EELS of Death; From the Coach's view:

From the Coach’s view:

I knew this tournament was going to be something special. From the preplanning, the many fans driving the long distance to Bel Mont, eating a piece of eel before we arrived for “good luck”, and we had our own security group, which of course included T. We had 36 cases of beer just to get there and all of the contraband needed in case we need to stay an extra week or so(list is too long for this blog), and our mascot, Jerry the live Eel.. We had one MIA from security that never made it to the games; Uncle Don. Last seen, I don’t remember!


I remember arriving at the Bel Mont sports arena where the Pittsburg Coach, Mark Madden, met me and said: “Coach; I want to show you something inside”. He took me to a giant trophy case, which was over 6 foot high and at least 5 ft wide, and was completely filled with trophies. In the middle of the case was a space that he had cleared and he told me that was the spot to place the trophy after his team beat the Eels. This seemed to add a personal touch to this tournament, one that motivated me more then any other game or tournament. I wanted to make sure the EELS took it from him.


The Canadians game was perhaps my greatest moment as a coach and the most fun. It was also what I consider to be one of my best coaching jobs. I thought the Canadian team was the best skilled team in the tournament. A team with semi pro hockey players, big, great stick handlers, and they all seemed to understand the game, and made very few positional mistakes. As was stated from a previous story, the Canadians would intentionally make a team wait for them; this makes players edgy waiting especially when the game should have already started. A great psychological factor that I wish I would have thought of. I watched each game they played, while the rest of the EELS players relaxed, tended wounds, or just got rest for the next game. Ok, that’s not true; they were all drinking the 36 cases of beer, which I should have been doing (damn Mark). Our game and some of our players would also be affected by the Canadian ploy of lateness. After our normal warm ups, the players gathered as the clock counted down to less then a minute to start. I noticed that the Canadian team was not even in the arena. I walked outside and saw them all sitting out there, laughing and one said do you think we should go in yet? They saw me and I laughed and said, it won’t really matter. I went inside and immediately went over to the ref and said I want you to make sure they get hit with a double game delay; they are just sitting out there intentionally being late. I went back to the other end of the arena where our team was and Fus came up and said to me; Coach, WTF, what’s going on, we need to get going now! I saw that he was really up tight and knew I had to do something to keep our minds off this psychological ploy. I ordered everyone onto the Canadian blue line, as we stood in a single file all across the line, I told them to start pounding their sticks when the Canadians came inside the rink. I remember Steve Delinger saying to me, “Coach this is going to be embarrassing if we lose”. I told him, don’t worry, we will not lose. As they entered they looked at us, and later I heard one say, these guys are really serious… a smile came to my face, Fus was calm down and their ploy backfired. We had the edge. I again ran over to the ref and said they are 5 minutes late; I want the penalty to be 5. We did get the power play and I immediately changed our starting line to our best scoring personnel and we went after them at a pace I hadn’t seen from the Eels all tournament. I guess I wasn’t the only one that wanted to win. Our fans were great and shouted “USA, USA, USA”. I am not sure who started the USA chant but I would guess T did or he was influential. The entire stands were filled for this game as we were both undefeated. Almost all of the fans were from the USA and chanted the same chant over and over. I felt like this was the Olympics. It was a great feeling.


As mentioned before, Craig Rice had signed up to play for the Eels several weeks before the tournament, with less then half hour from our leaving Lancaster, Craig called and said he wasn’t going to play for us and that he was going to play against us. We were now short a defenseman and ready to leave. This really peed me off and others. Thank goodness Tommy agreed to play and he played one of the best tournaments that I remember him playing. When I saw Rice out on the rink, I ask Bobby Riff to go over and slash Rice and tell him it was from me. Rife, seemed more then willing to carry out his Coach’s order, and I must say he performed quite well. After the slash, Rice looked over at me and I waived and laughed at him. For years, if he seen me at South, he would not look or talk too me. Of course after the game I shook hands with Coach Mark and mentioned he might want to reorganize the trophy case. Thank you Eels of Death.