Whenever I have ever been invited to play with a hockey team on this trip, I have been warned by the team representative that “they aren’t very good.”  Not once have I heard from a team, “We’re doing great this season, don’t screw it up!” It’s almost like modesty is an unwritten part of the hockey code.

I ran into a similar problem, in reverse, when I was at Stanford.  I had a wood chessboard in my apartment, and occasionally when people would come over I’d ask them if they were interested in a game.

Invariably, they’d look at the board, look at me, look back at the board, get a little smile on their lips, and shake their heads no. I insisted that I wasn’t any good, but they didn’t buy it.  Eventually, I started to get the feeling that my owning a nice chessboard signaled that I was a good chess player, or at least better than them.

What did they think, that I was trying to hustle some chess?  I mean, maybe Stanford was the sort of place where that would be done, but seriously, I was not a good chess player.

So it goes with hockey, too.  The teams tell me that they aren’t very good, and I tell them that I’m not a very good goalie.  We go through a dance to set low expectations:

Team: “Glad to have you here!  But we have to warn you, we aren’t very good.”

Me: “That’s okay, I’m not a very good goalie.  I play just for the fun of it.”

Team: “Haha, us too, but seriously, we aren’t very successful on the ice.  Hope you like a lot of shots!”

Me: “Wish I were a good goalie so that I’d be able to stop a few of them!”

We then head out to the ice, lose, and come back to the dressing room, where this conversation ensues:

 Me: “Wow, sorry about that one guys.  I was a total sieve.”

Team: “No, no.  You did fine.  We just left you hanging.”

Me: “Um, no, I really should have had most of those.”

Team: “Bah.  You can’t be expected to stop 2-on-0 rushes.”

Me: “Well, maybe, but…”

Team: “You were fine.”

Are they trying not to hurt my feelings?  It’s not like I can’t tell when a goal was a result of netminder error versus defensive-zone breakdown.  Must simply be good manners.

Or maybe it has nothing at all to do with me or manners.  Perhaps it is simply the self-effacing nature of beer-league teams.

—

That brings us to my second game in Ontario, in which I tended goal for the Pylons.  I had been playing only once in every state and province, but there was so much hockey energy in Ontario that I couldn’t resist spending a bit more time on the ice there.

Steve, in addition to getting me a great tour of the Hockey Hall of Fame Resource Centre, hooked me up with the game.  Steve was the usual goalie for the Pylons, and like Matt did in Waterloo, he skated out so that I could have the net.

The Pylons were in the over-30 division. Most of the players had no problem qualifying, but I was technically six months shy of being eligible.  Fortunately, that rule didn’t seem to be enforced, especially not for goalies.  Steve had been playing with the team since his mid-20s.

I knew very little about Steve before the day of the game and the Resource Centre.  Based on our email and phone conversations, I pictured him as being in his early 40s and built with a solid frame, perhaps with a bit of the “extra insulation” that becomes so common as people age.  Boy, was I off.

When I walked into the Resource Centre, I was surprised to find that Steve had a runner’s build and was about my age.  He spoke and wrote with the conviction and skill of a mind beyond his years.  It was a complete surprise.

I came to find out that he had played at fairly high levels of hockey as a goalie when younger before burning out around the time he went to university.  He spent several years away from the game before gradually returning to it as an adult.  Nowadays, he’s on the ice four or more times per week, both tending goal and skating out.  The Pylons are just one of his teams.

What makes his return to hockey even more remarkable is that he’s living in Toronto without a car, so he schleps his hockey gear to and from the rink using public transportation.  I find it a hassle to bring my gear in from the car; I can’t imagine the hassle faces.  Still, assuming that the gear bag fits on the bus in the first place, it’s probably a good way to get some extra space.  Eau de hockey is not exactly an attractive scent.

The Pylons dressing room was crowded.  I knew it was going to be a fun game.  When a team can get most of its roster to show up to games consistently, it means they know how to have fun.  They might win a lot, they might lose a lot, but regardless, they keep people coming back for more.

My initial assessment was reinforced by the laughter, teasing, and up-beat attitude warming up the cold air.  They even had guys who could no longer play due to injuries showing up just to be a part of the fun.

