It’s Sunday night, and the arena is jam-packed with roaring, cheering fans. The crowd of people cheer and groan with every goal scored and every turnover of the puck, while kids run up kids run excitedly up and down the aisles and press their faces to the glass.
The Sugar Kings are playing their usual home game at the Woolwich Memorial Centre, and as always the fans have turned up to watch.
A short distance away, in the north end of St. Jacobs, another game is taking place. The atmosphere there is a lot more relaxed, and the bleachers almost empty. The South Woolwich Farm Pond League (SWFPL) members are playing their usual weekend game at the St. Jacobs arena.
It’s a casual, easy-going group, and yet the recreation league has been in action regularly for much of the past 50 years. It’s that history and the people behind the goings-on that are the subject of author Brian Hunsberger’s new book, The Spirit of the Camp: the South Woolwich Farm Pond League.
“I think it is an interesting, local story,” says Hunsberger, about the impetus for writing the book. “It’s just a little wedge of local history. It’s not that it was a big, community-shaping event, it’s more about a group of guys who had friendship through playing hockey, and it’s carried on ’til this day.”
Hunsberger was one of the original founders of the league – back when they still actually played on a pond on the family farm. Together with a group of founding members and early supporters of the league, they decided to capture the SWFPL’s 46-year history, presenting a unique slice of local lore.
The group formed a “book committee” to put the story together, with Gary “Doc” Amos, Frank “BiggiE” Esch, Dennis “Dairy” Martin, Ron “Tuber” Bronson, and Brian “Hurc” Hunsberger himself all contributing.
“There’s a lot of recreational hockey leagues, as you know. Just guys who gather through various ways. But I think what distinguishes this league [is] partly its longevity. But also, I would say in large part to the kind of creativity of Gary Amos in particular,” says Hunsberger.
Amos was the one that came up with the nicknames – one of the leagues key distinguishing features. About 136 people played in the league over the past 50 years, and almost all of them were given a nickname. It was a little quirk that helped give the league some character, says Hunsberger, who earned the nom de guerre “Hurricane” (or “Hurc” for short) for his speed on the ice. Hunsberger admits he’s not quite as fast with his skates on as he used to be, but the nickname stuck.
But if people in the wider Woolwich community had heard of the league, it was either by knowing someone who played in SWFPL (a list of all the players in the league over the years, along with their nicknames, is given in the book). Or, more likely, they came to hear of the SWFPL by reading the column the league’s coverage in the former Elmira Independent. This was during the late ’70s, when “Doc” worked at the newspaper. Convincing his editors that reporting on the pond league would give the newspaper a competitive edge over its then-rival, the Elmira Signet, Amos regularly wrote “The SWFPL Report”, which became a popular feature of the paper. People knew if they wanted the latest news on the SWFPL, that the Independent was the place to get it.
“I refer to him in the book as the godfather of the league, which he was in many ways,” says Hunsberger. “And I think it was something which distinguished it from a typical recreational hockey group.”
It was that kind of creativity, as well as that kind of camaraderie, that really kept the SWFPL going all these years, says Berger. In the end, the league was all about having fun and making friends, and its longevity is proof that accomplished that.
The league also faced its challenges. As the SWFPL grew older and matured, so too did its members – from young men to husbands, then fathers. Friends were also lost along the way, like Duane “Toni” Durst, considered “virtually” one of the original members. It was Durst’s passing in 1985, at the young age of 32, that actually spurred the creation of the “Spirit of the Camp” award, after which the book is named.
“I think the main thing is … it was friendship. It was fundamentally about friendship,” says Hunsberger.
“Meeting with a group of people on a weekly basis, who otherwise would probably not be meeting with. So it was a chance to once a week to kind of get away from your weekly home and family and work responsibilities and get out with a group of guys and just play hockey for an hour.”
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