The Ultimate Sacrifice

The Toughest Cut of All

December 23, simultaneously both Junior hockey's most joyous and brutal day. Twenty three fresh-faced kids are enjoying a pre-Christmas ultimate present, making Team USA for the coolest International tournament any of them could possibly imagine, the World Junior Championship.

Rather than celebrate the individual and team joy of the fortunate 23, let us tip our caps to the forlorn six, ambitious teenagers who made it to the bitter end, travelled to the Pacific Northwest with Team USA, laying it all on the line. With the finish line of British Columbia in site, they have been unceremoniously cut, there names forgotten in a heartbeat.

America's hockey community salutes you, the unheralded half-dozen, without whom there would be no competition to activate Team USA prior to their run for precious metal in B.C.

Sean Dhooge, Ty Emberson, Sammy Walker, Joey Keane, Michael Callahan and Cole Coskey, a round of sticktaps to you all. They will all have professional futures, NCAA and CHL glory down the road, but only Emberson will get another shot at the New Year's TV hockey spectacle, the World Junior Championship, also known as the IIHF U20 World Championship.

There hockey lives pick up again shortly. Dhooge and Emberson will join their NCAA Badgers for a series in Denver Jan 4 and 5, one they would have missed otherwise. Sammy Walker will get four NCAA games with his Gophers, while Callahan gets a shot at the Ledyard Bank Classic in Hanover, New Hampshire. While winning a tourney trophy at Thompson Arena may be a silver lining, there is no substitute for the IIHF World Championship gold and silver goblet that the all-time greats have swigged from.

So while we all prepare to unwrap our gifts this week, a nod to the young men who have their hockey hearts ripped from their chest.

DHOOGE, EMBERSON, WALKER, KEANE, CALLAHAN, COSKEY. 
Some of us will remember your names.
Thank you for everything you gave.

The Death of Hobey Baker

The 1918 winter solstice in western France was wet and gray, six weeks after the World War I Armistice. Persistent rain fell rain fell like a thick mist on Toul’s Gengoult Air Field, used exclusively by the U.S. Army’s 141^st Aero Squadron. Air traffic had been light since November 11. Nearly all of the squadron remained at the base following the end of fighting, each man waiting for the call to return home from this dreadful war. The past few years had not only cost the lives of so many fellow pursuit pilots, but also a generation of young men, slaughtered in the trenches below.

The dirt runways of the Aerodrome were starting to mud up. All but one of the squadron officers were huddled in the single-story bungalow that served as their base. The scent of roasting chestnuts enveloped the men in the semi-circle around the wood stove; they sipped cognac and Benedictine despite the fact it was not yet lunch hour. Lethargy reigned.

The arrival of a loud internal combustion engine intruded into the malaise. The men turned towards the windows and opened the door. Their commanding officer, Captain Hobey Baker, was returning from Paris with his chauffeur in a combination motorcycle. Typical of Baker’s altruistic sense of humor, the designated driver Howard Nieland was in the sidecar, boots up, smoking a fat cigar. Both men were beaming smiles and laughing hard, bringing light and energy into an otherwise dreary day.

Baker burst into the officer’s quarters in a manic rush, brandishing his orders home in front of his peers, all of them impatient to get off the continent. His subordinates had no choice but to allow Captain Baker his fun. His tenure as an officer had been colored by kindness: not only had he shared in all the risk while flying over German lines, but at every opportunity Baker singled out each deserving mate for bravery and honor. Despite royal status due to his Ivy League sports heroics, Hobey shared communal affection with all his men, regardless of rank.

All of a sudden, Baker’s gleeful reverie took an awful turn in the eyes of his troops. “I’m taking one last flight in the old Spad,” said Baker, intending to enjoy a final rush from being airborne in the wicker and canvas Spad aircraft, a machine that had become an extension of his body and spirit over the last year and a half. The room went deathly silent, the good-natured laughing quashed as the officers stared, jaws slack. Every man in that room considered himself a lucky survivor of this “Great” war; fliers entered WWI with but a two-week life expectancy. Considering how flimsy their planes were, and that there were not nearly enough mechanics to keep the machines properly maintained, the fact that these airmen were still alive and sipping Cognac was a near miracle, and they all knew it.

