Just like the NHL, only slower

<p>The Swiss Hawaii Sprinters are in town and so you are probably wondering if the Iceland Libya Javelin Throwers are here, too. If you’re a senior hockey team playing on Snoopy Ice, you can call yourself anything you want.</p><p>Palookaville Patriots, Sonoma County Winos, New York Applecores, Hodgepodge Elite, they’re all here. Only the Aging U.S. Government Whistle Blowers are missing.</p><p>If you’re a senior hockey team that has traveled 5,765 miles from Switzerland on your own dime, paid the $1,800 entry fee, will rent a car, pay almost 5 bucks for a gallon of our gas and are willing to smell burning trees, you are cut from a different cloth than even the average Snoopy hockey elder. In fact, consider the images on the jersey of the Swiss Hawaii Sprinters.</p><p>Eighteen palm trees. Silhouettes of five hockey players on surfboards. Three sunsets. All on a light-orange-colored background that passes for beach sand. This isn’t a hockey jersey. This is what Justin Timberlake wears to dinner. It’s men’s wear at a surf shop. The only concession they make to hockey is the Swiss Hawaii Sprinters will be playing on ice skates, not, sadly, flip-flops.</p><p>“You should have seen us when we walked out of the hotel,” Tino Caffi said. </p><p>Caffi, 73, is the manager of the Swiss Hawaii Sprinters.</p><p>He was talking about 1987, when the team played a senior tournament in Honolulu. The rink was at a Canadian air base. There were no dressing facilities there. So the players had to dress at the hotel, then cab it.</p><p>Imagine 17 Swiss hockey players in full uniform (sans skates) standing in front of a Honolulu hotel, hailing taxis.</p><p>“Like we were from Mars, that’s how people (were) looking,” Caffi said.</p><p>Yes, nothing says “too much rum last night” than all of a sudden seeing 17 Swiss hockey players in uniform on a Honolulu street, looking for a ride.</p><p>“When we get into cabs,” Caffi said, “we ask driver to take us to the ice. The driver says only ice we have in Hawaii is in drinks, not in rink.”</p><p>Caffi laughed hard at the retelling. Caffi laughed a lot and one does need a sense of humor to think about flying from Europe to play hockey in July in Northern California. The plane fare was $2,000, Caffi said, but the players do get a nice Snoopy jacket and ... well, that’s got to be one heck of a Snoopy jacket for $2,000. </p><p>“It’s a lot of money we spend,” Caffi said, “because we are crazy hockey players.”</p><p>Caffi may have been channeling Steve Martin from the ’70s on Saturday Night live: “We are two wild and crazy guys!”</p><p>Caffi’s story begins in 1945 when he was playing school hockey in Basel, Switzerland. His team needed a name. Caffi decided he would come up with a name that would stand out that season. He plucked Swiss Hawaii Sprinters right out of thin air. No rhyme or reason to it. Just thought it was unique.</p><p>He got that right. </p><p>Now fast-forward 42 years. Caffi, a center, was past his prime. But he was an excellent player back in the day. He played in the Switzerland club championships.</p><p>His team reached the finals three years in the ’60s, and he was on the national championship team in 1962. In 1987 Caffi was asked if he would like to assemble and take a Swiss team to Honolulu to play in a senior hockey tournament. Just like that.</p><p>Out of the blue. Go to Hawaii to play hockey.</p><p>The Swiss Hawaii Sprinters were reborn. It was déjà vu, but this time they actually would be playing in Hawaii.</p><p>This is the third trip for the Sprinters to Snoopyville, this time in the 55A-and-over division. No NHL players are in the group but no sportswriters, either. Of course they do inspire curiosity and they do get asked a lot of questions when they play in the States, under one condition.</p><p>“If they (opponent) loses,” Caffi said, “they don’t ask that many questions.”</p><p>They may dress like bouncers at a Miami Beach surf bar but when the puck is dropped, instincts, experience and especially desire take over. Most of the players are shaping their vacations around the Snoopy tournament but at the core of it all is the most basic and pleasing of desires.</p><p>“Maybe we are a little bit old kids,” Caffi said, “but we are still kids. We give a pass and we are happy. Sometimes we hit it in the net. That’s even better. You play and you can feel the blood go through your body. You feel like a hero. Not many sports, I think, can you play at this age. We play just like the NHL, only slower.”</p><p>Caffi laughs again. The players take the game seriously but they have perspective. After all, they are the Swiss Hawaii Sprinters and if you are a Swiss Hawaii Sprinter you can take the game only so far. Caffi has brought with him about 70 red jerseys to hand out to opposing players after the game. On the front of the jersey are the words: Hopp Schwiiz. Translation: Go Switzerland.</p><p>“This is to remember the Swiss,” Caffi said of the shirts.</p><p>That, Mr. Swiss Hawaii Sprinter, shouldn’t be a problem.</p><p>You can reach Staff Columnist Bob Padecky at 521-5490 or bob.padecky@pressdemocrat.com.</p>