Laying Down The Law - On Ice

With two minutes left in the first period, Scott Fraser glanced at the hockey rink scoreboard. His team, Griffiths Accounting, was ahead, 3-0.

Someone told him that the other team, Corpus Delict-ice, was made up of attorneys.

“Oh no,” Fraser groaned. “I hope they don’t start tripping us.”

The game ended with Griffiths winning, 8-4. The lawyers told one another the outcome will be different when the teams meet the next time.

That’s what attorneys always say.

Most days, Corpus Delict-ice’s five prosecutors and three defense attorneys face off in Spokane courtrooms over serious legal issues.

But one evening a week, they drop their briefcases and strap on hip pads and helmets, becoming Spokane’s first rec-league hockey team comprised mostly of lawyers.

So far, few opposing teams know who Corpus Delict-ice is.

Except for the name - a pun on the legal phrase “corpus delicti,” which means “body of the crime” - the only other hint is a human shape on the team’s jerseys.

It’s a chalk-outline figure like those found on the ground at crime scenes. On the shirts, there’s a hockey stick next to the outline.

Few rec-league hockey teams here are made up of people mostly from one profession, said defense attorney Kevin O’Shaughnessy, a board member of Spokane Recreation Hockey.

In the past, all league teams were formed through a player draft system. That meant most teams were an assortment of people who didn’t know one another well.

This year, the league changed that rule, allowing group entries.

The league has approximately 500 players in four divisions. The winter session runs until March.

Corpus Delict-ice competes in the league’s average-skill Upper-C category. Like all rec teams here, they’re not allowed to body-check opposing players.

The team’s only female attorney is Patti Walker, a tough prosecutor who has spent most of the past five years targeting pornography shops in the area and taking operators of those X-rated businesses to court.

Like most of the other team members, she played hockey as a teen and now uses it as a way to exercise and relieve stress.

“I think attorneys like hockey because it’s a game of fine lines, like the law,” Walker said.

In court, attorneys often are contesting issues in gray areas between absolute right and wrong.

Hockey has the same need for balance and spontaneity, she said.

“Though we can’t check, you have to do some shoving and pushing. You have to send a message sometimes,” Walker said.

“You have to know how hard to be aggressive without going over the line.”

In the game against Griffiths Accounting, the 5-foot-2-inch Walker drew a two-minute boarding penalty for interfering with a much larger opponent.

“I took a chance because I knew if I didn’t get in his way, he’d get to the puck first,” Walker explained later.

After Walker left the penalty box, Dutch Wetzel, one of the defense attorneys on the team, skated over and greeted her as “Bruiser.”

Deputy Spokane County Prosecutor Brian O’Brien pulled together Corpus Delict-ice last fall. He drew on other attorneys who had been playing with him or against him on other teams.

Besides Walker and O’Brien, the other prosecutors are Jack Driscoll, Bob Jalovi and Larry Haskell.

In addition to Wetzel and O’Shaughnessy, the other defense attorney on the squad is county assistant public defender Steven Marsalis.

O’Brien, who has been an attorney for 15 years, said the league has revived his love for hockey.

Growing up in Calgary, Alberta, he played the game often. But by high school, he had drifted off to other sports.

He rediscovered hockey two years ago when he was asked to play during the summer rec-hockey league in Spokane.

“I’m a lot better attorney than hockey player. But now that I’m playing again, it’s turned out to be more fun than I remember it,” O’Brien said.

Having prosecutors and their natural nemeses, defense attorneys, skating side by side has fueled joshing and jabbing.

“Any time there’s a penalty, we joke that the prosecutors will be back the next day to file a complaint,” said Marsalis.

Said O’Shaughnessy: “What makes it fun is most of us here have a lot in common. With some hockey teams I’ve been on, the only time you’d see the other teammates was during a game.”

Wetzel, who’s approaching 50, still plays a serious and intelligent game. He’s considered a steadying influence on the ice, a precise passer always aware of his teammates’ positions.

He also is a precise needler of his teammates - especially if he can play the defense-attorneys-vs.-prosecutors card.

While leaving their night game two weeks ago, Walker learned that someone had stolen her Jeep from the ice rink’s parking lot.

She phoned police and waited while her teammates commiserated.

Wetzel tendered his concern but not before delivering a professional jibe: “While the police were out busting video arcades, the thieves were over here, stealing your car.”

In last week’s game, Wetzel scored one of Corpus Delect-ice’s four goals. He took 10 seconds to bask in the moment, enjoying the neverdying glee of watching the puck slide past the goalie.

“I guess I’m competitive in court. I know I’m competitive playing hockey,” he said. “They’re both great.”