Photos by Glenn Triest
SPORTS
Allan Platt, Al Rosenberg and Mickey Zuroff take a quick breather during a recent game.
Hockey Shtick
STEVE STEIN
Special to The Jewish News
0
n a recent late Sun-
day night, a local tele-
vision station showed
the conclusion of the movie
"Back to the Future II" just
as a group of hockey players
prepared to enter their own
time machine.
The 20 or so men limbered
up on the ice at an otherwise
deserted Oak Park Compu-
ware Ice Arena. They skated,
stretched, chatted with fellow
players and fired shots at the
two goalies.
It was cold and quiet in the
arena. The silence was shat-
tered only by the players'
skates cutting the ice and by
the pucks they shot banging
off the boards and glass and
slapping off the goalies' pads.
The players' uniforms and
equipment ranged from
make-do to sophisticated.
Some of the men looked like
they'd been on skates all their
lives. Others weren't as
sure-footed.
Soon came the moment
they'd been waiting for: the
game began. Up and down
the ice the players went, ex-
changing goals, checks, slap
shots, crisp passes and plays
that didn't come close to
clicking.
One thing was certain.
They sure had fun during the
90-minute session.
It was a typical night for
the Yeshiva Hockey League,
the league which really isn't
a league. It's a "20-year
legacy," said Oak Park resi-
dent Allen Platt, 34, a dentist
and the organizer of the cur-
rent spring season.
The league was born in the
mid-1970s when a group of
friends, most living in Oak
Park but from several area
high schools, started playing
informal games at the Oak
Park arena.
Often, the only available ice
time was at unfathomable
hours of the morning, but it
didn't matter. It still doesn't
faze the players today,
although you won't find them
playing at the crack of dawn.
The league continued
through the - players' high
school, college and profes-
sional school days and it re-
mains strong now despite job
and family responsibilities.
A core group of about a
dozen 30-something players
remains, bolstered by some
younger blood, guys in their
20s. The players reside
throughout the suburban
Detroit area.
Many are professionals
from diverse fields, but
For 20
years, the
Yeshiva
Hockey
League has
been a
source of
fast action
and
times to
remember.
they're also admitted rink
rats who play in organized
hockey leagues in addition to
the YHL.
Most are Jewish, so it's
quite appropriate that play in
the weekly YHL get-to-
gethers begins just after the
High Holy Days and usually
continues until May.
There are two common
denominators among the
YHL players: First, they love
hockey, and they love the
camaraderie of the locker
room and the ice. Second, they
believe the game keeps them
young.
"We walk into the arena
like giddy kids again, but we
leave like tired old men,"
laughed Al Rosenberg, 38, of
Southfield, a free-lance broad-
cast engineer. "We all look
forward to it, though. So
many of these guys are
lawyers and doctors, but in
my eyes, they're still the kids
I grew up with.
"This is the kind of thing
we did when we were growing
up. We found ways to have
fun. I think kids nowadays
are handed too many things
to do on a silver platter like
video games and organized
sports:'
Rosenberg works at many
area sports events and he had
a chance recently to work at
a New York Knicks-Detroit
Pistons NBA playoff game at
the Palace. But he made ar-
rangements to leave after the
third quarter so he could
make it to a YHL session.
"I'd been working so much
that I needed to get some
recreation," explained Rosen-
berg, who organized the
YHEs games this past winter
at the Southfield Civic Center
rink and earned the nick-
name Commish. "I really
wanted to play hockey."
"This isn't like a health
club, where you go to work
out and you may see the same
guys once in a while," Platt
said.
"In our group, you spend a
lot of time with the same
guys, even in the locker room.
It takes a while to put on all
your equipment and then
take it of There's a lot of jok-
ing and kibbitzing in the
locker room, just like in high
school.
"There's nothing like
hockey for getting rid of all
your anxieties and aggres-
sion. A lot of us didn't start
playing until we were in high
school, so maybe we're mak-
ing up for lost timer'
Yes, there have been a few
skirmishes among YHL
players over the years. Scuf-
fles are part of hockey and,
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS 49