BREMERTON — Young or old, rookie or veteran — the skills of the inaugural summer season of the Bremerton Adult Hockey League (BAHL) are all over the ice Sunday nights at the Bremerton Ice Arena.
“Trying to find out their skill level? We’re just trying to figure out the names of our own teammates,” joked Dale Pilon. “Actually the competition is very good. There’s some guys that have played some good hockey out there.”
Pilon is an expert at reading player skill levels, having played hockey throughout his youth before advancing to playing youth hockey in Canada and making his way to a few seasons with the Seattle Breakers (now the Thunderbirds) semi-pro team and three years in college.
When he moved to Bremerton in 1984, he hung up his skates until two winters ago when he played 3-on-3 hockey on a pint-sized rink in Bend, Ore. Pilon said he was thrilled to learn there was a rink being built in Bremerton and now volunteers as a coach for the kids’ teams.
Not to say these guys who come out on Sunday nights to play in the four teams of the BAHL don’t have game.
“There’s been a surprise in the talent we’ve had come out. I expected most of the guys to be at the beginner level — guys that wanted to play hockey but didn’t know where to go,” said BAHL director Jon Magers, who like many local players, drove to Tacoma to get his hockey fix.
The rules on the ice have been slightly changed to keep the players safe and the game moving. There’s still three periods but the 20-minute clock never stops except for one time out per side (it takes roughly 75-90 minutes to get a whole game in.) Two-line passing is OK, checking your opponent into the wall is not.
“We have had one penalty in three complete games by being tough up front and setting the standard early by letting the guys know this stuff won’t be tolerated,” Magers said.
And parity is priority No. 1 to keep the teams balanced.
“It’s been close outside of a 10-2 win,” Magers said. “But then we traded one of the better guys from the winning team for a lesser-skilled player on another team at the end of the game to try and even it up. I’ll keep doing that throughout the summer to get it even and then in winter I’m hoping the guys put their own teams together and play at different levels.”
And since summer isn’t the best time to see the league at full strength (there are about 80 guys registered so far) there’s hope more closeted hockey players are out there.
“‘I haven’t skated in 14 years,’ is something I hear all the time,” Magers said. “Then the guy steps on the ice and I tell them they can fit in anywhere.”
He added that one segment of the local population he hasn’t seen many players come from is Navy sailors.
“We haven’t gotten as many Navy guys out as I expected,” Magers said. “There has been only a few so far. I believe there’s a lot of sailors that just don’t know we’re here. There’s guys coming from other places that have played hockey their whole lives that would be here if they knew about it. I would like to see the military, like they do at Fort Lewis, put a team together, or two or three teams even, and come out and play.”
Magers said he hopes by the time the winter season rolls around, the players will have themselves organized into the five different skill levels similar to hockey leagues everywhere.
And all that should just make things even more fun for a group that already is showing signs of cohesion.
“I was telling my friends I feel like a kid again,” Pilon said.
“I’m 43-years-old and I feel good. Every time we come off the ice we always tell each other how much fun we’re having and how often do you hear a 30-40 year old guy saying they’re having fun?” he added.
