A slice of winter

Remember winter? Remember complaining about numb feet and frosty fingers? But now muggy afternoons and hot nights sit atop the gripe list. A group of men — and occasionally some women — capture a slice of winter each Thursday at the Planet Ice skating rink in Spokane Valley. The players take breaks from their jobs as attorneys, entrepreneurs and nurses to play a game of pick-up ice hockey in a building so cold it reminds us to appreciate summer as long as we can.

Of course, it doesn’t take long for the players to heat up. They scramble over the ice reaching for the puck, sometimes tumbling over one another. Since the men trickle in on their own schedules, the early birds get the best workout, playing 3-on-3 the full length of the rink until more arrive to sub in.

“Movie star, are you ready?” Dan Tylman, 37, teases Nate Strom, 20, who’s being interviewed by a reporter.

Strom jumps into the rink and joins the game.

“Hockey’s a sport you can take with you,” Strom had been saying. “A lot of these guys are over 40.”

In fact, some are over 60 and one man who sometimes comes out is in his 80s, Tylman says.

Noon Hockey, as it’s called, is a much different scene than Spokane Chiefs games or even league games. There are no fans. There rarely are fights. The players aren’t particularly competitive. They don’t even keep score. Some are there for the workout. Others are there to play the sport that first tempted them as toddlers.

Pete Schweda, a Spokane Valley attorney, plays to spend time with his sons, Sam, 23, and Tom 25.

“It’s been great being able to play with them,” Pete Schweda says. “I don’t think a lot of parents have a chance to play a recreational sport with their kids like that.”

Early on, hockey games played an important role in the Schweda family, starting with Pete and his wife JoAnn’s first date. Sam said his mother is a good sport when it comes to putting up with their passion.

“It gives her time to do whatever she wants,” he said. Sam concedes, though, it’ll be tough to find a wife who’s just as understanding when that time comes.

JoAnn Schweda does have one rule for her husband.

“I lost a tooth in front 10 years ago, so my wife makes me wear this,” Pete Schweda says, pointing to his face mask; $3,000 worth of bridgework tends to prompt such rules.

But Pat Stanford, 50, an emergency-room nurse at Kootenai Medical Center, says hockey is relatively safe.

“There are fewer injuries in this sport than in others,” he says. Stanford says his medical skills are rarely needed, but at this moment his hockey skills are, so he hops the wall and skates into the game.

The older players say there’s less impact on the knees than running or other activities because of the gliding motion of skating. They seem to brush off the impact of hitting other players, though.

The sport contradicts itself. One second, it’s a graceful dance between player and puck. The men elegantly bat the small disc back and forth on either side of the stick.

Then—SMASH—a player hits the ice. Shavings cling to his pants, like a spilled Sno-cone.

Several of the men have hockey in their soul. Pete Schweda grew up on Spokane’s South Hill and learned the sport on Manito and Cannon Hill parks’ ponds. Tylman, a sales representative, was raised in Michigan where he also played on ponds and lakes.

James Black, 47, got into hockey when his 5-year-old son asked to play several years ago.

“I do it for exercise, to keep in shape,” he says. “If you lay off for a long time, it’s hard to come back, especially at my age.”

Black, an insurance agent, also plays to get a break from the tension at work, he says.

Tom Cooney, 57, plays simply because “It’s a blast,” he said.

Hockey might not be as mainstream as baseball and football — especially during the summer — but players say it enjoys a healthy following in the Spokane area.

“Hockey here, in Spokane in particular, is more well-entrenched than anywhere else” in the Northwest, Tylman says. “It’s actually pretty good hockey. But I’m old. Everything’s good now.”