Lovable Losers Hockey Team Tournament Upcoming

LOVABLE LOSERS HOCKEY TOURNAMENT HITS 30 YEAR ANNIVERSARY - HOSTING RINK RAT HOCKEY CLUB CELEBRATES 40TH ANNIVERSARY

IDEA FOR HERALD-GAZETTE RINK RATS WAS ESTABLISHED IN THE FALL OF 1980, OVER BEER AT FORMER ALBION HOTEL IN BRACEBRIDGE

    I have a well earned limp, My hands and knuckles are pretty beat-up, and my crooked nose, broken many times over a career, was smashed awkwardly to each side of my face, depending on which angle  the slap-shot arrived;  or the way a high stick, in a goal crease scrum, caught under my mask; or the fist of an adversary found me unawares. When folks, mostly out of kind consideration (a few mean spirited), ask why I favor my left leg, I tell them it is the result of a joy for competitive sports.

    I loved playing hockey and didn't mind my coach Donny Thur yelling at me for letting a soft one into the net. I played net for most of my hockey days, and with baseball and football in the alternate seasons, I hurt my hip and hands something fierce. I'd do it all over again, pain and all,  if God gave me a chance. I feel my little limp, as I hobble today, was well earned over thousands of hours on ice. It was Roger Crozier himself, the late great netminder of the 1960's Detroit Red Wings, who taught me his drop-and-stop acrobatics when I attended his Red Wing Hockey School as a kid. It was former Toronto Maple Leaf Bucko MacDonald, who showed me how to administer a hip check, although there wasn't much call for a netminder to get that aggressive. He gave me an old fashioned hip check, of which he was well known for back in the 1950's,  as a demonstration, and I watched my skates pass my head on the tumble down the ice. He at least picked me up and checked that my head was still attached.

     After a lot of great fun in Bracebridge Minor and Senior Hockey, I worked with several other hockeyists to establish a team to be known as The Herald-Gazette Rink Rats. I cheated retirement by another decade and a half, until the hip just wouldn't forgive the excesses any longer. What a thrill to find out that the Lovable Losers Hockey Tournament, which was begun by OPP Constable Ed Kowalsky and I, then editor of The Herald-Gazette, more than three decades ago, is still a going-concern. It will be held at the Bracebridge Arena from March 10 to 12th, Ed and I were presented with special team sweaters several years ago, and invited to a centre ice ceremony by our old club for the 30th anniversary in 2015. We both wear our sweaters around the house, just not on the ice any more.

     It is why I have always been a sports nostalgia collector and I've got a mountain of hockey cards and vintage equipment to show for it! You may know from previous stories that I was Curator of the Bracebridge Sports Hall of Fame for 12 years, appointed by Roger Crozier, and I got to handle some amazing hockey heirlooms in those years. Sports is still a major component of our antique business and it always will be. I wrote this brief history of the very early years of the club and the tournament for the 30th anniversary celebration, and in respect to a fine club and amazing tournament, I thought I'd run it once again in recognition. 

