Playing Hockey is Important

 

Old Timer Hockey definition: ... hockey played by old people who've been in the game from pee wee on up and the definition also includes seasoned NHL players who couldn't get away from it and continue to lace em up.

It's a very unusual dynamic.

Former football players don't play Old Timer Football and former baseball players don't play Old Timer Baseball (I know, there are a few exceptions) but mostly, hockey is a game that can be enjoyed by hockey hosers into their nineties. I know, because I've played with them.

According to a study at the Harvard Medical School, the camaraderie and the friendships and the locker room nonsense amongst teammates can actually be more important to one's health than the sports exercise.

This is a long way around for me to introduce 4 of my teammates.

Before doing so, let me say this post is different than my others in that it is a very personal tribute to four friends. So please indulge me as I honor them. 

All four players were special.

All unique.

They were four hockey buddies who enriched my life.

All of them have recently passed away.

All were courageous in their respective fights. All battled.

And, all would never, ever give up.

Perhaps it was a toughness they learned while playing our game.

Perhaps they learned toughness from each other - they were all long-time friends. I've wanted to write about each of them and share my thoughts with other hockey people like you because you know Playing Hockey is Important.

I took too long to organize my thoughts about these four. One guy passed before I started to write about him, then another, and another, and this week, another.

I'd like to introduce you to them. If their names don't ring a bell, I can guarantee that you would have really enjoyed sharing a sheet of ice with them and a cold one afterwards.

Ross Brewitt

Ross was from Thunder Bay.

Roscoe

A "lefty" baseball pitcher who shared the diamond with another local Thunder Bay kid, superstar NHL player, Alex Delvecchio. They also played hockey together -- Alex would become "Fats" and have a lengthy Hall of Fame career in Detroit. Ross made it to Toronto after a stint on the railroad and re-invented himself as a writer. Not just any writer ... he published 5 hockey books including "Spin of the Wheel" which documented the birth of the Buffalo Sabres

He was the editor of the Sabres hockey program during the "French Connection" days, wrote a sports column for several southern Ontario newspapers, worked for Hockey Night in Canada alongside Frank Selke Jr. and created the Pro Stars Hockey Club made up of former NHL players. He sold the licensing rights to his sponsorship idea to Labatt Brewery and put much-needed money into the pockets of former players who had never enjoyed a big payday and, for more than 20 years, raised hundreds of thousands for charity. What a fabulous idea!

Ross was a force. He saw how needy some former NHL players were and devoted himself to putting them back in the spotlight. His creativity and marketing savvy put fans in the seats to watch his Old Stars played against local teams when they travelled from Juno Alaska to Halifax. As talented as he was as an organizer, nobody could match his skill at storytelling. If you were in a bar with Ross you needed to be right beside him so you didn't miss anything. He knew how good he was and parlayed that ability into another complete career as an after-dinner speaker extraordinaire.

Ross and I started playing together in 1972.

When he formed the NHL Old Stars, he put me on the ice for his weekly practice session (I was on the "other" team ... ya know, like the team that plays against the Harlem Globetrotters). What a thrill to be there with Pilote and Mahovlich and Ullman and Shack and Tallon and others once a week for four years! You can only imagine what kind of a thrill it was to be with this group -- the dressing room banter was a thing of legend. I always showed up 2 hours early.

When I started writing essays "Roscoe" criticized me, corrected me and gave me an "attaboy" at just the right time so I wouldn't quit ... he also laughed at my nonsense. He enriched my life by encouraging me to enjoy my new found writing hobby.

Paul Wortley

Paul "Wally" Wortley 
Listening to the Margaritaville Song 

"Wally" and I also started playing together in 1972.

There was nobody like him. Funny as hell and tough. He'd be able to use that gift of funniness and toughness when he was hit with throat cancer.

But, I'm getting way ahead of myself.

