It was another
Manny-centric moment that turned hockey into one of the great loves of my life.
He refused to let me watch wrestling one Saturday in the Spring of ’68, and Mom
told me I could have the TV after his ball game ended. Crestfallen and
spiteful, I switched on Channel 9 regardless and sat sulking as the New York
Rangers game commenced. As time elapsed, I found myself mesmerized by the quick
skating, the intricate plays, the hard hitting and the booming puck that
dominated the game. I began asking Manny so many questions that he bought me a
book on ice hockey which I kept all the way until Lea and her daughter Tasha
threw out or sold all my books on Butler Street in 2009.
I idolized the New
York Rangers from the very beginning. They got kicked out of the NHL Stanley
Cup Playoffs by the Montreal Canadiens in four straight games but it didn’t
stop me from doing my homework over the next three months of summer before next
season. I went up to Madison Square Garden and bought a Rangers puck and a
yearbook which became lifelong treasures that were also lost during the Hyatts’
spring cleaning of 2009. After that I began going to Gramercy Park, which was
closer, and became a regular customer all the way until my last days of street
hockey in NYC around 1976, nearly seven years later.
Even though I was
a diehard Ranger fan, I could not help but admire the Boston Bruins after a
time. The Big Bad Bruins were the terror of the league, a reputation they would
carry until the Broad Street Bullies, the Philadelphia Flyers, began taking it
to them a few years later. The problem with the Rangers was that they couldn’t
back themselves up. They had a couple of tough guys who didn’t take shit, but
not enough of them. Not only that, but top-scoring center Jean Ratelle and
All-Star defenseman Brad Park just weren’t in the same league as Bobby Orr and
Phil Esposito.
The one fellow
that no one had a match for was Derek “Turk” Sanderson. He was a bad-ass street
punk from Canada whose reputation as a fighter overshadowed his skill as a
center, one of the best face-off men in the game. He was the fashion plate of
the NHL and hung out with my football hero, Broadway Joe Namath. I was like
every other fan in NYC wishing him a slow death in the late 60’s, but in time
both he and Namath became the role models that gave birth to Broadway Turk
Superstar.
It didn’t take me
long to start my own hockey team, the Butler Street Blues. I spray-painted a
rink between manhole covers and even fashioned a St. Louis Blues-like logo at
mid-field. Harold and Paul Yodels were the mainstays, and we also had puny
Johnny De Losa on defense, who would play a role in the formation of the
Spoiler almost seven years later. We played street hockey until the dog days of
Summer ’68, then took a break until that fall to resume operations. During that
time, Harold became a much better player and actually beat me for the scoring
championship and team record in ‘69, exceeding my spring total by one goal! I
recounted my stat book dozens of times to reach the same sorry conclusion.
When it got too
hot to play, we sat around on the steps of homes in the neighborhood sipping
sodas and ribbing one another. Paulie was one of my main stooges, and he, in
turn lorded it over Danny O’Connor, the dreaded O’Connors’ younger brother, and
Richie Aceto, who would become one of Osama Bin Laden’s victims in the World
Trade Center over thirty years later. The age difference was too great between
us, and I began spending less and less time with the stooges as the summer
crept along.
Paulie was the
last of the Yodels that I had a good friendship with. He was about Lea’s age
and loved playing my homemade board games. He was always the brunt of my ribs
and took it out on the kids his age, as I mentioned. I never fully realized
that he had probably the most explosive temper of all the Yodels, and my
ribbing really took a toll on him. Nevertheless, he became the goalie for the
Blues and did a pretty good job in net for us. After the Yodels moved away, he
came to visit one last time but apparently he had outgrown his tolerance for my
ribbing, and I never saw him again. I heard he went on to a good job as a sky
marshal and grew into a two-fisted, pistol-packing son of a gun.
One claim to fame that
Harold and Paul would have was during Harry’s brief stint as a club owner in
Queens. They bought a club on the Gambino Mob’s turf during the reign of John
Gotti, who had a couple of the boys stop in to shake down the Yodels. Paulie
took exception to that and got a bit of a hiding from the Gottis. I’m sure Paul
has put it behind him by now, but I must admit I’m proud to know that one of my
old friends stood up to the bastards.
(To be continued...)
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