     I looked in the mirror, a few minutes ago, and noticed my eye lashes are quickly disappearing. My hair line is now at the back of my head, and I have strange lumps instead of the knuckles I was born with, that has something or other to do with the rigors of fifty-nine years of hard living, and a lot of that time spent playing hockey. In my era of hockey, you learned to play while injured, and I never remember a time being hauled out of the net to tend a wound, unless there was a lot of blood, or asked if I knew my name, or place of residence, after suffering a particularly stiff body check, or blow to the head. There was no replacement goalie dressed anyway, so we sucked it up, and got on with the game. No kidding. It was a tough sport. I think that of all the years I played hockey, from the age of seven, in Burlington, and then, in Bracebridge Minor Hockey, onto netminding for Winter's College, at York University, my happiest years were playing recreational hockey with the Rink Rats. What great and enduring memories, when everything else about me, it seems, is falling apart; and oh heck, there goes another eyebrow hair down into the sink. It brought back a recollection of the only hockey fight I was ever in, with opposition player, Robbie Ketch, who, in pulling my helmet off, also removed my left eyebrow in the tussle. He found it later in the palm of his glove. I did the same once, but it wasn't a fight. We were playing a "for-fun" game in Baysville, against a team from Huntsville, and when I collided with an opposition forward, dropping my glove and stick in the process, as well as ourselves flat on the ice, imagine then my surprise, when I resumed play, and later found a huge clump of beard, between my palm and the stick. I check out mine, and it was fine. I then looked back down the rink, and saw the guy I collided with, asking a team-mate what was wrong with his beard; sensing it wasn't even at the bottom, or for that matter at the top either. "Jesus Christ Ted, you ripped the guy's beard right off; better keep you head up, he's got a wild look in his eyes." I thought about giving him the remnants of his beard, but I decided that would be provocative and injurious to my health. I think his wife may have liked the idea, of him having to get a beard trim anyway to balance things out. Aches and pains from the excesses of yesteryear, are a lot easier to take, when you mix it all with the good memories of those days of our lives, when we lived for that evening or weekend game of shinny, and the good company of like minded individuals, who thought chasing a puck was better than most other off-hours recreations. Except having a cold beer and reliving the big plays and bigger saves.

     Here's how I became a Rink Rat. And, for the sake of argument, how I am paying for all the fun back then, right now!  

     Gord Dawes, long-serving spokesperson of the Bracebridge Rink Rats Hockey Club, sponsors of the annual Lovable Losers Hockey Tournament, now on the cusp of recording its 30th anniversary, this weekend, invited me to participate in the opening ceremonies, this coming Friday afternoon; and well, I'm feeling my age admitting this, "as one of the original old farts from that first group of athletic misfits, from back in the winter of 1980-81." I won't be around this coming Friday, and admittedly I'm a little shy of pomp and ceremony anyway, but no fooling, I am very honored to have been offered this invitation. Back a few years now, I was invited to participate in the opening of the tournament, as a VIP, with my former team-mates Harry Ranger, our first netminder, and Ed Kowalsky, our second goal-keep, and it was skin-tingling honor, to be presented with Rink Rat sweaters with our names printed on the back. We were very humbled that day, because we never imagined that we would be given any credit for beginning, of all things, a for-fun hockey team, that could only get a late night ice slot every Wednesday night. But there was more, much more, and the real story here, is how Gord Dawes, and the new "but still mature" team-mates, with roots all the way back to 1980, have kept this good intention alive for thirty-five years. The tournament that Ed Kowalsky and I put together, to celebrate "losing" while recognizing the good graces of "winning," back in 1985, is going to have its 30th anniversary Friday, at around 3:30 p.m., when dignitaries and opposing players line-up to drop the first puck of the tournament.

     I want to commence this five day, five blog celebration of the early Rink Rat years, and the founding of the Lovable Losers Tournament, by dedicating this portion, of a much bigger story, to my former team-mates who have passed away. Brant Scott, a wonderfully talented writer / reporter / columnist, who worked with me at The Herald-Gazette (Muskoka Publications), passed away this past autumn season, and he was most definitely the originator of the idea, of renting ice time at the Bracebridge arena, for some weekly shinny. I remember the day we started shooting the breeze, as they say, over a cup of coffee in the news room, at 27 Dominion Street, sometime in the early winter of 1980. We were supposed to be writing copy for the next week's issue of the paper, but what the hell. Recreation was a more important concern, that day, necessitating as well, a trip for a glass of beer at the local press club; which by the way, was a corner table at the former Albion Hotel, opposite the Bracebridge train station. The idea was to create a "print media" hockey team, which could be used to promote The Herald-Gazette (we needed money from the publisher to finance our recreation), and we would find various "electronic media" teams to play in future charity events. So from the very beginning, there was the master plan, to create a team that would be both high profile, and a fundraising body in the community. Oh, yes, and we would have fun preparing for those future games, by having amazing social times, every Wednesday night over quite a few winters.

