Old pros

<p>You would think a doctor would know better than, at the age of 50something, to skate out on the ice, flail at a puck and tempt serious injury.</p><p>That would be a losing argument with Chris Barker, a family practice physician with Kaiser Permanente in Santa Rosa.</p><p>"On ice, you fall and you don't have weight-bearing injuries, just bruises. You have a hockey stick for support, like a cane. And hockey players have lots of protection," says Barker, slapping at his body armor that makes him appear twice as large as he is.</p><p>Barker was one of many local stars among about 500 hockey players who played in the weeklong Snoopy's Senior World Hockey Tournament that ended Saturday at the Redwood Empire Ice Arena. At the end of his last game, several of his patients came by to congratulate him on his very sweaty performance on ice.</p><p>For 17 years, Barker has been playing on one of Santa Rosa's teams designed for people older than 40 who love to play hockey.</p><p>"Most guys started playing when they were young, but I didn't discover hockey until I was 39 and brought my kid to this rink," Barker said. "I played pond hockey near Chicago, but nothing serious."</p><p>Well, these guys who played on 52 teams in the Senior World Hockey Tournament were plenty serious.</p><p>Barker's team, the Santa Rosa Bombers, didn't do so well, but two other Santa Rosa-based teams did. The Red Barons won a gold medal in their division of 50-to-54-year-old players and the Redwood Giants shared a gold medal in their division of 40-to-44-year-old players.</p><p>Tournament organizer John Riley said the annual tournament sponsored for three decades by the late Santa Rosa cartoonist Charles Schulz has been a major force in giving aging hockey lovers the chance to play out their dreams on ice.</p><p>Riley said that when Schulz took over operation of the tournament and moved it to Santa Rosa, he gradually increased the competitive categories so that people in their early 40s played in one group, those 45 and older played in another, those 50 in another and so on.</p><p>The tourney had a division for hockey players older than 75, but not this year, Riley said.</p><p>"It is hard to field a team at that age," Riley said. "I think it is wonderful that we have men on these old-timers teams who were young kids playing in our league games at this rink."</p><p>This year, teams came from all across the country, with one making the trip from Austria.</p><p>Dave Potter, a member of the Indiana Irish Rovers, confessed that his team was largely composed of amateur hockey league players who gouged the ice at the Shark Tank in San Jose when the NHL Sharks weren't using it.</p><p>Potter said his team has had a great time playing in other tournaments on the senior circuit such as in Las Vegas and Vancouver, British Columbia.</p><p>He concedes the team doesn't have any connection with anybody from Indiana.</p><p>"We are a bunch of East Coast transplants who grew up playing hockey," said Potter, who has served 11 years on the Monterey County Board of Supervisors and the California Coastal Commission. "For people in local government, this is the only place you get to hit somebody and feel OK about it."</p><p>You can reach Staff Writer Bleys W. Rose at 521-5431 or bleys.rose@pressdemocrat.com.</p>