Donald Herring, Hobey’s academic advisor from Princeton, was in the room, and his blood went cold after Baker’s declaration. Through fate, Herring found himself a frequent participant in Hobey’s mythology. Herring kept showing up in critical junctures in his protégé’s life: he was Hobey’s first academic advisor and his assistant football coach for two years at Princeton, now he found himself face-to-face with Hobey at his life’s most crucial fork in the road. The headstrong Adonis prepared for his final flight off that muddy airfield in western France with only Herring standing between him and his plane.

Back at Princeton—what seemed like a lifetime ago—Herring held unquestioned authority over Baker, professor to pupil. But on this dark day in Toul, none of that held sway. Captain Baker was the commanding officer of this outfit, and the anxious protests by the men inside the officers’ quarters were ignored by the giddy Baker. All WWI dogfighters were a superstitious lot, they knew that whether they lived or died was dictated as much by luck as skill. Taking “one last flight” to a pilot often meant just that, and the men were horrified that their beloved leader was defying the deadliest of all of their unwritten rules—tempting the fates.

Herring cornered Baker, and made his most persuasive pitch, but failed to dissuade the captain. Hobey loved to take absurd chances in the air, so Herring at least convinced the 26-year-old daredevil to keep things simple. “He gave me his promise that he would fly straight out to Pont-A-Mousson and back, and land without acrobatics,” said Herring, who fought back tears in their final encounter.

            The scene took yet another morbid turn as Hobey strode into the squadron hangar moments later. As the captain approached his trusty Spad Number 2, a mechanic who will go down in infamy, took center stage for a single line. “Captain Baker, sir, Number 7 is ready for a flight test.”

Number 7 was a Spad with a wonky carburetor, the most unreliable piece of equipment in the combustion process for these archaic engines. The original Claudel carburetor had jammed in a recent flight, prompting a near-accident to Number 7. A young pilot then refused to fly it until the temperamental equipment was switched out. The mechanic replaced the Claudel with a Zenith, and presented the repaired plane to Baker.

Over howls of protest, Baker did not hesitate. “All right, I’ll take Number 7.” Now, even lowly enlisted men joined the officers in loud protest. “One sergeant in deliberate insubordination wheeled out Hobey’s own Number 2 from the hangar, but to no avail,” wrote biographer Davies.

In surreal succession, the Number 7 was rolled out through the steady rain, the sergeant spun the propeller, and the motor fired and caught. Herring was the last man to speak to Baker as the machine warmed up. Once again Hobey assured his concerned friend that there would be no shenanigans on this flight, a projected 40-mile round trip expecting to last about 15 minutes. Baker then climbed into the cockpit, made eye contact with his college mentor, and proceeded to shut himself into a craft he had never before flown.

Hobey took off towards the northwest corner of the airfield, directly into the wind. As was his norm, he lowered the nose of his machine immediately after becoming airborne and clearing the high trees. He gunned his V-8 Hispano-Suiza engine to 2200 RPM’s. Now fully powered, the plane became Baker’s own wings and ballast. In front of his stunned mates, he made his signature chandelle climb, a near vertical ascent with a slight corkscrew to the right. The most competent flyer in the squadron leveled off at just over 300 feet and surveyed the socked-in farmlands. He pointed the Spad east-northeast. A quarter mile into the journey, the Zenith carburetor cut out, and Hobey was now gliding with a dead engine. Herring looked up, and broke into a frantic run.
The new book, Hobey Baker Upon Further Review, is now available on Amazon

Casey Mittelstadt on the "Minnesota Way"

Rappleye: People outside of Minnesota want to know what’s the secret sauce that keeps you guys playing together, keeps you guys in High School rather than jumping to the USHL full time. The camaraderie in the room, it seems like it carries over here at the U. Can you help our readers understand what’s so special about the Great State of Hockey?

