An Ice Age in California : Land of Fun and Sun Is Accommodating a 1980s Gain in Adult Recreational Hockey

Steve Babinec stepped from his four-wheel drive vehicle in the parking lot of the Palm Desert Town Center shopping mall on a typical Sunday evening in August. It was still 95 degrees, even though the sun had long since set behind Mt. San Jacinto.

But on this night, as he has done at least once a week for the last couple of years since moving to nearby Rancho Mirage from Alaska, Babinec had the perfect way to beat the summer heat--playing ice hockey in the cool confines of the Coachella Valley’s only ice rink, the Ice Capades Chalet.

“This is the most remote hockey rink anywhere,” said the Chalet’s assistant manager, Butch Mayes. “Mentioning ice hockey out here is like throwing water to a drowning man.”

You can laugh about ice hockey in the desert, but it’s serious business to the founders of the area’s only adult hockey club and to Chalet manager Gordon Gibson, a Canadian transplant, who was an honorable mention All-American as a player for the University of Denver in the late 1970’s.

It is also serious outside the desert community.

Year-round recreational adult leagues in Southern California are growing faster than you can say hockey puck.

Why?

The answer becomes fairly obvious when you learn that in Los Angeles County alone there are more than half a million Canadians, many still in love with the sport they grew up with.

Then, too, there are the thousands of other transplants from the hockey bastions of the U.S., the Northeast and the Midwest.

“There’s a lot more interest in hockey in Southern California than you would think,” said Willie Lambert, national officer for market development of the National Novice Hockey Assn., a group that sponsors 275 adult teams in 14 cities around the country.

Two years ago, the Woodland Hills-based organization numbered 2,000 players.

When the fall season began this year, the organization had about 9,000 players, with Los Angeles and Orange counties accounting for about 1,000 of them.

The NNHA has grown so rapidly, in fact, that a spinoff organization, Hockey America, was recently formed to handle the overflow.

For promotional purposes the organizations signed former National Hockey League star Gordie Howe as a spokesman. Howe travels the country, putting on clinics in rinks where NNHA and HA sponsor teams. There was also an advertising campaign in major cities to promote the two groups, with Howe’s likeness a central drawing theme.

Other recreational hockey organizations, not to mention independent leagues, are also experiencing jumps in enrollment.

With offices in the Simi Valley, the Los Angeles County Hockey Assn. has become “a 500-member monster,” according to its founder, vice officer Brad Berman of the Los Angeles Police Dept. Its winter league has 22 teams in 3 divisions. There is a scaled down summer league, as well. According to a publicity brochure, “A LACHA game is played almost every day of the week somewhere in the county.”

It is estimated by Steve Katz, vice president of the NNHA, that 2,500 adults are playing recreational hockey in Southern California. He expects that figure to grow annually by 15% to 20%.

Adult hockey leagues have been gaining popularity nationally since 1980, when the United States defeated the Soviet Union for the gold medal in the Winter Olympics.

Hockey pucks and goalie masks are now common sights at rinks like the Pickwick Ice Arena in Burbank, Olympic Ice Arena in Harbor City, Ice Capades rinks in Costa Mesa, North Hollywood and Brea, at the Conejo Ice Arena in Newbury Park, Pasadena’s Ice Skating Center, Paramount’s Iceland, West Covina’s Ice Arena, the Norwalk Ice Arena and at the Culver City Ice Arena.

“Two years ago, I had nine hockey contracts for leagues,” said Darius Madjzoub, owner of the independent Norwalk Ice Arena, which also rents some of its time for NNHA games. “Today I have 17 contracts. I just don’t have more time for them.”

Playing in a recreational adult hockey league doesn’t come cheap.

Much of the equipment must be shipped in from Canada or the East Coast, and ice time is expensive and difficult to come by.

According to an NNHA brochure given to each member: “A new hockey player can expect to spend at least $250 for outfitting.”

Membership fees can also be costly. The NNHA offers an eight-week training course and screens its applicants before assigning them to divisions of equal abilities. Players pay between $238 and $268 for 16-20 games, depending on their ability. A one-time registration fee of $25 is also assessed.

The LACHA charges $77 for each seven games and also assesses a $15 membership fee. All players must supply their own uniforms, as well as mandatory safety equipment.

In a hockey player’s eyes, however, the fun of competing outweighs the cost.

But cost is only one problem. If you want to play badly enough, be prepared to be a night owl.

A clash with figure skating often creates scheduling problems for adult hockey leagues. It’s not uncommon for play to be restricted to after 10 p.m. on weeknights because that’s the only time available. Some leagues have been known to start at midnight or later.

In Palm Desert, hockey is allowed on Sunday nights. But the players get just one practice session a week--on Wednesday--and they can’t have the ice until after 10 p.m. This fall, the Chalet has a four-team league on Sundays with games at 7:30 and 9 p.m.

As in other areas, many of the players in Palm Desert drive more than an hour one way for 90 minutes on the ice. The Chalet is two hours away from the nearest rinks in Ontario, San Diego or Blue Jay.

“You got to get out and go for it,” said Richard Chester, 34, a transplant from Montreal. “Any hockey player would go a long way to play hockey. Hockey players have brain damage.”

Babinec agreed.

“Hockey players are crazy,” he said.

The players range from construction workers, to small-business owners, to stockbrokers, to a country music disc jockey, to firefighters from the mountains miles away. A handful of Marines from the base at Twentynine Palms regularly make the two-hour round trip.

“Driving that much is a sacrifice the guys must make to play good hockey,” said Peter Dowd, a transplant from New Jersey and now a manager at the Pasadena Ice Center, which has LACHA games.

Like most adult-league hockey players in Southern California, a majority of the men in Palm Desert grew up in areas where hockey was king. They lean on their past as a buffer against palm tree culture shock and 80-degree winter afternoons.

James Carter, 20, a firefighter in Hemet, drove more than an hour for his first trip to the Palm Desert rink. He wore a Boston College shirt, which did little to hide his roots. He had no equipment of his own.

“This is worth it,” he said. “My roommate heard there was hockey down here, so we came.” He got plenty of playing time, as the locals shared their gear without reservation.

Ralph Stark, 27, a Marine, grew up playing hockey on the frozen ponds around Chicago. He had to be up at 4:30 the following morning for physical training at the Marine base, but said he wouldn’t miss his Sunday night hockey for anything.

“This keeps him off the streets,” said his wife, Peggy.

Andre Palfalvai, 31, an immigrant from Hungary living in Palm Springs, is a regular.

“If I had a broken leg, I’d still be playing here,” he said.

Tom Letson, 25, of Palm Springs, grew up in Minnesota, where “there was an ice rink every 10 blocks.” He once lost five teeth in a high school game.

“This is a big game for me,” he said.

Craig West, 31, a country music disk jockey in Palm Springs, grew up in the San Fernando Valley. “But most of my friends were Canadians, so I learned to play hockey,” he said. After 7 1/2 years at radio stations in Portland, Ore., and Redding, he landed a job at KCMJ in Palm Springs.

“One of the main reasons I took the job here was because I heard about this ice rink,” he said.

Dave Ruthig, 22, a Marine section leader in a machine gun squad, who grew up in Michigan and started playing hockey at 4, said it simply.

“I’d drive anywhere to play hockey. Hockey is hockey,” he said.