The Mayor of Muckerville sits on a stool in a suburban Minneapolis ice rink hold- ing court. Shjon Podein is yucking it up and slapping backs. Great guffaws roll around deep inside him and then move up . . . up . . . up . . . and detonate in the rink lobby as he regales the hockey moms and dads around him with stories from his one-of-a-kind hockey odyssey. During his decadelong career in the NHL, Podein was one of the most beloved third-line players.
He was never the fastest or biggest or strongest or most gifted player on the four NHL teams he played for between 1992 and 2003, but he was tough, and hockey toughness comes in many shapes and forms. There are the fighters, of course, who practice the dark arts of the sport, punching and slashing and bashing and intimidating opponents. Then there are the players who battle through horrific injuries for the good of the team.Then there are the players like Podein, who are just extremely tough to play against.
For the entirety of his career, Podein was known as a sandpaper guy, a gritty player whose main job was to rub opponents down the hard way, doing everything he could to take the shine right out of their stars. He was up in the opponent’s kitchen, their comfort zone, grabbing and sticking, scrumming, and chirping smack talk. Every team in the league has a player or an entire line whose whole goal is to make life miserable for the opponent’s top line, hitting them at every turn, shift after shift.They’re often anonymous players who are only appreciated by their hometown fans and are offhandedly referred to simply as grinders or plumbers or scrappers or, as in Podein’s case, muckers. These third-line players toil in the hockey trenches, literally leaving skin in the game, and then they are gone, never to be heard from again.
What makes Podein the Mayor of Muckerville is that his turbulent and abrasive on-ice playing style was mixed with an off-ice personality that was equal parts Jeff Spicoli and Evel Knievel with a dash of The Big Lebowski sprinkled in for good mea- sure. He was both a practical joker and a scrapper, a wild-eyed cartoon character with real-life wounds, a dude of the highest ilk who’ll tell you that playing in 699 NHL games and winning the Stanley Cup with the Colorado Avalanche in 2001 were all nice, but what he’s most proud of is his 25 Foundation, which he started to help sick kids.
Podein’s career was a traveling circus of sorts that began in southern Minnesota and then hit the beaches of California, only to return to the Midwest, where he en- gaged in a one-man Cannonball Run, driving back and forth to play hockey at a col- lege that initially didn’t want him. His professional career started in the Edmonton Oilers’ organization, where he yo-yoed back and forth between their minor league team in Nova Scotia and the Oilers in Alberta. Then Podein hit and scratched and clawed his way into a permanent roster spot in the NHL and stayed in the top league, including three full seasons with the Philadelphia Flyers. After becoming a forechecking folk hero in Philly he was traded to Colorado and won the Cup as a feral, bearded whirling dervish. He was beloved by fans and teammates for his stout work ethic and unrelenting willingness to go hard into the dirty areas of the ice rink. This led to multiple scars and injuries and getting tangled up with a slew of legendary NHL tough guys.
If you take a close look past Podein’s jovial personality, you’ll see that a third- line mucker like him doesn’t leave the game unscathed. In his role, his body paid a heavy price, and he is deeply scarred. Some of the markings are clearly visible, and some are hidden on his face and mouth by a thick tuft of blond stubble. But each one of these scars has a story, and Podein is happy to oblige you with any of them.
“The curved scar over my left eye is from a wound cut so deep it reached my skull,” Podein says as calmly as a man describing his grocery list. “There is a chipped tooth that’s been repaired twice but kept on getting knocked out, so I said the hell with it and just left it chipped.”
As Podein talks, ears perk up. Dads normally bored stiff by yet another youth sports practice stop scanning their cell phones for a second and listen to Podein as he revs up a story.
“Please don’t bring up the time that big farm boy Jeff Beukeboom beat the living tar out of me,” Podein says flatly. Then a thick laugh rolls out.
Two dads standing behind him in the lobby lean back and start hooting. Every- one loves Podes.
EVEN ON THIS RIPE summer day in the Twin Cities, the ice rink in suburban Minneapolis is full of skaters. The humid air outside is as thick as soup, and sum- mer pummels its way inside, crushing the frigid rink air and fogging the lobby win- dows over. Podein’s golf shirt, cargo shorts, and flip-flops are standard-issue dad apparel. He watches his seven-year-old son play hockey through both the lobby viewing windows and the Plexiglas around the rink, which gives the appearance that his son is playing hockey in an aquarium. Podein wipes away the fog on the viewing window and then applauds his son’s efforts and waves at him at every turn. Every couple of minutes two large steel doors at the end of the ice rink lobby swing open, and the riotous summer squeals of the kids in the adjacent outdoor pool fill the lobby and laughter ricochets off the cold concrete walls. The doors slam shut, and in an instant the laughter is gone. In its wake is only the sound of
pucks tink-tink-tinking off the Plexiglas.
At the end of a long drill, Podein’s son slides up against the glass and waves at him again, a wide Cheshire-cat smile stretching out and over a chunk of mouth guard. As the son starts yet another skating drill, his smile recedes slowly. Podein feels it; he shrugs his shoulders because he knows all too well what it feels like to have your lungs burning out there on the ice.
“I know, son,” Podein says sympathetically to himself as he gives his boy an- other wave of encouragement. “You’ve been doing line drills for forty-five minutes. I get it. I’ve been there.”
Among the swirl of jerseys and cones and bleeping whistles Podein finds his son again and enthusiastically waves at him. It’s not hard to spot Podein’s son, ei- ther. Junior’s the spitting image of his father, right down to the shock of blond hair, the wild-eyed gleam in his eyes, and the number 25 on the back of his uniform. Podein watches Junior burst through the drills, and gives no mind to the fact that he’s the smallest player on the ice. In addition to the looks Junior inherited from his dad, he also got a healthy dose of the unrelenting hustle, drive, and reckless abandon that made Podes such a popular role player.
