Farewell to a fellow netminder

Heard from a good friend today that Chick DeAngelis recently passed away. The news was hardly shocking, but saddened me just the same. Our local rinks lost a true character when they lost Chickie. DeAngelis spent some six decades between the pipes. He was a medical marvel, and an inspiration to many, not just old goalies, but hockey players of every stripe. The following is a profile I wrote about Chick for The Hockey Magazine in 2002. Seems like yesterday. RIP, Chick.

The Golden-age Goalie

So, you think you've had a bad day on the ice? Missed a few open passes, an open net, or a defensive assignment that led to a goal or two? Maybe got a little banged up?

Now compare your bad day to the one Angelo "Chick" DeAngelis had on April 28, 1998. That was the day Chick's heart stopped. Cold. On the ice. Two days after his 68th birthday, playing in a stick practice with Bruins alumni at Hockeytown USA in Saugus, Mass., DeAngelis nearly dropped dead right in his goal crease.

"It was just a pick-up game," says DeAngelis, an East Boston native. "I was out there playing, and next thing I remember, I was in a hospital bed, four days later. I was just looking around, and I asked a nurse, 'what am I doing here?' "

According to retired State Sen. Robert Buell, who was also playing, State Trooper Dave O'Leary saved DeAngelis as stunned players, including Terry O'Reilly and Brad Park, looked on. Seconds after DeAngelis "collapsed on his face," Sgt. O'Leary rushed to his aid, recognizing the signs of a heart attack, started mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and directed others to perform chest compressions, says Buell.

Once breathing, DeAngelis was transferred to Melrose Wakefield Hospital. Longtime friend James "Jay" DeMarco recalls that DeAngelis was upset, not because his game ended with an ambulance ride, but because the emergency medical staff had to cut off his favorite jersey to resuscitate him. The thought that his hockey playing days might be over never entered his mind. "He didn't care about the heart attack," says DeMarco. "He just wanted to know when he could get back in the net."

A week and a half later, doctors open up Chick's chest, and Roto-Rootered 60 years of heavy foods from his arteries during quadruple bypass surgery. "I asked them, 'If you're going to do surgery, I want to know if I'll be able to play hockey again. If not, then don't do it.' They told me 'You have to have the surgery. Your arteries are clogged. That's why you had the attack.' "

Within three months, Chick strapped the pads back on, and was back between the pipes at Hockeytown. "The doctor said to me, 'Take your time. Do a little here and there, because this thing takes about a year to heal.' I said 'We'll see.' Two months later, I felt fine, so I figured I'd try it out on the ice."

DeAngelis started slow - "only two or three times a week" - but was soon playing almost every weekday. "People were telling me my life would be over after the heart attack, to sit down and watch television the rest of my life," he says. "But that wasn't going to happen to me. I wasn't going to let the attack stop me. I was going to fight. And I beat it. And I'm still here."

Even today, at 72, DeAngelis still plays three to five times a week (usually after putting in an early morning shift at his family's bakery) in Saugus, Stoneham and Peabody, patrolling the goal line, never backing down, never shying away from the puck or the action. If he's got extra energy at the end of the day, he'll head to a local gym to work out on the treadmill or exercise bike.

"Chick is a legend," says Dave Fessenden, a regular at the noontime stick practice in Peabody, Mass.

"What can you say about a guy who loves the sport so much?" says John Cluett, 55, another Peabody regular. "He plays the game with enthusiasm and a lot of gusto. He doesn't ask for any quarter, and he doesn't give any quarter. I've never seen him duck, never heard him ask anyone to ease up."

A shade over five-feet tall, DeAngelis's head barely reaches above the crossbar. On that head you'll usually find a vintage Jacques Plante fiberglass mask, painted bright gold, tailored with custom padding (Chick's tried the newer, more popular cage/helmet combinations, but "I just can't get comfortable with them."). While the mask reminds some younger players of the homicidal Jason from the "Friday the 13th" horror movies, others, like Cluett, find themselves transported to another place and time.

