Annual event attracts Clark players from across the decades
The knees were creakier; the ankles weaker. And the backs? Let’s not even talk about the backs.
Okay, so the bodies of the men and women who laced up their skates for the 45th annual Alumni Hockey Game, held December 6 at Worcester’s DCU Center, may not have cooperated as they did during their student days — but no matter. The players’ passion for the game had not cooled, and the prospect of sharing some memories, and plenty of laughs, over dinner later that evening was enough to see them through the competition against younger opponents (Clark’s club hockey team).
Longtime Clark trustee Lee Plave ’80, who organizes the event in partnership with University Advancement, and who is its unofficial historian, once described the Alumni Hockey Game as “a conversation interrupted”: an opportunity first and foremost to reconnect with friends over their shared Clark, and hockey, heritage. The stuff on the ice provides an excuse to reenergize those conversations.
“Even during the pandemic, we made sure to do a Zoom call with each other,” Plave recalls. “We’ve had a really nice thing going for the last 45 years, and we do it largely because the folks like to come back and be with one another. That’s the joy of it — to have a friendly competition in a wonderful environment, and just be together.
“And 45 years is not an insignificant accomplishment,” he adds. “It’s about a third of the accumulated history of the University.”
Plave and several of his contemporaries emerged from a different era of hockey at Clark, when, for a few years in the late 70s and early 80s, the University had its own varsity team under coach Scott Abbey ’74. Clark competed against the likes of Navy, Wesleyan, Trinity, Amherst, MIT, and Tufts in the former Eastern College Athletic Conference. He recalls the 1978 season when Clark bolted out to a conference-leading 7-2 record until the season was temporarily halted after the Harvard Civic Center roof collapsed due to the Blizzard of ’78 and heavy snow buildup.
“None of the arenas were open for about a month, and when we came back, we were flat,” he remembers. “We probably went 2-15 the rest of that season.”
But there were plenty of good times for Clark hockey. A thrilling overtime victory over WPI; a victory against Southeastern Massachusetts University that was so contentious the team needed a police escort to the highway for the drive back to Worcester; games played at a (long-gone) Webster Square rink whose ice was surrounded by chicken wire instead of glass; playing the inaugural game in the University of Maine’s new arena; a club championship in the late 1980s.
This is the second year Clark was able to secure the DCU Center for the alumni game, which typically has been played at smaller venues in and around Worcester. Getting onto the ice in a professional rink is an added thrill for the participants, “especially for the kids” on the Clark club team, Plave acknowledges.
The game used to be held in the spring but was shifted to the fall years ago to coincide with the 2003 Athletics Hall of Fame induction of the late Steve Cooperman ’80, who ended his hockey career as Clark’s all-time scoring leader. Plave easily ticks off names of players who regularly return for the contest (as professional and personal obligations allow), like Tom Dolan Jr. ’79, Joe Fitzpatrick ’80, Josh Lebenger ’80, Dave Kahl ’81, MBA ’84, Scott Love ’81 (and his second generation Clarkie, Ian Love ’14, MBA ’15), Steve Kennedy ’88, Victor Leong ’02, Will McNary ’95, Matt Holmes ’06, Ben Mintz ’15, and Matthew Sullivan ’17, M.S. ’18.
This is no ordinary game. There are no formal referees to keep the peace — and certainly no police escorts are necessary. The skating, shooting, and passing are solid; the checking, nonexistent. And after the final buzzer lies the promise of dinner with friends, typically held on the Clark campus.
As for the Alumni Hockey Game’s prospects for the future? Plave’s email list of his comrades on blades nears 200 names, and he’s not shy about recruiting anyone willing to take the ice or just have a conversation. There are more shots on net to be taken; more stories to share.