Mittelstadt: I think the main thing is you play with the same kids since you’re a really young guy. For me, I got to know some of these guys on the team playing fall and summer teams and you kind of bond, you’re all from Minnesota, you’re all playing for your high school and understand each other. My teammates last year were the same teammates I’ve had since I was five, six. So for me, they’ve been my best friends my whole life, getting to grow up and play with them is something pretty cool.

Rappleye: In the winter, Minnesota becomes the land of 10,000 frozen lakes. How much pond hockey did you play, and do you still play?

Mittelstadt: I have a rink in my back yard, my dad always put up, I’ve played endless amounts of pond hockey, some really late nights. That’s one of the main reasons it got me to love hockey, playing back there with my buddies and my brothers. I’ve been out there as much as anyone, if not the most probably. I loved it growing up.

Rappleye: There are stories about 2 a.m. games in your back yard.

Mittelstadt: I think I got really lucky my parents would let it happen, and my neighbors would be OK with it, they all had kids and some of them played hockey so they kinda understood when the boards are banging at 2 a.m. I got lucky I got some good buddies who loved it as much as me. When you’re out there you lose track of time, just having fun. It’s some of the best memories growing up.

Rappleye: I understand your parents are not typical hockey parents. Is that true they never played the game?

Mittelstadt: It’s pretty nice, I don’t get too much pressure from them. My dad skated growing up with his buddies, but never played. I come home, I played terrible, my parents say ‘Good Game.’ It was perfect for me, a perfect situation growing up.

Hobey...LIVES?

The fading hockey immortal, Hobey Baker, will get a boost on the centennial of his controversial death. Hobey Baker, Upon Further Review, will go on sale in December, 100 years after the captain of the 103rd U.S. Army Aero Squadron took an ill-fated turn and fell to his death in Toul, France, a month after the World War I Armistice.

Hobey's death has been an unsolved mystery for a century. With his orders home tucked into his leather flying jacket, Captain Baker insisted on taking one last flight, which initiated a rapid spiral of  events that led to his fatal crash. An intrepid newspaper columnist discovered that Hobey's former fiance—the glamorous Mimi Scott—had been writing Hobey throughout their post-break-up, including the bombshell that she was to wed another man, something Hobey learned the day of his farewell flight.

That column sparked rumors of suicide, a theory supported by plenty of circumstantial evidence, including that Hobey hated the mundane 9-5 working world back in the States, along with his star-crossed love-life. This latest book, Hobey Baker, Upon Further Review, presents the reader with all the relevant evidence necessary to draw a satisfactory conclusion, and a panel of "Hobeyologists" weigh in with their educated guesses on this long debated topic.

Hobey Baker is a household name to any American college hockey player, but he is more myth than human being. Upon Further Review gathers every known source, follows every lead, to return this fading legend back to flesh and blood.

I have been intrigued by Hobey's story since 1991, when Ron Fimrite wrote his long-form masterpiece for Sports Illustrated. When both HBO and ESPN omitted Hobey from their list of greatest athletes of the 20th Century, I felt a great injustice had been done to Hobey, a Hall-of-Famer in both hockey and college football. When the funding fell through for a documentary, I set a course to write this book in time for the centennial of his fantastic death. Hobey Baker, Upon Further Review, will settle the century-long debate as to how—and why—America's most romantic athlete perished so pointlessly.

The California Kid

When assessing the playing career of Willie O'Ree, one should never forget his hockey legacy in Southern California. Before the Kings arrived in Los Angeles, Willie had already rung up 175 goals over six seasons in the Western Hockey League, arguably the best circuit outside the six-team NHL.

With the arrival of the expansion Kings, Willie continued his WHL career down in San Diego in 1967-68, the first of nine remarkable seasons of pro hockey in the town known for surfing and tennis. Willie created a sports love affair between the town and the team, playing before packed houses at the flashy San Diego Sports Arena deep into the 1970's. Willie won the WHL scoring title in 1968-69 with 79 points in 70 games, and worked the phones during the off-season to keep the season ticket sales rolling.

O'Ree:15 pro seasons in SoCal 

Willie continued playing pro hockey until 1979, when at the age of 43, the natural born scorer still rang up 21 goals and 46 points for the San Diego Hawks, then playing in the Pacific Hockey League.  The franchise has carried several names: Gulls, Sharks, Hawks and Mariners, but regardless of the logo on the front of the jersey, the team will forever be associated with Willie O'Ree, the pioneer of Southern California hockey.

