Snoopy's senior hockey tournament draws a crowd

Teammates, wine, beer, food, relaxation - and more hockey than you can shake a stick at.

That was this past week for hundreds of adult ice hockey players from throughout North America who visited Sonoma County for their annual trek to Snoopy’s Senior World Hockey Tournament.

The tournament, now in its fourth decade, wraps up with two final games this morning.

Over the past week, 64 hockey teams of 14-17 players each - many of whom bring spouses or family with them - stayed in local hotels, ate at restaurants, bought wine and beer to drink or take home, visited the coast and shopped.

And they played in 96 games, which hockey coordinator Mike Kovanis scheduled from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. every night at the ice rink.

The tournament has had?68 teams in the past, but kept it at 64 this year. Sixty is probably the sweet spot for scheduling and rink maintenance, Kovanis said.

Each game is 60 minutes, with an intermission, and teams play a round-robin format in their group. Leaders of each group get medals and the winners get a Snoopy trophy.

“Every year, people talk about how great it is here,” Kovanis said. “All the great food and wine and recreational opportunities. People just love that mix of fun and enjoying the competition, without taking that part too seriously.

“The way we schedule the tournament, it gives people days off between games, when people can get out and enjoy the area with the people who traveled with them.”

The Chicago Palace Grill 60-and-over team had quite a traveling party.

The team from Blackhawks territory includes five Collins brothers: Mike, 67, Denny, 66, Roger, 62, Jack, 61, and Pete, 60. They were missing brother Tim, who died this year of cancer at age 63.

The Collins clan has played in the tournament for almost a decade and makes the most of their time in Sonoma County. They rented a luxurious house with a pool and bocce courts and fully planned on partaking of the area’s food and beverage excellence. The tournament fills about 800 “room nights” over the week, said Charlene Lennon, sales director for Visit Santa Rosa.

“It’s definitely an event we look forward to every year,” she said. “The great thing is, it’s a weeklong event, so it generates a good length-of-stay for our properties and our community, for restaurants and shops.”

The Collins brothers eat and drink well when they are here and enjoy the men-only camaraderie. (Their wives are home having their She-Ra Man Haters Club, they joke.)

“Usually, we’ll go to Lake Sonoma, rent a boat, get a couple rafts and go floating,” said Denny Collins. “We really enjoy that part of the trip. We rent a place, one of the nicest houses in the area … It’s phenomenal.”

The brothers grew up swimming in the summer and playing ice hockey in the winter, when their dad would freeze over the backyard and create a rink the boys could skate on all winter.

“It was great for us - not so much for our parents’ house,” Mike Collins said. “We shot out all the windows of the house and the garage. But it got us outside and got us tired. At least we weren’t fighting under (Mom’s) nose.”

Most of the brothers still play a couple times a week in leagues, although they have tallied so many surgeries among them they’ve stopped counting. Good thing two of them are surgeons.

“I think I’ve operated on most of the guys on our team,” Mike said.

Jack, the goalie of the crew, has a torn meniscus right now.

“We give him all the credit for every game we lose,” Denny joked. “He’s on the bench and he’ll tell us how bad we play. We may only win one of three games. But we don’t care; we’re here for the hockey and the fun.”

There are actually two more Collins brothers, younger than this gang, who don’t play ice hockey.

“I don’t know what happened to them, I think they got dropped on their head as babies,” Mike explained. “Or maybe we were the ones who got dropped and that’s why we’re hockey players.”

It’s teams like the Palace Grill brothers that make the tournament a boon to the community, said Kovanis, the hockey coordinator at the rink.

Repeat teams spread the word among their hockey buddies and new teams sign up. The Anaheim Antiques brought three teams in different age brackets this year.

“We bring in over 1,000 people and when you include their families, that’s 1,200 people for pretty much all week,” Kovanis said. “It’s great for the city and county and for us.

“You have people that party responsibly. People who just want to enjoy themselves, who appreciate a good meal and a good experience.”

You can reach Lori A. Carter at 707-521-5470 or lori.?carter@pressdemocrat.com.