One guy whipped out the screwdriver on his multitool and took apart a cover over an AC outlet; the sounds of rock and roll soon reverberated in the room from the small stereo.

We took to the ice.  Our bench was packed, while our opposition had only one sub.  Things looked promising. I took some warmup shots, and the game began.

Although our opposition, in particular their goalie, put up a noble fight, in the end the realities of fatigue took their toll.  We won handily, 7-3.

After the game, there was more laughter and celebration in the dressing room, and then we continued to the after-party at Blueberry Hill, a restaurant owned by one of the Pylons, Al.  There was good food, good drink, and good fun.  The teammates teased each other about their hockey skills, their jobs, their receding hairlines, and various other flaws, real or imagined.  Al captained the restaurant from his chair at the table, effortlessly transitioning from just one of the guys to business manager and back again.  I felt fortunate to be part of the camaraderie.

The Pylons at Blueberry Hill. Steve is on the left. Al is third from the right.

Were the Pylons a skilled team?  Was I a good goalie?  We won, yes, but I suspect the evening would have turned out much the same even if the score had been reversed.  We celebrated the win, but more importantly, we celebrated the friendship that the hockey enabled.

I bid the others farewell, dropped Steve off at his house, and retired to my hotel to get some sleep before my Canada AM interview in the morning.

The collection of hockey sticks was impressive, there was no denying that.  There must have been thousands of them.  Modern composite sticks from last year, ancient hand-carved tree branches from the dawn of ice hockey, and everything in between.  Almost all of them showed signs of extensive use.

I walked along the racks and stopped in front of a huge number of red-and-white Titans.  I found the repetition appealing.

“Do you know why we have those?” Craig asked.

I thought about it for a moment, but my knowledge about the history of hockey was narrow at best.  I shook my head no. I am not the person you want on your hockey trivia team.

“Take a look at the labels,” said Steve.

I chose one of the sticks at random and leaned in close.  “Gretzky, Wayne” read the tag.  They were Wayne Gretzky’s old sticks.  Scores of them.

Just a few of Gretzky's record-setting sticks

“Every one of these sticks was used by Gretzky to break a record,” Craig explained. “Sometimes he broke records that he himself had previously set.”

I was impressed, much as I had been throughout the previous hour.  Craig and Steve were giving me a rare behind-the-scenes tour of the Hockey Hall of Fame Resource Centre in Toronto.  Tucked away in a rink complex west of downtown Toronto, the Resource Centre housed the Hockey Hall of Fame’s artifacts and archives.

I had been to the main Hockey Hall of Fame in downtown Toronto earlier in the day, and while it was neat to see things like the Stanley Cup, the Vezina trophy, and the recreation of the Habs dressing room, I found the tour at the archives to be much more interesting.  For one thing, the relics were right there in front of me rather than behind glass, so they felt far more real. For another, I got to see the passion of the people behind the hall of fame and the archive — they seemed genuinely passionate about their jobs.

I came to be at the Resource Centre via Steve.  Steve had read about my trip on Puck Daddy and, in addition to setting me up with a game in Toronto, he arranged a meeting with Craig, the manager of the Resource Centre.  Steve had that connection because of his role as sports editor at Firefly Books, which does the Hockey Hall of Fame books.  Conveniently, both Steve and Craig were goalies, something evidenced by Steve’s recent book, the Hockey Hall of Fame Book of Goalies, in which you can see his passion for the history and development of the position.

Those big movable shelves are full of hockey history. Steve is on the left, and Craig is on the right.

At the end of the tour, I chatted for a little while with Craig.  He reminded me that the Hockey Hall of Fame Resource Centre aims to document the game as a whole, not just the exploits of NHL stars.  Notability, Craig said, can come in many forms.

Had he ever heard of a trip like mine, I asked?  No, he replied, to the best of his knowledge, an such a journey has never been done before at any level of play.  I would likely be the first.

I went to a QMJHL game this evening, my first one ever. The “Q” is known for producing good goalies, so I hoped to learn a thing or two, or at least be entertained for a couple of hours.

(For those unfamiliar, the QMJHL is part of the CHL, the highest level of junior hockey in Canada.  The level of competition is roughly equivalent to that in D-I of the NCAA.   It’s a stepping stone for many players on their journeys to the NHL.)

