Good grief, yes, hockey sportsmanship will come first

<p>Sparky — do I even have to waste your time by calling him Charles Schulz? — would see it and he wouldn’t stand for it. It was his hockey tournament, after all, and he’d be damned if he was going to tolerate someone running up the score. Charlie Brown wouldn’t run up the score and neither will you.</p><p>Sparky would tell someone who told someone who in turn would tell the coach of a team leading, 20-1, to knock it off. Right now. Right in the middle of the game at the Redwood Empire Ice Arena. Cease and desist. Otherwise you won’t be permitted to return to Snoopy’s Senior World Hockey Tournament.</p><p>Either you understand — right now — what sportsmanship means or you can go home and read some books about it. The message was received and rarely refused. Arousing Sparky’s penchant for fair play, it was like being called into the principal’s office for throwing an eraser at someone’s face.</p><p>Eight years after Sparky’s death, his mandate to be fair and be a sportsman is still enforced.</p><p>“In fact,” said Kevin McCool, manager of the Ice Arena, “if one team gets ahead by five or six goals, we’ll take the score down from the scoreboard. Players don’t fly thousands of miles to get embarrassed.”</p><p>The 34th annual Snoopy Tournament begins Sunday and it is inevitable there’ll be mismatches. Fifty-four teams have paid an entry fee of $1,800 each, which would guarantee their commitment, but it doesn’t necessarily guarantee integrity. Teams may sandbag - claiming to be poor when they are superb, thereby being assessed a ranking in a “C” division instead of one in an “A” - in order to mop up.</p><p>Unless the Snoopy people have prior knowledge of a team — one team this year is from Switzerland — they accept on face value what they are told. And then they wait to see if it’s true.</p><p>“What’s the point in beating someone 30-1?” said Jeannie Schulz, Sparky’s widow.</p><p>Mrs. Sparky was told the story of a senior hockey team from Santa Rosa, The Great Pumpkins, playing in a Las Vegas tournament. The score was 30-1 when the game referee left the ice in the middle of play, went to a snack bar and had some coffee.</p><p>This is ridiculous, the official thought. In fact, the goalie for The Great Pumpkins, frustrated and clearly overwhelmed, eventually stood up in front of the net, arm on a crossbar, making no attempt to stop a shot. The official thought, by his absence, the superior team would just dump the puck and not score because he wasn’t on the ice to announce the goal.</p><p>“We never want to get into that situation here,” McCool said.</p><p>After all, this Senior World Hockey Tournament was started, nurtured and thrived because of a man who drew a comic strip for a living. Good grief, Charlie Brown, the very definition of the event is an extension of the personality of the man who ran it. Sure, if this hockey tournament was run by a former Green Beret, lopsided scores might not be hidden and a player would live with the shellacking.</p><p>“The players still recognize it’s personal here,” Schulz said. “Sparky’s spirit is still here. It’s still that sense of feeling welcome. Come and have a good time. Enjoy yourself.”</p><p>After all, a cartoon puppy is how the Redwood Empire Ice Arena is commonly known, so it’s not Madison Square Garden out there. Play hard, play clean but remember this is amateur hockey. No one is playing in the Stanley Cup when the tournament ends a week from Sunday.</p><p>If the Snoopy tournament was to be taken seriously, then it wouldn’t have a rather unique way of breaking a tie, one of the sport’s drawbacks. At the end of regulation, if the game is tied, each team is reduced to having only three men on the ice, other than the goalie. It’s a five-minute overtime and the pace may resemble a NBA fast break run by 60-year olds.</p><p>“As long as they don’t drop gloves,” McCool said.</p><p>Then they won’t be tossed. They can fight, as long as it doesn’t seem to be a bar fight. They can body check, as long as you don’t purposely send someone into next Tuesday. They can’t, however, use a slap shot, which makes sense if the goalie is in his 60s or 70s, but not if he’s in his 40s.</p><p>“I mean, how cool is it to watch someone in their 60s or 70s playing a sport?” said McCool, 40. “What other team sport can you play at that age.”</p><p>Baseball used to try Old-Timers Games but gave up after 60-year old shortstops couldn’t bend down to field a grounder. Football? The field would have to be encircled by ambulances. Basketball? The players sprinting up and down the court at 65? Huh?</p><p>“You know, when you see the guys walk through the front door when they first arrive here,” McCool said, “they shuffle in and go really slow and you wonder how they can play at all. And then they put on their skates and it’s like they are transformed. They are kids again.”</p><p>And every once in a while those players, like all kids, have to be reminded that 30-1 isn’t a score, it’s a humiliation. And that embarrassment never changes, whether you are six or 66.</p><p>You can reach Staff Columnist Bob Padecky at 521-5490 or at bob.padecky@pressdemocrat.com.</p>