If – no, when – a new arena is eventually built to replace the 72-year-old Sudbury Arena, it will be a reason for celebration in many hockey quarters in our fine city.
Just don’t expect 84-year-old Eddie Marynuk to be among those who will be partying it up. He loves the Old Barn on Elgin.
If the lore is accurate, Oldtimers Hockey in Sudbury has enjoyed the Sunday morning ice slot (9:30 a.m.) since the day the building first welcomed folks onto the ice surface (incidentally, the arena site was formerly occupied by the Central Public School).
And for the better part of the 75 years that he has played hockey, Marynuk has been an Oldtimer. His son, Brian, has joined him for the past four decades, with grandson Darren even making a cameo appearance from time to time.
“I can’t skate as fast as I used to, but I love getting out and meeting up with the boys,” said Marynuk.
There was a time when his skating was something to behold, blessed with a skill-set that would lead legendary local coach Leo Gasparini to arrange for a professional tryout for Marynuk (though the latter would pass, opting to remain home and help with the family, and eventually embrace a 25-year career with Pepsi-Cola).
As is the case with most of the gents from this era, this story started on the outdoor rinks.
“I grew up playing at Riverside Playground, first as a goalie,” Marynuk, the third youngest of nine children, said. “One day I told the coach, ‘We’re not scoring goals, I think I can score some goals.’ The first game I played, I got three goals – and every goal I got, my coach gave me a chocolate bar.”
Ironically, it wasn’t necessarily his ability to put the biscuit in the basket that drew the most raves from his teammates over the years.
“I know from what everyone has told me and some of the newspaper clippings that I have read about him that he was a real playmaker,” said son-in-law Rob Allick, now in his fourth or fifth year with the Oldtimers.
“We still see glimpses of that, for sure. Even when we want him to shoot, he doesn’t want to shoot the puck. He’s always looking, always thinking.”
In large part, that is the reason behind Marynuk not only being able to play until his mid-eighties, but also playing well enough that other forwards still enjoy him out on the wings.
“You play smarter as you get older,” said the man who was part of the Oldtimers League championship squad for 10 years running.
“I was a pretty good skater, pretty fast when I was young,” Marynuk said.
To this day, the undersized sniper who toiled with both the Gatchell midgets and the Sudbury Flyers juniors credits Gasparini as the man who first enlightened him to the finer nuances of the game.
“He was the first one I saw with pylons and he would have us skate through them with the puck, then backwards,” said Marynuk.
“He was the one who showed me how to just flip up a guy’s stick (to take the puck away). I still do that right now.”
While the likes of George Hastie and Bill McDonagh, John Sykes and Nick Evanshen and the current crop of long-time oldtimers (Bob Blanchard, Rick Kirkwood, Bucky Belland and others) all come quickly to mind as hockey acquaintances that Marynuk has relished, it’s the man of the hour who was drawing the most accolades a few weekends ago at Sudbury Arena.
“It was an honour to come out and play with my dad,” recalled Brian, thinking back to his earliest shifts at his side. “I was in awe. He’s slowing down, but he’s still got the smarts. He can read the ice so well. It’s almost like he already knows what is going to happen two plays later.”
“I am always telling all of my friends that I have the opportunity to play with my father-in-law who is 84 years – and it’s awesome,” added Allick.
And as for some parting words of advice to those who join him in the room but still have two decades or more before they can say they played into their eighties, Marynuk offers the following: “keep on trucking; keep going until you know you’re finished.”
Randy Pascal is a sportswriter in Greater Sudbury. Pursuit is made possible by our Community Leaders Program.
