Stanley Cup Stops in La Crescenta
Dutch Hiller introduced an old friend at last Friday morning’s ROMEO (Real Old Men Eating Out) meeting. The old friend, Stanley, stopped by the La Crescenta Burger King during a summer-long tour of the United States and Canada.
Hiller and Stanley go way back, back to the 1939 and 1940 hockey season when the National Hockey League team Hiller played for, the New York Rangers, won the famed Stanley Cup.
Ever since the Montreal Amateur Athletic Association won the Stanley Cup in 1893, the NHL has made it a tradition for each player of the winning team to spend 24 hours with the cup. This summer, Philip Pritchard, the trophy curator and self-proclaimed Keeper of the Cup, has led the Stanley Cup Alumni Tour, toting the trophy around so former winners can spend a second day with the silvery Stanley.
Pritchard said only three of Hiller’s teammates are still alive and only one alumnus visited this summer was older than the 90-year-old Hiller.
When Hiller received a phone call from Pritchard, announcing the Alumni Tour, he knew exactly what he wanted to do with the Cup. He wanted to show it to his friends in the ROMEO group.
“[Hiller] had said, ‘I want to come to Burger King because I’m here every day.’
“I’ve never been to Burger King with the Stanley,” Pritchard said.
“When you’re Canadian well, I’ve seen it in pictures, but I’ve never seen it in person,” Hiller’s daughter Rosemarie Anderson said as she wiped away tears prompted by seeing her father’s name engraved on the Stanley Cup. “It’s wonderful for him. It’s exciting for me. Hockey’s been his life.”
Anderson, now a resident of Utah, befriended one of the ROMEO men while she was a bank teller in La Crescenta. She said she was glad to make the trip from her new home state to see her father’s ROMEO friends and that she wasn’t surprised he wanted to share the Stanley Cup with them.
“They’re wonderful. They’re wonderful to him,” she said.
“We have a very nice group here,” said Al Bender, who makes up the nucleus of the ROMEO group with Hiller, Angelo Chiarot and Jerry Peterson. Other members fill in seats in the back corner of the restaurant when possible.
The fast-food restaurant’s manager, Elena Vallas, said she can usually tell by looking at her parking lot how many ROMEOs are inside socializing over senior-priced cups of coffee.
“There’s times you come in here and there are no spaces. They’re here every day. They all come here at the same time,” she said. “In all Burger Kings there’s a group of people who get together,” she said. She looked at her husband, Rick, who manages Foothill Door and Window across the street. They should know. They met at a Burger King in Burbank.
While one of the ROMEOs poured sugar into Hiller’s coffee for him, the former athlete autographed a caricature for a La Crescenta boy and recounted his decade as a pro hockey player. The Stanley Cup gleamed as it sat on top of the table Friday morning.
“I’m very proud of my dad. He’s always been a real humble man,” said Anderson, who has a sister, Patricia Ornelas, who lives in La Crescenta.
“He’s lived a wonderful life. [He’s] a neat man,” added ROMEO member Jim Burton’s wife, Gwendolyn.