Watchdog

Thanks for posting this. It brought back memories at a lot of different levels.

As you know, I have a passion for hockey that goes back to my childhood, when I dreamed of being the next Rod Gilbert. I can't remember which I did first, play table hockey or ice skate, but the two events couldn't have been far apart.

We had one of the table hockey games pictured in this clip, the kind with the metal players and the metal sticks. My four brothers and I would spend hours in the basement playing with that thing, and it was some of the best time of my childhood.

My daughter Emily loves hearing about my childhood days ("Daddy, tell me about your boyhood" is her favorite line before bedtime.) I will have to tell her about table hockey. When I went to my mother's a few weeks ago, I showed her my old bedroom, and in one of the closets was the table hockey game we used to play. A bit rusty, a few players missing, but there it was.

The clip is a classic, and I would never have known it was Fischler because unless he spoke in that classic New York accent. Back in the day, I'd see Fischler at hockey games while covering the sport for the Gannett Westchester-Rockland Newspapers, mostly the Islanders during their glory days.

I also played hockey with one of the guys in the clip. It's the bald-headed referee. His name is Ira Gitler, and he ran an amateur team named "Gitler's Gorillas." We used to play at Sky Rink on the West Side, sometimes at 2 a.m. It was there that I decided to wear a full mask, because some dude popped me in the mouth and nearly put a few teeth out. That was the height of my hockey playing days, although I played in a few of those old-timers games with Gordie Howe, Phil Esposito, Eddie Giacomin and Ulf Nilsson.

In one of the games - it was at the Meadowlands around 1983 - I was awarded a penalty shot after being tripped on a breakaway.
Giacomin was the goalie. As I got the puck at center ice, I noticed that a bunch of the old-timers were lined up on either side of the zone where I was skating toward. As I got to the blue line, they all slid their sticks to the middle.

I did manage to hold onto the puck, but Giacomin picked up the net and turned it around against the boards. He crouched down inside. The crowd liked it, although I missed my chance to score on the goalie for whom I rooted as a child.

Thanks for bringing back some hockey memories, Best. I'm glad you like the sport.

I'm also glad you've discovered a place where aging sportswriters have a purpose. I never knew blogging could mean so much.