Jackie and Willie

Black Like Me

From Kevin Paul Dupont, Boston Globe

Often referred to as the Jackie Robinson of hockey, O'Ree, now 82, twice met the Brooklyn Dodgers icon, the first time only two years after Robinson emerged from the Negro Leagues and integrated Major League Baseball.

O'Ree, at the age of 14, visited New York City with the baseball team from his hometown, Fredericton, New Brunswick. The trip was a reward for winning the town's league championship. O'Ree was a standout second baseman/shortstop, skills that later earned him a tryout with the Milwaukee Braves.

"The reward was to see the Empire State Building, Radio City Music Hall, Coney Island," mused O'Ree. "I got to meet Jackie Robinson for the first time . . . at Ebbets Field. I shook hands with him, and I told Mr. Robinson that I not only played baseball, but I played hockey."

Robinson, recalled O'Ree, said he didn't know any black kids played hockey. "Yeah," O'Ree told him that afternoon in 1949, "there's a few."

A dozen years later, O'Ree was playing minor league hockey for the Los Angeles Blades in the then-Western Hockey League. The LA chapter of the NAACP held a luncheon in Robinson's honor at a local hotel, and O'Ree, at the behest of Blades coach Bus Agar, was invited to attend with two teammates.

"So we go to the luncheon," recalled O'Ree, who still has the printed invitation among his keepsakes. "Mr. Robinson is standing over in the corner, talking to some media people, and we're just standing off on one side, waiting for him to finish."

Robinson made his way over to the hockey players and Agar made the introductions, including the 24-year-old O'Ree, who had only recently joined the Blades less than a year after playing his final game with the Bruins.

"And Mr. Robinson turned and he looked at me," recalled O'Ree, "put up his finger and said, 'Willie O'Ree . . . aren't you the young fella I met in Brooklyn?' Now this was 1962, and that day in Brooklyn was 1949. That made a big impact. I mean, isn't that something? When you think of the millions of people he met over the years, and he turns to me and says, 'O'Ree . . . aren't you the young fella . . . ?' "

Just a few years earlier, at age 20, O'Ree's flirtation with pro baseball lasted but two weeks, after a tryout with the Braves in Waycross, Ga.

Fearing what it would be like for a young Canadian black man to navigate his way alone in the Deep South in 1956, O'Ree's parents advised him not to go. The youngest of 13 kids, O'Ree feared one day he would regret not taking the opportunity, so he boarded the flight to Atlanta.

"Off the plane into the terminal, the first thing I saw was, 'White Only' and 'Colored Only,' so I went into the colored restroom," recalled O'Ree. "I had to stay in Atlanta overnight. I didn't have a reservation [to Waycross]. So I spoke to a black cab driver out in front of the terminal and he took me to a hotel in an all-black neighborhood."

Once in Waycross, O'Ree said he was assigned to a dorm with eight other players of color, and tried to turn a deaf ear to the "racial remarks by the white players," would-be teammates, during his workouts.

"It didn't bother me," recalled O'Ree, "but I said to myself, 'Ah, why in the hell did I ever considering coming down here?' "

O'Ree was cut, told by the coaches he needed "a little more seasoning" as they handed him a bus ticket home.

Prospects get an airplane ticket to camp. The unsuccessful get a bus ticket and are told to hit the road.

"I'm five days on the bus," recalled O'Ree, "and naturally I had to sit in the back of the bus. As were rambling up through the states, I started moving up in the bus, as we are getting up north. By the time we get to Bangor, Maine, I'm sitting right in the front of the bus -- another 3½ hours, I think it was, and I am back in Fredericton. And I stepped off the bus and I said, 'Willie, forget about baseball, concentrate on hockey.' "

Days later, Punch Imlach reached out to O'Ree and signed him to launch his pro hockey career with the Quebec Aces -- the club in Quebec City where the Bruins ultimately found him.  #ORee4HHOF