"The first time I saw the old-style mask, I was thinking, 'Damn, that was one of the first things I recall about hockey,' " says the 55-year-old from Gloucester. "It brought me back to the '60s, and my high school hockey days."

Fessenden admits "I sat on the bench with him one day, and I said to him, just joking around, 'Chick, why don't you show these guys how tough you are and play without a mask.' And he said to me, 'I did that for 22 years.' That right there gives you some idea of the longevity he's had."

DeAngelis began playing in the 1940s, during the war years. "Once I learned to skate, I found that goaltending fascinated me," he says. "It looked like such a challenging position. And I've been playing the position ever since, for more than 55 years."

He's not particularly impressed with the current crop of pro goalies ("It's the equipment, it's a lot bigger. That's why these goalies are playing better."), but admits the game has gotten much quicker, even if players rely too much on the slap shot ("I try to tell kids to learn the wrist shot. The slap shot is much easier, one direct line - boom! But with the wrist shot, you don't know where it's going."). And his eyes still light up as he recalls the exploits of the great Glenn Hall, Turk Broda of the Maple Leafs, Bill Durnam of the Canadiens, and the Bruins' own Sugar Jim Henry and Frankie "Mr. Zero" Brimsek.

"He still refers to Tony Esposito as 'the kid who gets beat upstairs,' " says DeMarco, another East Boston goalie, with a laugh. "Tony O is my hero, but Chick will just say 'He's excellent down low, but you can beat him up top.' "

Which simply proves that DeAngelis not only loves to play, but he's a student of the game. ""He'll come to my games, and give me advice, like 'Jay, you're not cutting your angles down enough.' And I listen to every word he says, because it's backed up by 50 years of experience." That experience also provides a silver lining for the silver-haired set - the belief that they're never too old to play.

"I started skating again 8-9 years ago, and I was feeling a little guilty, playing hockey with a bunch of kids," says Fessenden, now 53. "When Chick showed up, I started thinking, 'Maybe I can just play hockey because I love it.' And that's the inspiration that he's given me - he's out there at his age, playing the toughest position on the ice, the most dangerous one. The biggest joke with my wife is that Chick's extended my career at least 20 years."

Others agree. "Just dragging all that gear through the door is an inspiration." says Cluett, with a smile.

"Chickie is proof that if you stick to your dreams, if you believe in something with a passion, you'll always stay young," says DeMarco. "He inspires me to want to play until my last days. That's what he wants - he wants to die right in the net."

Fortunately for those who've met DeAngelis during the past four years, his time didn't end on that fateful day in April, 1998.

FINIS

Unfinished business ...

Boston, bright & brisk

This has to be one of my favorite stories of 2010, and I aim to get a more in-depth piece written for one of the bigger players in the sports world. However, this short advance, done for New York Magazine (the online version is here), definitely should give you a flavor. The following is the original draft, which I think has a little more color.

The Best of Times, hockey-style

Remember "The Best of Times," the 1986 comedy with Robin Williams as an aging banker who couldn't forgive himself for dropping the touchdown pass (thrown perfectly by Kurt Russell, naturally) that cost his teammates, and town, bragging rights against their arch rival? Now combine it with Paul Newman's hockey classic, "Slap Shot," and you have an inkling of what Scott Williams was thinking when the light bulb went off.

Williams's inspiration, and persistence, has resulted to a truly unique athletic endeavor. On April 3, at the Mennen Arena in Morristown, NJ, former members of the Delbarton Green Wave and the St. Joseph's Green Knights from Montvale will face off against one another, 21 years after they were originally set to play for in the state hockey title game in 1989. Williams was a senior on that St. Joseph's squad that was one win away from being crowned the state champion that year. The key difference between the fictional football teams from "The Best of Times" and the members of the 1989 Delbarton and St. Joe's hockey teams, is that the latter never got to play their championship game.