In high school, he insisted on playing offensive center. He wasn't the body type for that position but I guess he just wanted to make sure he was in the middle of the action. That was sorta the way his life unfolded. He was very quick, bright, extroverted and working in the wrong field when I met him, medical supplies sales. When we started playing hockey together, he was introduced to a whole new world ... radio advertising sales. He made the leap and went on to become the most successful advertising sales guy for the Toronto Blue Jays and Leaf telecasts.

Funny comes in different forms - "Wally" covered all the bases -- all of them. There are too many to repeat and the example I've chosen is off-the-wall but it will help you to get the idea..

Our 1977 hockey team arranged to finish our hockey season on the same day as the home opener of the first-ever Toronto Blue Jays game (you remember, it snowed, Jays vs the Chicago White Sox). We were a group of 20 with seats behind home plate. We ordered chilli dogs and beer ... lots of both. At the game's end, we all marched out of the stadium on our way to the parking lot just outside the Prince's Gate on Lakeshore Blvd.

We stopped at the Gates because a flotilla of buses was trying to exit the area. As the overloaded buses approached the gates, "Wally" screamed at bus passengers to get their attention. When it was certain he had it, he dropped his pants and mooned the bus, then the next one, and another. That was the beginning of the grand "Wally" tradition. He flashed every exiting bus for the next 10 years worth of Opening Days.

Do you want to know what hockey buddies look like?
They look exactly like these two

Nobody enjoyed a glass of red wine while cooking a steak more than "Wally". His throat cancer stole that simple pleasure from him. He wasn't able to eat solid food for the last 5 years of his life and his voice, understandably, went sideways.

He and I would get on the phone once or twice a month to talk about his Red Wings or the details about the next Corvette he was about to buy. He'd be so excited, I had to tell him to slow down ... "you're starting to sound like Elmer Fudd". He'd laugh his ass off.

One day, "Wally" said to me, "you've played hockey with everyone, why don't you write about it"? So I did and that experiment morphed into 71 stories about hockey and other stuff and I created a blog. "Wally" helped me do something I've never done. As of today, my blog has attracted 25,000 readers. "Wally enriched my life".

Gerry Powers

In 1968 and 1969, Gerry attended Denver University on a hockey scholarship. He wasn't just any hockey goalie. He and his club won the NCAA Hockey Championship both years. Following the 1969 season, he was selected as the 1st All Star goalie (Ken Dryden from Cornell was selected to the 2nd All Star team). Gerry had all the credentials to move to the Chicago Black Hawks who owned his rights. But he chose to put his Bachelor's degree to good use. He worked for Canada's largest advertising agency for a while and then purchased a sports publishing company, International Sports Properties. 

I was working at the Toronto Star when he invited me to join him in his new venture. We quickly became Canada's largest sports publishing company and published all of the Canadian Football League game day programs as well as the Leafs and Winnipeg Jets and introduced Canada's first sports magazine, MVP Magazine. We became so popular, we also had publishing contracts with the new Canada's Wonderland amusement park and Ontario Place Forum.

Gerry had a very soft, engaging manner about him. His smile would light up a room which proved to be an enormous help when we were trying to attract new advertising investment. But, as we've seen in the past 25 years, publishing of all kinds has completely changed. He moved on in business and set up in Texas.

Not long after he landed there he developed terrible health issues. His battle carried on for twelve years. We spoke regularly on the phone and, unfortunately, our conversations regularly included him telling me about the passing of another of his teammates from his Denver club.

Gerry somehow found the strength to press on. Everything to do with his health was bad but he refused to let it affect his good nature.

Did his grit come from what he learned playing our game? I think it may have.

He was also on the 1st Team All Star (for guts)

When Gerry convinced me to join him at his new company, ISPI, he doubled my Toronto Star salary and introduced me to a whole new publishing world, Sports and Entertainment magazines. Gerry enriched my life.

Dave Gardner

"Gards" was a spectacular hockey player.