     Brant Scott, was also the founder, of one of the town's most successful fundraisers, at the Bracebridge arena, when he was able to coax revered Toronto Sun, Calgary Sun and Edmonton Sun columnist, Paul Rimstead (formerly of Bracebridge) to call the play by play from the gondola, for our benefit game against the "CKVR NO-Stars." When I got to the game early that night, there, standing by themselves in the lobby, was Paul, in his big white Stetson, with Miss Hinky, his partner, who we had read so much about in his daily page three columns. And before we took to the ice, Paul came into the dressing room to visit; and gosh, when he came up through the dressing room door, for the official puck drop a half hour later, he was staggered by the size of the crowd that night. We had hoped for several hundred, but instead filled the place to overflowing, with nearly 1,800 screaming fans. At first, we thought they had come out to see us! I'm sure the "No Stars" thought the same. Wrong! They came out to pay tribute to Paul Rimstead, a former drop-out student at Bracebridge High School, who had become one of the best known newspaper personalities in Canada. It was also a chance to meet the author of the newly released book, "Cocktails and Jockstraps," which was a collection of some of his finest feature columns. Brant Scott had hit a hockey milestone, before the club was a full year old. The groups benefitting from the charity event that night, were the Bracebridge Blades Precision Skating teams, under the direction of coach Harold Sher, who was also a Rink Rat club member.

     Harry Ranger, who also passed away in recent years, was a former printing plant technician at the Herald-Gazette's "Muskoka Graphic" publishing division, and, because no one else would do it, became our first goaltender. I was a career goalie but refused to tend the pipes because I knew what that position, on a very weak team, meant in accordance to incoming high speed rubber. Harry, was the heart and soul of that first team, and we all became such good friends, that it spilled over to fishing trips, golf tournaments, and many road trips to neighboring rinks. We owed a lot to Harry, for braving the many five man break-aways, especially when we played the MacTier Lions one bitter winter night, and were taught a pretty hefty lesson about our hockey prowess, and how we didn't have any. The Lions gave Harry Ranger the "player of the game" award, because he held them to only fifteen goals, when normally, for a similarly deficient team, they would have netted at least twenty. Harry aged ten years in one night. We aged five years just watching him get pummeled. Half the time, we couldn't look because so ugly.

     One of the Rink Rat bright lights, from my era, Kim Hammond, also passed away a few years back. He had become a Rink Rat when our fledgling club merged with a Tuesday night group of lads, we called "The Wombats." It was at a time, when the eleven at night time slot was causing us to lose players, and we needed to bolster our ranks. Kim, at the time, was playing for the Wombats, but would soon be known as one of the most gentlemanly players to ever strap on the blades, for either the Wombats, or the combined Rink Rats; and his passing stunned all of his former team-mates and friends. It was a great loss to the community.

     One of the keenest of all the Rink Rats, from my era, of the 1980's and early 1990's, was a thin, lightly built, tenacious, and dedicated forward, by the name of Kevin Peak, who loved playing hockey, and looked forward to each season, and every Wednesday evening through the winter; and just hated when we arrived at the last game of the year. I would play recreational football with Kevin in the off-season. Kevin unfortunately suffered from emotional maladies, most of us didn't know about, finding out too late, to be able to reverse a course of action, that would become a terrible personal tragedy, for himself and family. Kevin and I were close friends back then, and travelled together for all our "away" games, talking about daily stuff along the way, often regarding our respective life and times, and of course our young families. I remember travelling to a game in Port Carling one night, with Kevin in the passenger seat, and him turning to me casually, near Milford Bay and without any sense of urgency, to ask whether or not I was aware of the deer running alongside the car (on Highway 118), and that in all likelihood, it was going to try to cut in front, somewhere down the road. I guess the deer got it in its head, that I was actually chasing after it, and it was going to have to employ some type of evasive action to get away. Kevin knew about this kind of thing. He understood the habits of deer, and it may have saved us on that winter night. Sure enough, it's what eventually happened, and I would have hit it right in the rib cage, if I hadn't lessened our speed to let it pass me. I though my heart was going to leap out of my mouth. It was a big deer and we would have been sent into a slide, and there was oncoming traffic heading our way. He was calm and cool, and kept on with his conversation about everything else, but a now safely departed deer. Now that was a memorable hockey road trip.  

