Dick “Dede” Lynch was one of half a dozen players on the Gray Wolves team in 1989.

Lynch, who turned 90 over the summer, is one of roughly 60 men and women putting on equipment and getting on the rink to play ice hockey.

The Syracuse Gray Wolves, one of several recreational hockey leagues across New York state, gives older athletes a chance to come together and enjoy the game. Their goal is to provide a venue that fosters competition, camaraderie and fun recreational hockey for players older than 50 years old. This weekend, the players will hit the road and travel to Danbury, Connecticut, for this year’s fall tournament.

“It’s not about skill. It’s not about scoring. It’s about having fun,” said Steve Phelps, tournament director and treasurer.

The players meet for practices twice a week, where they scrimmage for roughly an hour and a half. Tournaments are held once every fall and spring. More than 20 teams and 200 skaters come together for a series of games. The Gray Wolves sent a team to the January 2002 Senior Olympic Hockey Championships in Lake Placid, New York.

Tournaments ensure more members get a chance to play and allow teams to raise money to make donations to nonprofits. Gray Wolves donated to agencies in the past, such as the American Red Cross, Hillside Family of Agencies, Hospice of CNY, The Salvation Army and Clear Path For Veterans, as well as the Skaneateles YMCA, where the team practices.

The team practices year-round, paying $5 a head for ice time, with the number of active members fluctuating. Unlike professional hockey teams, the Gray Wolves isn’t limited to men. One of the team’s goalies is a woman.

More than 200 ice hockey players get together for the semi-annual tournaments, with some coming from minor league teams.
Josh Shub-Seltzer | Staff Photographer

Team members have varying levels of experience and involvement with the sport in their life. Montreal native Brian Elwell was a member of the Syracuse Blazers, a former Minor Professional hockey team.

Elwell, retired bar and restaurant owner, captained the team right before the production of the 1977 comedy “Slap Shot.” Some of the movie’s filming took place in Syracuse. He is not currently playing due to a hip problem, but he’s credited as being their acting coach.

“Brian kind of coaches us because he knows how to play, and most of us are just faking it,” Phelps joked. “We just go out and have fun.”

Others picked hockey up as adults. Phelps, a retired engineer, said he played pond hockey as a kid and fell in love with the game, after watching it at the collegiate level. He played his first organized game as a college senior and gave up skiing after college to play hockey.

Mike McFadden, current Gray Wolves president and retired electrician, began playing in 2000. Before then, he helped coach his son and daughter who played hockey also.

McFadden credits Marshall “Marsh” Webster, a current player who turns 94 next month, as having taught him “everything he knows.”

Webster and Lynch both attended Onondaga Valley Academy, a Syracuse high school that closed in 1965, and played hockey there. They said it was “the thing to do” back then.

After serving in World War II, Webster, a retired carpenter, returned to Syracuse and was Lynch’s hockey coach at Valley during Lynch’s senior year of high school in the late 1940s.

The men poke fun at how their increasing age affects game play, now that they’ve found their way back to the sport.

“My wife said she likes coming to watch me play because she can actually follow the puck,” joked Lynch. “She says ‘you guys are playing hockey in slow motion!’”

Marshall “Marsh” Webster is the oldest member on the Gray Wolves at 94 and has been playing hockey all of his life.
Josh Shub-Seltzer | Staff Photographer

Tournaments are conducted in accordance with United States of America Hockey regulations, with some modifications like no contact, checking or slap shots. Skaters are divided into 50-plus, 60-plus, and 70-plus age brackets. Elwell, Lynch, McFadden, Phelps and Webster all play in the 70s division.

Members are allowed to play down an age division, but not up. Some leagues have 80-plus divisions. The Syracuse group hopes to expand their 60-plus and 70-plus divisions.

With people like Lynch, who plays on two artificial knees and an artificial hip, the stakes are different when it comes to injury. Phelps said the atmosphere at games is different in this regard.

“There’s a different attitude. If you make a dumb play and crash into somebody, you should stop and help them up and say you’re sorry,” he said. “It doesn’t matter, play goes on, but the two of you deal with your collision.”

Gray Wolves membership brings seasoned players back to hockey, and the camaraderie of the group keeps them there.

“It’s just a good bunch of guys, and we’re all different,” Phelps said. “We all have different rough edges, but we kind of coalesce around hockey.”

Published on October 18, 2017 at 7:57 pm

Contact Colleen: cefergus@syr.edu | @ColleenEFergus2