In one of the strangest episodes in New Jersey high school sports history, a measles outbreak at Delbarton forced a cancellation of the 1989 finals. Which is a shame, because that championship game was shaping up to be a dandy. St. Joe's (24-2-1) and Debarton's Green Wave (24-3-2) were the two top ranked teams in the state, with two of the state's best players, St. Joe's Kenny Blum and Delbarton's Derek Maguire (both of whom would be drafted in the 9th round of the NHL draft that spring).

"Nobody believed it at first," says Williams, who heard the news from his coach, Ron Skibin. "Remember, there's no Internet, no cell phones. The grapevine had to work. Until we went to school that Monday, I don't think we all grasped what it meant. We were saying, 'Did this weekend just happen? Weren't we supposed to play the game?' And on Monday, it was over. That's it. The state couldn't pull that off today, because parents and lawyers would be all over them to reschedule it."

Instead, after the game was simply cancelled. The NJSIAA's executive committee declared the two teams co-champions, and the season was relegated to some dust-covered record book. Then, last March, the Star Ledger newspaper ran a story on the 20th anniversary of the championship game that never happened. The seed for Williams' brainstorm was planted when Delbarton's Mike Pendy, an assistant captain on the '89 team, was quoted as saying: "Maybe we could get all these guys together 20 years later, lace up the skates somewhere and play that game."

That comment got Pendy's former teammates talking, and joking, but not much more came of it. Williams, however, had other plans. He wanted to play the game. "I knew I just needed to get a hold of someone on Delbarton," he says. "Hockey in New Jersey is a small world, and someone said get in touch with Jim Olsen. We talked, hit it off, and said 'Let's do this.' The wheels got in motion, and before we knew it, it was on."

James Olsen, a former linemate of Pendy's at Delbarton, was initially unsure about staging the game, until Williams talked about earmarking the proceeds for cancer-related charities, including the NHL's Hockey Fights Cancer. That plan struck a nerve.

"Scott's mom was suffering from brain cancer, and he recently did a fundraiser for her to cover some medical bills. He said this could be a great story, and at the same time we could raise some money for charity and have a lot of fun and bring everybody together," says Olsen. "I just thought that was outstanding. Coincidentally, my father passed away from brain cancer five years ago. So I thought, this guy really wants to do a nice job with this. It could be really terrific."

Now, the game – dubbed the Frozen Flashback – is etched in stone, or at least on everyone's Blackberry calendar. "It's going to be a blast," says Olsen. "This is not going to be a nasty grudge match. We're going to play hard, and it's going to be competitive, but it's going to be clean." Or, as Maguire, who played at Harvard and now lives outside Boston, says: "I don't see the game getting out of hand. Heck, we're not high school kids anymore. We'll have our families – our wives and kids – in the stands."

Pendy says the fact that game actually came together is a testament to the two schools, and to the game itself. Almost 90 percent, or 40 or the original 46 players from 1989, are expected to suit up. Each team will be allowed five subs, to help offset roster shortfalls, provided they are alumni, and graduated prior to 1989. "Our entire team has been contacted, and the interest level is high," says Pendy. "Some guys have been playing, and some guys are running out to buy equipment."

The game, as Pendy predicted, is likely to be slower, and will also be less physical, thanks to the no-check rules that both sides have agreed to. But make no mistake; these guys still want to win. "From every aspect, and every angle, this is just setting up to be a home-run event," says Pendy. Or, to put it in the proper vernacular, an overtime winner. Which it might come down to, as no one will even consider the game ending in a draw.

"I don't think we can let it go," says Olsen, laughing. "We'll have to keep playing."

Blum, who played professionally until 2004, readily agrees that a tie won't work. "I don't think anybody would want that," he says. "Other than the charity part, that would be defeating the purpose."

That purpose, say the players, is to not only raise money for a worthwhile cause, but to put on a show for the 2,500 expected to be in attendance and, yes, to put the 1989 season to rest. "The great thing about playing at Mennen, is that the place was packed for our games," says Olsen. "It was a great experience, being on the ice in front of those crowds, and we have one more opportunity to do it."

For details on the April 3 game, or to contribute to the respective charities, visit FrozenFlashback.com.