The Really Good Life By Pat Sullivan Old Timers Still Enjoying the Game They Grew Up Loving While the NHL eases into winter with its lights dimmed and its players idling, several top-caliber pucksters will be going about business as usual. The Gophers men’s and women’s teams are among this group, as are the programs at the other Division I schools in the state. Ditto the countless fine small college teams and, of course, the symbol of our hockey culture, the high school level. There is another game in town, however. They don’t play in front of sold-out crowds, but they used to. They can’t skate like the wind, but they once could. They won’t go short side with a 90 m.p.h. shot, but at a point in time . . . well, you get the drift. They are the Minnesota Old Timers and, at any age, they are one of the most accomplished collections of players around. The Good Life in Minnesota So many of us Minnesotans can remember the state’s popular, handsome governor, Wendell Anderson, on the cover of Time magazine, holding that fish in his hand. Anderson was of our finest vintage, a highly visible example of what the state could produce within its borders. A St. Paul native with undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Minnesota would have been enough to maintain the state’s affection, but he was also a hockey player, and a very good one at that. A defenseman for the Maroon & Gold, “Wendy” played alongside John Mayasich, arguably the best American player ever, and both went on to win a silver medal with the 1956 US Olympic Team in Cortina, Italy. Mayasich would win gold four years later in Squaw Valley. Several of their college teammates also populated these Olympic teams, fortifying the image of Gopher players as the best of the best. Yet here Anderson was years later, fish in hand, promoting the good life our state had to offer, emerging as a contender in the national political landscape, a Minnesotan in full. But what happened to hockey? Was it simply turned off after such a distinguished amateur career? “After playing 30 & over and 40 & over for the East Side Old Timers, I decided to organize my own group,” Anderson said. “It was 25 years ago, I was living in Wayzata and had just lost an election. I started renting ice at 4:30 on Sundays at Blake Middle School and handpicked players my age. I enforced a no-checking rule and the skill level was high. Suddenly, hockey became fun again.” So it came to be that a star-studded group of “has-beens” would meet every Sunday to play. Their equipment wasn’t going to be banished to the attic or the garage shelf. For them, many of whom were Minnesotans by birth, hockey was central to the good life in Minnesota and could never be turned off. It wasn’t about the bright lights or big crowds. There would be no more of that, which was fine. The desire to compete, to get a good skate in, to put a pass on the tape, to score a goal, to stop a goal, those itches would never go away. With some of that great hockey fellowship after the skate to cap the day off, the good life would hum week after week and a hockey sunset would remain a distant thought. A butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker. One of the more enjoyable aspects of seeing the Old Timers come together was the opportunity to witness new life chapters being written. They all knew what they once were. What had they become? Where were they going? It is an impressive list of players, including former college players and/or Team USA players — Gary and Larry Alm, Craig Falkman, Mayasich, Jerry Melnychuk, Dick Meredith, Jack Morrison, Al Peterson, Bob Schmidt, Larry Stordahl, Austin Sullivan, Jim Westby and, of course, Anderson. The common thread in bringing their varied backgrounds together was hockey, and the Old Timers have had the ice as their common denominator since the late ‘70s. It was and always will be a sanctuary, a place to laugh, tell tales, share news, forget a bad week or extend a good one; a place to be a kid on a pond again, never seeing an end to the day. As new trails have been blazed, the game that brought them so much as youths has, years later, kept them together. It’s a rhythm now, and the game is still theirs for the taking even as life takes them away from the game. Glory Days In all of their Sundays together, the Old Timers were missing one thing: a measuring stick for themselves against like-aged players around the country. Confident they had a formidable team in case anyone came calling, the opportunity was finally seized in 2002 when they elected to send an entry to the National Senior Games Association (NSGA) Senior Olympics in Lake Placid, NY. What was a competitive, but friendly, weekly outlet for them suddenly turned into a preparatory schedule to prove themselves on a larger stage. The sum of their achievements as a group was unparalleled, but that was 40 years earlier. Instead of scrimmaging each other, what would happen when they played against players they didn’t know (or hadn’t seen since college) and score was being kept? “I was very confident we could beat any 60 & over team in the United States,” Anderson offered matter-of-factly. “Jim Sedin, a 1952 US Olympic Team member, joined us. He was one of three All-World selections in the entire Olympic tournament when he played.” That it? “Well, I did ask two former Swedish national team players, who are now friends, to come along also,” the proud Swedish-American added with a wink and smile. A glimpse of their staggering depth and skill was afforded on Friday, January 4, 2002, when the Minnesota Old Timers officially suited up as a team to play the Maryland-based Geri-Hatricks Gold at the Olympic Center. Pucks rained on the Geri-Hatricks’ net all night and, when the tempest finally ceased, the Old Timers walked into the locker room with a 9-0 win to start the tournament. The rest of the tournament followed this pattern and the team returned home with a gold medal and a hunger for more. More would come. In Buffalo, NY, the following year, the Old Timers once again routed the field and in Blaine, Minn. this year with an administrative gaffe limiting their roster to a fraction of its top-tier players, they played an effective system in the championship game to prevail 2-1. Three years, three gold medals. There were no more questions about where they stood. The Seventh Player No member of the Old Timers was more affected by the horrible attack on the World Trade Center than Gordy Aamoth, one of their goalies. “Doc” Aamoth lost his son, Gordy, that day and Minnesota lost one of its biggest and proudest hockey fans. Young Gordy was a defenseman at the Blake School and, even after he advanced on a fast track to the high octane world of Wall Street with Sandler O’Neill after college, hockey was a top agenda item for updating/playing whenever he returned to town. Doc, on the other hand, had just begun acknowledging his hunger for the game again when our nation was shaken that autumn day. When Gordy was taken, his friends and family lost a bright, ambitious, good-looking and always sharply-attired prince of a guy. Hockey lost a sliver of its soul. With Gordy physically absent to fan the flames, Doc reached skyward to be sure he was spiritually present to bring him back into the net in top form. Gordy became another team member and Doc became unbeatable, voted the MVP of the tournament in the Lake Placid Senior Olympics. Organizers may as well have cut Doc’s gold medal in two, half to rest on the mantel of his Wayzata home and another to be thrown to the heavens for Gordy to catch. He had caught his father after all and propelled him to the rink, pulling on his equipment, enjoying the camaraderie in the locker room, turning away pucks, winning, best of the best. A father and a son winning gold together. One medal, two men. Doc returning to the game complete. The Scoresheet Fresh off their win in Blaine, the Old Timers are back in their Sunday routine. The fish in Wendy’s hand is now his hockey bag. It has been for as long as he can remember. Three years after September 11th, Doc has three half-golds sitting above his fireplace. This is his day in the week to remember and keep hockey close to him. He’s between the pipes. The others show, too. Newly minted stories are shared and the post-skate libations still go down smoothly. The itches keep coming back, so the Old Timers, do too. Skate, pass, offense, defense. This is truly the good life in Minnesota.