First with the Toronto Marlboroughs of the OHA where he played 119 games over two years and scored 266 points. Then, a 350-game career in the NHL (where his point totals were identical to popular Maple Leaf, Howie Meeker). Then a major move to the Swiss League where he scored 374 points in his 155-game career. You may remember Dave also delivered the European Hockey Report on regular Hockey Night in Canada Saturday night games in the 1970s as hosted by George Gross.

When I met him he'd just put pro hockey in the rearview mirror and started a brand new career as a Molson Brewery sales representative. He was very good at his job and his restaurant and bar customers became lifelong friends - doing actual business with Gards was just a bonus.

I had a shinny hockey group that played in downtown Toronto (every week for 37 years).

Gards and his fabulous hockey resume joined us. In addition to the three guys mentioned in this essay, Gard's was in good company because previous NHL retirees, Rene Robert and Dick Redmond and Mike Boland and "Beetle" Bailey and Dave's closest friend, Phil Branston (from the Johnstown Jets -- remember the Slapshot movie?) were already a part of our very special group. Dave invited his dad, Cal, to join us every week for the pre-game warm-up. 

Members of "Cals Pals" established: 1972
Rene Robert * Dick Redmond * Me * Dave Gardner

Cal had already earned two Stanley Cups so he knew his way around the rink. We never had a name for our special hockey fraternity so naming the group, "Cals Pals" was a natural. There must have been something in the water for the Gardner family, Dave's brother, Paul was an American League superstar and played 447 NHL games earning almost a point a game for his career. And, Dave's son, Ryan, followed his dad to the Swiss League and a very successful 20-year career.

A Fabulous Leaf moment
at centre ice following a Stanley Cup win
Cal Garner on the left * Harry Watson on the right  
Hoisting the game winning goal scorer, Bill Barilko

I'm always curious about people's occupations - particularly sports types. I'm surprised when former athletes admit they simply don't want to have anything to do with their sport once they were done. I always thought if you were that good at something why wouldn't you want to continue to do it?

That was not the case with Gards. One day after our match, there were just the two of us in the dressing room. He came to my side of the room and sat beside me. He said, "I'm so happy to be able to play with this bunch of guys ... it means the world to me ... I can't wait for Friday each week so I can play with everyone".

This, from a guy who'd laced em up with the best players in the world.

By the time I met Gards, I had been playing hockey for more than 35 years. When we started playing together once a week, I peppered him with questions about the game we both loved. I was not the easiest student but he took the time to help me understand the games' nuances. So now, I'm approaching 77 years of age and should be reading a book or watching TV but I continue to play about 225 games a year and try to play every game exactly the way Gards coached me to play. He enriched my life. 

During the course of our hockey team's 37 years, I'd estimated that we had more than 350 players join us. Everyone, every-one-of-them thought it was a privilege to be on the same ice as Dave Gardner and a greater privilege to know him.

A few years ago, he opened a bar north-of-Toronto, in Aurora. My plan, this spring, was to invite all the former members of Cal's Pals to join us to hoist one for our friends who have departed. However, Dave Gardner passed away on March 20. I'll have to think of another way to properly say good-bye to our friends.

Gards and Me at his saloon 
celebrating being together with Cals Pals

As good as they were, when health troubles showed up, each guy had an outstanding support group who not only stood by to prop them up when it was needed but to also encourage them and  knew when to look the other way on the darkest days. You and I can only hope to have similar wingers at our side should the need arise. Forgive me for not mentioning these special angels individually, there are too many.

You (probably) don't know my four hockey buddies mentioned here.

But, you do.

They are the same guys sitting beside or across from you in your dressing room at shinny this week. Their friendship is very, very important to you because Playing Hockey is Important.

It enriches your life.

Epilogue: Our other "Cals Pal" was the remarkable engine that drove The French Connection line of the Buffalo Sabres, Rene Robert.

Rene passed twenty months ago and, fortunately didn't suffer the way our other buds did. If you had seen him the day before he died, you would have said "he looks in terrific condition - like he can still play". However, what we've all learned, as we get older ... it's not the way you look on the outside ... but the way you look on the inside.