I arrived in North Sydney, Nova Scotia Thursday afternoon in preparation for the ferry ride to Newfoundland on Friday.  The nearby city of Sydney, NS happens to be home to the Cape Breton Eagles, and they were playing a home game against the Drummondville Voltigeurs.

There were only 2,281 fans in attendance, but the production values of the game were high, and the overall feeling was polished.  The Eagles are the biggest team in town, and the town loves them.  Fortunately, popularity did not translate to high prices: I had a great view of the action from my $15.50 on-the-glass seat.

One player in particular caught my eye.  Domenic Graham, the starting goalie for the visiting Volts, put in a spectacular performance leading his team to victory.  He turned aside 32 of 33 shots, and he looked solid doing it.  His positioning and reactions were stellar, but his athleticism really set him apart.

He was quick, sharp, and confident in his movements.  He read the play like an expert.  He played the puck with force and accuracy.

I don’t think he made any bad or marginal saves the entire evening, and there was none of the flopping around that was happening in the other crease.

Domenic Graham: amazing goalie, and only 17 years old. (From my P&S. Wish I had brought my DSLRs to the game.)

Based solely on his play in that game, I got the feeling that I was watching a future NHL star.  It wasn’t just me; others have felt the same way.

The catch is that he’ll have to wait at least a couple of years for The Show: he just turned 17 last month. Amazing.  I wish I had been that good at something when I was 17.

I had just let in a second breakaway goal.  The other bench at the Columbia Icefields arena in Waterloo, Ontario was cheering, and I found myself fishing the puck out of the back of the net.  I didn’t look at my bench.

As a goalie, I hate every goal I let in.  I subscribe to the theory that every shot on net can be saved; some are merely more difficult than others.  Better positioning, better reaction, better reading of the play — there was always something that could have been done to make a goal into a save.  Of course, if such perfection were easy, it would be no fun.  The odds that I’ll be able execute well enough to stop a shot go down as the level of competition I face goes up, and with the game in Waterloo, I was facing an uphill battle.  I hated the thought of letting down the team in general or Matt in particular.

Holy crap, a save! (Photo: Sarah)

Matt was 23 and a student at the University of Waterloo nearing the end of his studies, prior to which he had played goalie as high as the Junior B level.  Matt was the usual goaltender on the team I was playing for.  He gave up his net and skated out so that I could be in the game.

About a week earlier, before the Puck Daddy piece and before the Ottawa Citizen article, Matt contacted me with an offer to play in Waterloo, Ontario.  According to him, he’d been following the blog ever since I posted a lonely request for a game in Calgary way back in June on the Goalie Store Bulletin Board.  He’d been waiting for me to wind my way around the country and get close to Ontario, and when that happened, he posted an overture as a comment: “I know you’re traveling through my home province of Ontario soon and I wondered if you might be interested in playing a league game?”

Well, of course I would!  I hadn’t planned to stop in Waterloo, but a hockey game was a good reason for a change of plans.

Oh, the game.

In addition to providing a hockey game, Matt provided a great suggestion for a brewery tour: Steam Whistle in Toronto.

I took a drink of water and looked around as the players mulled around prior to the post-goal faceoff.  The arena had wonderful laminated wood beams holding up its roof.  The warmth of the wood was unusual for an ice arena; cold gray steel and concrete are the norm for arena construction.

The puck dropped, and play resumed.  I tried to focus on the game, but I kept getting distracted by a girl taking photos with a DSLR near our bench.  I wasn’t sure if it was my imagination, but she seemed to be taking an unusual number of photos of me in particular.

The photos made me nervous.  I thought they were being taken as evidence of my presence.  I fully expected to get thrown out of the game at any moment.  Why? Well… I had to be a student at the University to be eligible to play, so I kind of just ran onto the ice while the lady checking ID cards wasn’t looking.

Matt and me (Photo: Sarah)

I figured that the only reason I hadn’t been booted yet was because my team wasn’t winning.  We weren’t even on the board at that point.

