USA Hockey Adult Hockey

The teacher has become the teammate.

Bill Watson coached the Lockport (New York) High School varsity boys’ hockey team for 15 years. Now that he’s playing in a recreational men’s league in town, he’s getting a chance to play with and against plenty of his former players.

Watson, who coached at Lockport from 1993-2007, knows the tendencies of all his former players. He loves competing on both sides with his one-time pupils.

“I’m kind of catch-22, when I’m playing against them it’s frustrating to see their speed and the danglers, and they’re putting it to us,” Watson said. “But then it’s kind of a little admiration, ‘Hey, I taught them that.’ And it’s good to see them still playing the game and playing it well.”

Roughly 50 of his former players take part in the Cornerstone Arena adult hockey league. But only one, Mark Bryant, is a teammate of Watson’s on the Groff’s team in the 30+ division for the 2016-17 season.

Bryant, who played under Watson from 1996-98, likes being on the ice with his old coach.

“It’s a lot more lax than it was then,” Bryant said. “Back then I was kind of like a puppy dog trying to please his owner. Now it’s more for fun. It doesn’t matter as much, but I’m still barked at, ‘That was our give-and-go. I taught you better than that.’”

Watson recalls last season taking on a team filled with a number of young players. Groff’s was playing a solid game, but the other team had one line it couldn’t match up against very well.

“They had our number all night,” Watson remembered. “It wasn’t until the third period that I thought to myself, ‘Hey, I put that line together 15 years ago.’ I remembered when I matched those forwards together and how well it worked so well that high school season. Now I was being victimized by my own coaching decisions.”

When Bryant played in high school, he had a tendency to be a talker with the opposing team’s players. His coach wasn’t a big fan of that.

“Nowadays, we’d get into the heat of the game at the end and [Bill] would go out there and be a nuisance and draw a penalty,” Bryant said. “He’d go to the penalty box and would take one of their top guys off. He’d say, ‘I did my job; you go do yours.’”
 

A couple years ago, Watson, 48, and Bryant, 36, didn’t know if they’d be playing in the same rink let alone on the same team. When Bryant was in high school, the local rink was closed. The majority of adult hockey players who lived in Lockport had to travel to nearby Niagara Falls and Buffalo to skate. It took 28 years for it to open back up in 2014. This is the third season Groff’s has competed in the new
league.

Watson loves having a rink back in Lockport.

“I think my favorite part of this league is the new rink,” Watson said. “Not only seeing my former players still skating, but they are still playing ‘together’ and solidifying the bonds that hockey creates. In my book, that is more important than winning or losing.”

The league started up with a draft-style approach and had enough players to field a few teams. But then a couple other full teams were added to the mix. The league grew from six teams to 16 in the 30+ division.

“We have a good group of guys,” Watson said. “Because we had some draft players too — we have a mix of guys who’ve played their whole lives and some guys who just came out to play at the new rink and always wanted to play — it’s a big, diverse team.”

Bryant said all the team members on Groff’s are just out to have a good time on and off the ice.

“They always say the most important part is after the game, but really it isn’t. We want to win,” Bryant said. “It’s a tight-knit group of guys. We kind of all come from different time periods, but most of us came from the same place, the Lockport school district.”

Groff’s — whose players average about 40 years old — is a competitive team, but keeps getting older every season. Bryant joked the team is always looking to get better, but the other teams keep getting better, too, and younger by picking up players who are just turning 30.

“They’re making it tough for us as the years go on,” Watson said.

Story from Red Line Editorial, Inc.