Buntin knocks the puck away from Shaffer, controls it and passes it across ice to Gregory Zdaniuk. Zdaniuk weaves down ice and centers it to Chris Moore. Moore spins and lifts a wrister past Horne– ‘Gooooooaaaaaal!’
Is it NHL hockey time already? Nope, and with the league’s proposed lock-out, it might not be any time soon. Instead, its a typical Sunday night at Moncreif Park.
Starkville may be the last place in the world where a person expects to find a competitive hockey league. But hockey has grown tremendously in the South.
The Tampa Bay Lightning won the 2004 Stanley Cup. Nashville, Atlanta, Charlotte and Miami are other southeastern cities with NHL teams.
In response to the growing popularity of hockey in the region, the Starkville Inline Hockey League (SIHL) formed in 2002. However, most Starkville residents don’t know about this diverse and competitive local sports entity that maintains camaraderie.
Before and after every game, players sit around talking. Some, like league president Richard Wright, have brought their own lawn chairs because it is easier to dress in a chair than it is sitting on the ground.
Wright, known in the league simply as Richie, said, “The league began with pickup games on the McKee Park tennis court in late 2001.”
Now the league has grown to include almost 40 players and four teams.
Like most Canadian youngsters, Richie began playing hockey at a very early age. As he removes his shin pads after his latest game against the Sharks, he jokes, “I basically performed my own C-section with my skates.” In his first two years as a goalie in Canada his shutout rate was higher than 50 percent.
“I started getting looked at by some pro teams, but I skipped school a couple of times, and my parents took me out of hockey for a year. When I got back, I didn’t want to play goalie anymore.”
All this happened before his 12th birthday. During adolescence, Richie said: “Everybody grew a lot faster and bigger than me. It was either play third or fourth line on the minor league team or join the house team and be a star,” he said.
After playing in several men’s leagues, Richie moved to Mississippi and got out of the sport because he “got caught up in the real world of my job and my wife.”
Richie’s real world consists of being the Canuck-accented, long-haired drummer for the popular band U.S., running his own recording studio in Starkville called The Wright Mix and delivering late-night cravings to his very pregnant wife Lauri, who is the SIHL’s timekeeper and statistician.
The SIHL has been playing at Moncreif Park for about 13 months. In that time the league has continued to grow. President Wright, who also plays on the SIHL Wild sponsored by his own recording studio, said: “It’s frustrating because the Parks and Recreation Department doesn’t have any money to help out. All the other leagues in town, like soccer and softball, get a portion of the six-figure two percent tax, and we get none.”
Despite the struggle to gain sponsors and the lack of city funding, the league has grown by leaps and bounds.
“I’ve seen this thing go from five kids on a tennis court with a ball and knocked-over garbage cans as goals to almost 40 players with a real roller surface and goals, pads, helmets, pucks and everything,” said another Canadian-born student, Alex Man-Bourdon.
Alex lived in Mississippi from age six until seventh grade when his family returned to Canada. He tried to pick up hockey in Winnipeg the year he moved but found difficulty.
“Most of those guys start in kindergarten, and I didn’t even know how to skate. I got thrown around and beat up out there on the ice, so I decided to stick to soccer.”
Alex now plays for the SIHL Sharks sponsored by the Greater Starkville Development Partnership.
John Gwin, who played in the Memphis House league for eight years, said, “It’s a great recreational league, and I was surprised at the skill level of a lot of the players.”
He learned about the league when he noticed his neighbor leaving with a hockey stick and a bag.
“I asked him what the hell he was doing with a hockey stick in Starkville, and he told me about the league. I told him, ‘Sign me up. Can I play today?'”
Gwin, who plays for the Rick’s Caf-sponsored SIHL Bruins, is in his second season in the league.
Ben Evans, from Madison, was shocked when he learned there was a league in Starkville. He joined the league just this season and plays for the Wild. He played six years in the Gulf Coast Hockey League and two seasons in the Central States Hockey League in Cleveland, Ohio.
Ben, faking a Canadian accent, said, “It’s great to have an upportooonity to come oot and play in a non-traditional setting.”
“It’s aboot having fun,” he said jokingly as he packed his gigantic duffel bag full of hockey gear.
Beckie Owen also joined the league this season and plays for the SIHL Sharks. She played ice hockey in Biloxi and Singapore.
“I looked everywhere for a place to play when I lived here back in 2000, but the closest place was in Tupelo,” she said sitting on the asphalt unlacing her skates. “I’m having a blast, and the skill levels are all over the ballpark.”
Brian Thompson is playing for the Wild in his third season. Unlike other players he had no prior hockey experience, although he was an amateur aggressive inline skater in high school.
“I got into it because of my older brother,” Brian said.
Wright said Brian is a perfect example of why they started the league.
“He came in with no experience and in two short seasons has become one of the upper level players,” Wright said. “This league is for players like him.”
“I love the league,” Brian said.
He characterized the league as “pretty laid back.”
“We’re all here to have fun. We can’t all play college sports, so this gives people who played a sport competitively in the past, whether it was hockey or not, something to do now,” Brian said.
Thompson said anyone can come out, even if they don’t know how to skate at all.
“You won’t be the only one, I can promise you that,” Brian said with a grin.
Brian’s grin, one I’ve come to know very well over the past 22 years, is directed toward me. He is my younger brother and the one who convinced me to join the league even though I have absolutely no skating experience.
Before joining the league, I may have had skates on for a total of two hours in my entire life.
In my first season playing for the SIHL Ducks, sponsored by Old Venice Pizza Co., I understand why the league continues to grow. It is truly a league for all ages and skill levels. We have players who played in the Junior Olympics and some who never laced up a pair of skates.
There is a 15-year-old high school student and a 50-year old Air National Guardsman. Many of the players are here all summer donning the thick pads in 95-degree heat.
There are no merchandising contracts, and the players use different brand name gloves, helmets and sticks. Many have mismatched wheels and axles on their skates.
Players perform all the maintenance and cleanup of the rink themselves, and the referees are players who don’t happen to have a game that night.
It looks very likely that the NHL will not have a season this year because of labor disputes over the proposed salary cap.
It’s a shame that professional sports have become dominated by the almighty dollar, but there are still places where athletes play for the love of the game. One of those places is Moncreif Park.
For more information on the Starkville Inline Hockey League, visit the Web site at www.geocities.com/starkvillehockey/index.html.