Still, the score wasn’t as lopsided as it could have been.  Breakaways aside, I was coming up with decent saves.  I had worried that I would be totally dominated based on the team’s skill division.  Fortunately, the fear of humiliation, or perhaps sheer luck, was preventing that from happening.

Matt’s team was in the “Advanced” division, above the “Beginner” and “Intermediate” divisions but one notch below the “All Star” category.  Most of the guys had played while growing up, some to reasonably high levels.   I had nothing approaching their Canadian hockey pedigree, and on top of that, I was the oldest guy there by at least five years.

We finally got on the board, and I held off a few more third-period assaults.  Unfortunately, we didn’t come up with the win at the end, but the mood was still upbeat in the dressing room after the game.

Even better, the photographer turned out to be Sarah, Matt’s girlfriend, not somebody out to spoil good hockey.   The photos documented my being at the game, but the goal was nothing but good.

Toronto hockey round #1: Success.

It’s no surprise that Minneapolis has a vibrant hockey community.  Even Huntsville, Alabama has long been known as a hockey enclave of sorts.  But would you expect to find the same enthusiasm in Louisville, Kentucky or Charleston, West Virginia?  I didn’t.  I was pleasantly surprised.

My first hint of hockey’s popularity down there came several months ago after I posted a link to my Saskatoon sub goalie story to reddit.  A redditor named Phil read the story and invited me to play in Louisville.  He explained that the Louisville Adult Hockey Players Association was the center of an enthusiastic group of adult hockey players. “Sure,” I thought, “how many enthusiastic adult hockey players could there be in Louisville?  I bet they’re Minnesota transplants working for UPS.”

Not so, I later discovered: native Kentuckians play hockey, too.  It turned out that the LAHPA has run a “never ever” hockey program for adults who have never played hockey (or even skated).  The “never ever” program is so popular that it is run multiple times per year, often selling out the 40 or so slots.

Think about that.  The closest NHL team to Louisville is in Nashville, 175 miles away.  There are just a few indoor rinks in the Louisville area, and kids are more likely to grow up playing football than hockey.  Despite those challenges, the hockey community in Louisville is thriving and growing: in the past decade, the number of registered hockey players in Kentucky has increased 58%.

The day I arrived in Louisville happened to be the second night of the current Never Ever session, so I stuck around to offer moral support and take photos.  Two things struck me: everybody seemed to be having a really good time, and most (but not all) of the participants were relatively young (maybe mid-20s or so).  Back in 2004 when I did the AHA’s beginner hockey program in Minnesota, it seemed like the average age was much older, perhaps mid-30s or so.

Participants in the LAHPA's Never Ever program practice stickhandling. Phil is the coach in the gray shirt.

A couple days later, I subbed for Phil’s team, and while I wish I could tell a different story, the reality is that this goalie lost the game.  I was a split-second behind the play, a bit off on my angles, and a hair short of closing up the holes.  Sorry about that one, guys.

Unfortunately, this was the story of my game in Kentucky: not stopping pucks.

Nonetheless, I shook it off and pressed on with the trip.  After an interlude in Indiana, I found myself in Charleston, West Virginia.

West Virginia is beautiful in the fall.  I’d been there a few times in the past to go rafting on the upper Gauley River, always in the autumn, and the sights of the changing leaves covering the rolling hills were spectacular.  I’d never thought of it as a hockey state, and with good reason.

From a decade ago: one of my rafting experiences in WV

There were just two rinks in West Virginia with ice in late September.  One, used by the University of West Virginia club hockey team, was in Morgantown, and the other was in Charleston.  I considered trying to finagle my way into one of the club team’s practices in Morgantown, but after a conversation with a man at the Charleston arena, I decided to go there instead.

I was surprised by two things at the Sunday night drop-in session.  First, a lot of people showed up.  I was the only goalie, at least until one of the skaters decided to give net a try for the first time ever, but there were plenty of skaters.  Second, everybody in attendance seemed to be quite enthusiastic about playing and watching hockey.  The rink manager even mentioned that he was a big Gophers fan.

Sure, some of those present were transplants from elsewhere in the country, but a good number were raised in the area.

Playing hockey in Charleston, WV

Was the hockey at the highest levels?  No, but that’s not the point.  It was just a drop-in game, after all.  The goal was to have a good time, and everybody was.