     The Rink Rats hockey club, sponsored many other fundraisers for the Bracebridge Blades, such as when we played "The CFTO Television Bassett Hounds," and "The Flying Fathers," one of the holiest and dirtiest teams we had ever faced-off against. I still have the certificate that made me an "Honorary Flying Father," which I often show my sons, to show them just how divine I was as a hockey player. I still have painful memory of the many trips, unanticipated hip checks, and back of the leg slashes from those holier than thou Fathers; who played a mean game of hockey by golly.

     The original Rink Rats hockey club, entered a float in the Bracebridge Santa Claus Parade, one winter, with the skaters of the Bracebridge Blades, acting as cheer leaders, and we once promoted an interesting challenge of skating prowess, at one of our benefit games, between our fastest skater, over several laps of the ice surface; Mike Smee, (his dad was in the movie "Peter Pan" - just kidding) against Shelly Peever of the Blades. Shelly kicked Mike's arse, finishing way ahead, and the crowd went wild.

     The biggest lark we pulled, was courtesy Harold Sher, who set up a game in Sundridge I believe, where he was running a summer skating program, in conjunction with a hockey school. The hockey instructors included professionals and high ranking junior players from the area, and they were looking to play a number of "for-fun" games with other local clubs to kill some time after work. Harold admitted to me, before we got the game organized, he had been telling these rather excellent hockeyists, for quite some time, that he played with a similar group of former pro players in Bracebridge each winter. I think he had given my resume as having played with the Maple Leafs, and the Buffalo Sabres, before retiring in Bracebridge as a newspaper columnist. He did the same with about twelve of our lads, who didn't have a clue about this before actually hitting the ice that night in the near north.

     A few of us drove up with Ed Kowalsky, one of two goalies we would employ that night. The other was a young goalie by the name of David Brown, of Bracebridge, and this game pretty much ended his hockey aspirations. Harold had claimed Kowalsky had been mentored by Johnny Bower, and played for both the Leafs and Montreal, and Dave Brown had been signed to the Rangers I seem to recall. When we hit the ice, I mean that, (on our asses), we did draw some attention from the players on the other team, skating around their end zone. When the game began, Harold started to show off, and as he was a skating professional, in his day job, he did net a couple of goals early in the opening period to buzz the confidence of the pros. After the halfway mark of the first period, you could tell that the opposition was sensing they had been the victims of a hockey hoax, because we couldn't get out of our own end, even when we were all alone, back there, ragging the puck. We had been trying to kill the clock from the opening face-off. They finally determined Harold had misrepresented us, and it was time to teach him a lesson. Well sir, we paid for his excesses let me tell you. We had to replace Ed after the first period, because of exhaustion, trying to stop the barrage of rubber, and only being successful on a quarter of the shots. David Brown, after the first fifteen minutes of the second period, and about eighty shots, pulled himself out of the game to catch his breath. We knew he had done this, because there was suddenly less room on the bench, with two goalies sitting at the end, and an empty net while play was still going on. "I can't take it anymore boys, I'm done," said Dave, when he finally caught his breath, while he buried his face in a towel, that I had just wiped my skates with. After he finished spitting out pieces of friction tape and ice chips, he appeared to make the sign of the cross while looking heavenward. Ed finished off the period, and then they both shared the third period, and bandaged each other during breaks, from the injuries sustained in one of the most brutal games in Rink Rat history. The best part of the game was the social time afterwards at the local watering hole, where the truth came out, about our non-relationship with anything remotely connected to professional hockey. Harold had a dry sense of humor, but this was one of those real, live, laugh-out-loud occasions, when he introduced us by our day jobs. Writers, police officers, printers, artists, and carpenters.

