The mind is willing, so the body doesn’t have much choice

Mike Duggan and his hockey buddies were strapping on their gear one recent morning when their banter turned, as it often does, to the topic of joint replacements.

Duggan, 74, the proud owner of a prosthetic hip, marveled at the sheer number of titanium body parts in the dressing room. He gestured toward Mitch Boriskin, who was swinging skates on the opposite wall.

I don’t think there’s an original part in you, Duggan said.

Boriskin, 70, smiled. Two fake knees, a spinal cord stimulator, 25 surgeries, he began as if reciting box scores.

And one lobotomy, Duggan interrupted as laughter rippled across the room.

At least all this titanium was put to good use. Their team, Oregon Old Growth, had joined dozens of others from across North America to compete this month in the Snoopy Senior Hockey Tournament in Santa Rosa, Calif., about 60 miles north of San Francisco.

The tournament has become a summer ritual for hundreds of recreational players, ages 40 to 90, who gather each year at the Redwood Empire Ice Arena, where Peanuts creator and lifelong hockey fanatic Charles M. Schulz founded the event in 1975.

By now, everyone knows what to expect: Skating is slow, wisecracks are exchanged quickly, and laughter flows as freely as beer.

If you like drying the paint, you’re in for a treat, said Larry Meredith, 82, captain of the Berkeley Bears, which is in the tournament’s over-70 division.

Sports can seem like a youth game. Maybe you race through high school, maybe you find a regular pickup game or beer league after college. But eventually families and jobs and many other stresses of adult life pull you away.

However, these older skaters represent a generation that has drifted further and further back in this timeline. They understand how fitness and camaraderie can benefit both body and mind. They hold fast to the games they love, even when their bodies are asking them to reconsider.

You don’t quit because you get old, you get old because you quit, said Rich Haskell, 86, a player from New Port Richey, Fla. A friend of mine died a couple of years ago. He played hockey in the morning, died at night. You can’t do better than that.

The tournament has the uncompromising atmosphere of a week and a half summer camp. RVs and RVs are packed in the arena parking lot, where players drink beer, grill meat, and socialize between games.

The team names this year are California Antiques, Michigan Oldtimers, Seattle Seniles and Colorado Fading Stars, to name a few, nods to the players’ advanced age and developed sense of humor.

We used to be just the Colorado Stars, said Rich Maslow, 74, the team’s goaltender. But then we turned 70.

Maslow and his teammates were scheduled to play that day at 6:30 a.m., an early slot that meant they had to assemble before sunrise.

We all have to get up at 5:30 a.m. to pee anyway, so we might as well play hockey, said Craig Kocian, 78, of Arvada, Colo., as he dressed for the game.

Kocian described himself as an adult-onset hockey syndrome. But many other participants started playing as children and let the game weave itself through the decades of their lives.

Among them was Terry Harper, 83, who played 19 seasons as a defenseman in the NHL. When he retired, he threw away his gear and stayed off the ice for the next 10 years. But in 1992, a neighbor lured him to Santa Rosa, and Harper, who grew up playing in his backyard in Saskatchewan, felt some long-dormant pleasure center reactivate in his brain.

“I came here and had the best time in hockey ever,” said Harper, who, remarkably, won five Stanley Cups with the Montreal Canadiens. There was no pressure, no travel. I discovered that hockey is fun.

Harper, who plays for the Bears, spent time on the ice. First, it took a couple more strokes to change direction than before. But his stick handling and anticipation belied his expertise, and he was all smiles throughout the game despite being hit in the face.

I took the stick to my chin! Harper screamed happily as she skated to the bench and stuck her tongue out to check for blood.

Harper and other players said hockey just made them feel good. It gave them a method and a reason to fight the natural effects of aging.

And by gliding on skates, they could actually generate speed.

If we tried to run, we would get nowhere, Maslow said.

But the players also hinted at something less tangible, some vortex of selfishness and ritualism and sensory memory that lured them back to the ice week after week.

It’s a part of me, and that feeling is really powerful,” Meredith said of playing hockey. Maybe that’s why I stick around because it goes back to going on the field, smelling those smells you can only find in an indoor ice rink, those hockey smells.

Schulz was the same way. He ate breakfast and lunch at the rink he had built and opened in 1969. Spending most days at the drawing board, grinding, he saw his Tuesday night game as something of a spiritual salve.

He used to say, “It’s the only thing that brings me joy,” said Jean Schulz, his widow.

He played until his death, aged 77, in 2000. Many players said they wanted to do the same.

But if the specter of injury and the impermanence of the body hangs over the tournament, the older players are defusing it with dark humor.

Bob Carolan, 82, a retired pulmonologist from Eugene, Ore., recalled an incident about 15 years ago in which he resuscitated a player on the ice who had suffered a heart attack.

Best game I ever made on Snoopy, said Carolan, who ran into the same guy in a tournament 10 years later. He had an implantable defibrillator but still played.

After their early morning game, the Fading Stars got off the ice and took off their gear. There was a case of Coors Light. It was 7:40 a.m. When the visitor noticed the logo of the beer company on the sweaters of the teams, he asked if it was a sponsor.

The only sponsor being sought is Viagra, said Murray Platt, 68, of Denver.

Also catching a cold was Denver’s Dave McCay, 72, who scored four goals in the teams’ opener, sprained his ankle in the second and entered the third in a walker.

That leg had been giving him trouble before he held up the photo with the 12 screws, steel rod and plate in it, and his wife was already starting to question his priorities. But slowing down hasn’t occurred to him.

I’m convinced this will give you a better quality of life, McCay said, leaning on his crutches, even if you limp a little.