, and I could not imagine that this will ever happen again. We lost bad to the Sarnia Bees, pretty sure it was during the 73/74 season. The deficit was double digits.
Our coach, Ted Powers, was not a happy man. After the loss he instructed us to get on the bus – immediately! No shower, just get on the bus!
Upon our arrival back to the London Gardens we were told to get dressed, we were going on the ice for a practice. Wet underwear and wet hockey equipment feel and smell disgusting. What's more, since it was the middle of winter, our equipment was frozen rock solid.
The practice consisted of skating, skating and more skating. Herb Brooks and Mike Keenan had nothing on Ted that day!
Oh, and we did one drill that I will never forget. The reason for the drill was simple: The coach thought we were soft, he accused us of playing soft. Of course Ted's language was much harsher and more explicit than this but I will keep "soft" as the adjective.
OK, here is the drill, which was borrowed from things hard-nosed old school coach Vic Stasiuk and others used to do to "toughen up" players. Coach Ted stood on the defensive blue line, still dressed in his shirt and tie from the game, but a warmup jacket had replaced his suit jacket. He stood about two feet from the boards with stick in hand. The players lined up on the opposing blue line in full equipment.
On command, the player had to skate down the boards and go between Ted and the boards. The first few players that skated down the ice were not sure of exactly how to take the drill. Well, we all soon learned.
The first few players were either heavily body-checked by Ted, given a vicious two-hander (i.e., slash) or cross-checked directly into the boards. Ever heard the old-school hockey expression "Hit to hurt, not to injure?" Well, Coach Ted walked that tightrope with us.
He was still mad as hell and he meant business. Powers made his mind up he was going to teach each and every once of us a lesson. With each player that ran the “gauntlet”, Ted not only dished out physical punishment, he had some choice words for them. I guess you could call them “words of wisdom” in the most old-time hockey sense of the phrase.
As the player approached Ted, he would holler at them. Here's the thing: It wasn't just insults. With expletives added for emphasis, he went over each guy's strengths and weaknesses and what he felt they had to do to improve. I hated it at the time but I was actually being COACHED.
Again, we are talking old-time hockey standards here. Every conversation always came back to competing. If we could not compete with an "old" guy like him, how could we except to compete in a games against our peers or play at a higher level?
Ted’s belief was simple: In order to win. you have to pay the price. To be successful you have to compete and in order to win championships you have to do whatever it takes. I cannot remember how long we did the drill but it felt like hours even though it probably wasn't nearly that long. The main thing I remember is that Ted got his point across loud and clear, at least he did with me.
When the London Knights retired my jersey, I invited all of my old coaches. Of course, Ted Power was there. I told this story during my speech and everyone laughed. However, after the laughter died down, I thanked Ted for one of the most valuable lessons I ever learned in hockey. As a matter of fact, it is one of those lessons that goes on and on..
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