     For the past half decade, at strange intervals in my normal heritage-themed blogs-writing, I have enjoyed the occasional hiatus to write about my past relationship with the Rink Rats, and of course, the Lovable Losers Hockey Tournament. This is what I would like to present this week, as an online promotion for those contemporary Rink Rats, who devote time each year, to put on this fundraising tournament, that as the title characterizes, promotes "sportsmanship" in organized senior level hockey. It is a collection of stories, written at various times, when I would suddenly find myself, as mood dictated, recalling some incident, or conversation, or even gathering, that was Rink Rat related; possibly at that precise moment, wishing I could meet with those lads again, to reminisce about the good old days, of pucks and sticks, cold old arenas, and colder beer, enjoyed in many curious and storied locations around the region. I have put this small collection of happenstance stories together, for the first time, largely for the benefit of today's Rink Rats, who may not fully appreciate the legacy that they have bolstered, and broadened by their ongoing association with not only the team, but the tournament that carries their name. It's unlikely, that in future histories written about the Town of Bracebridge, that the exploits and contributions of the Rink Rats, will warrant the dedication of a chapter. Seeing as I'm the most likely candidate to write that history, should one be launched, well, here is the material an historian like me, would wish to include as a collective of fact and anecdote; to somewhat explain the social significance of what might be seen by others, as only a recreational tidbit, unimportant in the grand scheme of other headline grabbing historic milestones. In my way of thinking, the Rink Rats have become embedded in social / recreational history, without needing any provincial, national or international championship trophy to hoist over their shoulders. They have demonstrated that goodwill, sportsmanship, and charitable acts, are hugely influential to the chronicle of life and times here in South Muskoka. Their generosity to many important sports initiatives, and community organizations, can not and should not be minimized. We need these folks, these incredible volunteers and perpetual good sports, to mentor the younger generation, who one day, will hopefully want to wear a sweater with that well known logo of "The Rink Rat." By the way, the design for the hockey sweater, was arranged by my old friend, Sid Plested, of downtown Rosseau Falls, who got his artist mate, Chris Minz, then of Windermere, to come up with a concept for the hockey-playing "Rat," and it has survived, as wearable art, for thirty-five years, and 30 years of Lovable Losers Hockey Tournaments. Now that's what I call "enduring" and the players "stalwart," for keeping the team going for all these years.

     The collection of stories from my archives, will hopefully reflect the great respect I have for the new era Rink Rats, and Gord Dawes in particular, who are still shouldering the charitable work we commenced as a fledgling team in the winter of 1980. I write this with respect for some of the founding Rink Rats listed below, who made my eleven years with the club, so much fun, and so profoundly memorable. Some of these players included, Scott McClellan (now of Australia), Mike Gavin, Dave Whiteside, Doug Dunford, Gil Scott, Brant Scott, Harry Ranger, Ed Kowalsky, Jim Wright, John O'Byrne, Jon Partridge, Gord Martin, Harold Sher, Alistair Taylor, Charlie Tryon, Harold Wright, Gary Ford, Ray Dart, Terry Curtis, Kevin Peak, Peter Renick and Mike Hilborn. This doesn't include the Wombat contribution of players, that arrived in and around the 1982-83 hockey season. Some of these players included Ed Renton, Kim Hammond, Jerry Moore, Wayne Moore, Dave Anger, Barry Salter, Tim Uren, Ron Ricker, Dan St.Michael, Norm Levesque, Phil Langois, Wayne Klager, Fred Clayton, Bill Hodge, Jim Learmont, Robin Summerly and Gord Dawes. I offer the historian's apology, in advance, because I know there are names of players, in those early years, that I've forgotten; and as unacceptable as this is, I will add more names in the future, to make up for my shortfall.  

     I wish the Rink Rats all the best for their upcoming Lovable Losers Hockey Tournament, always a pre-spring time classic, and hope they will benefit in some small way, of knowing they are part of a legacy with semi-deep roots in South Muskoka sports and community history.

     Have a great tournament. Part 2 of 4 tomorrow.