According to the elder Podein, when it comes to hockey, there is one striking difference between father and son.
He was never the fastest or biggest or strongest or most gifted player on the four NHL teams he played for between 1992 and 2003, but he was tough, and hockey toughness comes in many shapes and forms. There are the fighters, of course, who practice the dark arts of the sport, punching and slashing and bashing and intimidating opponents. Then there are the players who battle through horrific injuries for the good of the team.Then there are the players like Podein, who are just extremely tough to play against.
For the entirety of his career, Podein was known as a sandpaper guy, a gritty player whose main job was to rub opponents down the hard way, doing everything he could to take the shine right out of their stars. He was up in the opponent’s kitchen, their comfort zone, grabbing and sticking, scrumming, and chirping smack talk. Every team in the league has a player or an entire line whose whole goal is to make life miserable for the opponent’s top line, hitting them at every turn, shift after shift.They’re often anonymous players who are only appreciated by their hometown fans and are offhandedly referred to simply as grinders or plumbers or scrappers or, as in Podein’s case, muckers. These third-line players toil in the hockey trenches, literally leaving skin in the game, and then they are gone, never to be heard from again.
What makes Podein the Mayor of Muckerville is that his turbulent and abrasive on-ice playing style was mixed with an off-ice personality that was equal parts Jeff Spicoli and Evel Knievel with a dash of The Big Lebowski sprinkled in for good mea- sure. He was both a practical joker and a scrapper, a wild-eyed cartoon character with real-life wounds, a dude of the highest ilk who’ll tell you that playing in 699 NHL games and winning the Stanley Cup with the Colorado Avalanche in 2001 were all nice, but what he’s most proud of is his 25 Foundation, which he started to help sick kids.
Podein’s career was a traveling circus of sorts that began in southern Minnesota and then hit the beaches of California, only to return to the Midwest, where he en- gaged in a one-man Cannonball Run, driving back and forth to play hockey at a col- lege that initially didn’t want him. His professional career started in the Edmonton Oilers’ organization, where he yo-yoed back and forth between their minor league team in Nova Scotia and the Oilers in Alberta. Then Podein hit and scratched and clawed his way into a permanent roster spot in the NHL and stayed in the top league, including three full seasons with the Philadelphia Flyers. After becoming a forechecking folk hero in Philly he was traded to Colorado and won the Cup as a feral, bearded whirling dervish. He was beloved by fans and teammates for his stout work ethic and unrelenting willingness to go hard into the dirty areas of the ice rink. This led to multiple scars and injuries and getting tangled up with a slew of legendary NHL tough guys.
If you take a close look past Podein’s jovial personality, you’ll see that a third- line mucker like him doesn’t leave the game unscathed. In his role, his body paid a heavy price, and he is deeply scarred. Some of the markings are clearly visible, and some are hidden on his face and mouth by a thick tuft of blond stubble. But each one of these scars has a story, and Podein is happy to oblige you with any of them.
“The curved scar over my left eye is from a wound cut so deep it reached my skull,” Podein says as calmly as a man describing his grocery list. “There is a chipped tooth that’s been repaired twice but kept on getting knocked out, so I said the hell with it and just left it chipped.”
As Podein talks, ears perk up. Dads normally bored stiff by yet another youth sports practice stop scanning their cell phones for a second and listen to Podein as he revs up a story.
“Please don’t bring up the time that big farm boy Jeff Beukeboom beat the living tar out of me,” Podein says flatly. Then a thick laugh rolls out.
Two dads standing behind him in the lobby lean back and start hooting. Every- one loves Podes.
EVEN ON THIS RIPE summer day in the Twin Cities, the ice rink in suburban Minneapolis is full of skaters. The humid air outside is as thick as soup, and sum- mer pummels its way inside, crushing the frigid rink air and fogging the lobby win- dows over. Podein’s golf shirt, cargo shorts, and flip-flops are standard-issue dad apparel. He watches his seven-year-old son play hockey through both the lobby viewing windows and the Plexiglas around the rink, which gives the appearance that his son is playing hockey in an aquarium. Podein wipes away the fog on the viewing window and then applauds his son’s efforts and waves at him at every turn. Every couple of minutes two large steel doors at the end of the ice rink lobby swing open, and the riotous summer squeals of the kids in the adjacent outdoor pool fill the lobby and laughter ricochets off the cold concrete walls. The doors slam shut, and in an instant the laughter is gone. In its wake is only the sound of
pucks tink-tink-tinking off the Plexiglas.
At the end of a long drill, Podein’s son slides up against the glass and waves at him again, a wide Cheshire-cat smile stretching out and over a chunk of mouth guard. As the son starts yet another skating drill, his smile recedes slowly. Podein feels it; he shrugs his shoulders because he knows all too well what it feels like to have your lungs burning out there on the ice.
“I know, son,” Podein says sympathetically to himself as he gives his boy an- other wave of encouragement. “You’ve been doing line drills for forty-five minutes. I get it. I’ve been there.”
Among the swirl of jerseys and cones and bleeping whistles Podein finds his son again and enthusiastically waves at him. It’s not hard to spot Podein’s son, ei- ther. Junior’s the spitting image of his father, right down to the shock of blond hair, the wild-eyed gleam in his eyes, and the number 25 on the back of his uniform. Podein watches Junior burst through the drills, and gives no mind to the fact that he’s the smallest player on the ice. In addition to the looks Junior inherited from his dad, he also got a healthy dose of the unrelenting hustle, drive, and reckless abandon that made Podes such a popular role player.
According to the elder Podein, when it comes to hockey, there is one striking difference between father and son.
0 comments: