SPHL players plan for future off the ice

ORLANDO, FLA – In general, most professional athletes know that their playing careers have a short lifespan. Over the course of time, the body can absorb only so much wear and tear, let alone having to deal with more serious injuries. In physical sports like hockey, the window of opportunity is, for the most part, shorter although guys like Chris Chelios like to see just how far they can go. These days, athletes have to keep one eye on their careers and the other on what they will do after they put the equipment in the back of the closet. For two members of the Knoxville Ice Bears and one player who was with the team until recently, a lot of the thought into post-career employment has been done and they know what they want to do – and it might just surprise some folks. Tim Vitek is a five-year pro hockey player from Dresden, Ontario. He’s played almost 100 games in the CHL and 169 regular season and playoff games in the SPHL.

If you ask his teammates, they’ll tell you Tim is tough as nails but can make a perfect pass or score a highlight-reel goal with the best of them. Vitek’s choice for a post-hockey career could be considered to be motivated by hero worship. It will take a great deal of toughness as well as the analytical skills of a person who is continually thinking ahead. His decision for a job after he hangs up the skates is to become a police officer and the hero he wants to follow is his father – Staff Sergeant Don Vitek. “Obviously it starts with my dad. He’s been a police officer for 37 years back at home (in Chatham-Kent) and still going strong with it,” Vitek said. “I’ve always taken an interest in it. I want to get out in the community because I know the community very well and just (want to help the community) any way I can help out. That’s basically the direction I want to go in.” Vitek’s education at the University of Massachusetts, where he played NCAA Division I hockey, gives him a great start toward achieving his goal. Along the way, he will have to take an exam as well as pass physical and mental tests in order to qualify. Vitek said that being a pro athlete gives him a number of skills that he can transfer over to law enforcement, the main one being working with others. “I think dealing with so many different personalities every season, especially in hockey where you have 18 different hockey players, coaches and the front office. You’re constantly dealing with different personalities day in and day out,” he said. “In policing, you’d be dealing with a whole platoon of different personalities. It will help with being able to deal with some criminals – how they’re going to try to bs you and cut around the corners. I’ll be kind of used to that with playing against different teams.” Of course, being a police officer means that Vitek will be an authority figure in the community in which he serves. Growing up in a home with a law enforcement official and playing organized sports has given him a solid perspective on respecting authority. “I’ve always respected the authority figures (officials). If you look at my game, I’m usually the one with the least amount of PIMs (penalty minutes),” Vitek said. “Not too many things rattle me. I can see both sides and I think that’s a good trait that I have.” Tim’s father worked in Toronto for seven years as an undercover officer. When asked whether he’d prefer to be a beat officer or a detective, he said that either one would be fine but that over time he would like to do both. “I do like using my mind. I like puzzle solving so I think that (detective work) might be something there for the future but you’ve got to definitely put in your time, make your way up and obviously shine at what you do,” he said. “I’m willing and prepared to do that.” Law enforcement isn‘t the only occupation that Don Vitek holds down. When he isn’t patrolling the streets, he is tending to the family farm. Tim has spent recent summers working for an agricultural company and hopes that, in time, he can accomplish the dual careers like his father. “I’d like to kind of do them both – police officer and farming – when it’s all said and done,” he said. “I know it’s a big change from city life and playing hockey but I’m more of a laid-back guy. I like the country life and I hope it all works out.” Tim Vitek’s teammate Donald Melnyk also wants to go into a profession where he can serve others. Hailing from near The Pas, Manitoba, Melnyk is a member of the Opaskwayak Cree Nation. There are approximately 4,000 people on the reserve and another 1,500 living just off the reserve, which is some six hours north of Winnipeg. A four year pro, Melnyk has spent the bulk of his career in the SPHL with the Richmond Renegades, Twin City Cyclones and now theKnoxville Ice Bears. After careful thought, he decided that when his hockey career is over, he‘d like to go back to The Pas and become a physical education teacher. “We’ve got a school on our reserve. There’s two players (from the reserve) playing pro right now. I’d like to be able to give back to the kids,” Melnyk said. “I’d like to be a positive role model and being a gym teacher would be great, working with kids every day.” Melnyk came right out of juniors into the pro game so he will have to go to school following his playing days in order to get the proper certifications to become a teacher. He already knows that some of the things he’s learned while playing hockey will be good things to teach the younger generation. “I can teach the kids about teamwork and how to be positive and stuff,” he said. “Conditioning is very big with my people so I would definitely stress getting everybody in shape, making them run and stuff. We did it as kids so I guess they probably should too.” Given the location of the reserve in northern Manitoba, the winters are generally very harsh (temperatures this time of year are in negative numbers along with a great deal of snow). Despite the weather, Melnyk said there is plenty of outdoor activities a physical education teacher can work with. “There’s things we can do in the cold if it isn‘t freezing cold. Obviously we dress for the weather,” he said. “I’ll get them out cross-country skiing or maybe snow shoeing and stuff. It’s not ridiculously cold during the day and they do dress for the weather.” Possibly the most intriguing choice is that of Tom McMonagle. McMonagle, who grew up in Glenolden, PA, played college hockey at Mercyhurst College before turning pro. He played in the ACHL (St. Pete/Winston-Salem Parrots), UHL (Port Huron), the SEHL (Knoxville), the SPHL (Columbus) and the ECHL (South Carolina) between 2002 and 2006. He left the game only to come back for one more go-around this season, starting in Knoxville where he was until about ten days ago. He was released but within a couple of days was signed by Columbus. At 30 years of age, McMonagle is one of the elder statesmen in the SPHL. It brings with it a deep knowledge of the game but at the same time it also saysthat his time on the ice is growing short. Along the way, McMonagle found the career path he wants to follow and it isn’t something you’d find many pro athletes going into – geographic information systems (GIS). So what exactly is GIS? According to Wikipedia, it is a system that “includes mapping software and its application to remote sensing, land surveying, aerial photography, mathematics, photogrammetry, geography and tools that can be implemented with GIS software”. Boiled down, it is “the merging of cartography and database technology”. “It’s a software program that a lot of large companies use, like the FBI, but it is in the oil and gas industry where we use it. Basically, I put a graphic on a map to display where all of our assets are – pipelines, wells and potential permits that we want to tie into,” McMonagle said. “I put the display on a map so that it is easy for someone to come in and say where are all of our pipelines, who is around us, who can we sell to or take it to or move the gas to. I put it all on a graphics map so you can click on say a picture of 200 pipelines that our company owns, you can click in a certain area and find out how many wells are in the area or how many larger pipelines can we transfer to for future business.” McMonagle came about GIS almost by accident. He had moved to the Houston area to start a business with a friend and on the side he did some volunteer coaching. One parent, Paul Doll, asked McMonagle to start working with his son in private lessons as well as becoming involved in the hockey association that Doll ran. Doll started up a natural gas company and asked if McMonagle would be interested in doing computer work (McMonagle had been a computer major before changing to business management at Mercyhurst) for the new firm. “He (Doll) basically asked me if I had a college degree  and I said yes. It didn’t really matter what it was in. It was just the fact that I had a degree and that I could do something for four years and completed it,” he said. “I didn’t need to have a specific study. It was just a matter of whether I was educated enough to be taught the system. I went to a few classes – the company paid for everything – that got me on board and taught me all the new stuff.” McMonagle did admit that at first, all of the new information was a bit daunting. He said that Doll and his team were very supportive, making sure the “rookie” succeeded. “It wasn’t easy but I had a lot of time to dedicate to it, like my whole day. Being that I was already pretty good on computers and I had somebody that was really willing to work with me and help me and be patient, it made it a lot easier,” he said. “I had told them that I had never heard of it (GIS) but they said don’t worry about it and they came and started helping out, taking time out of their day to teach me and introduce me to people at other huge oil companies who already had the stuff in place. From there, it was just teaching me the things I needed to know and being patient with me.” With two years of experience with GIS under his belt, McMonagle came back to try hockey once more but is still dabbling in the computer work. He said that several of his teammates have expressed an interest in the career. “I’ve actually talked with some of my teammates about it and they’re pretty interested. Even some of the guys who came from juniors wanting to just have a hockey career and never did go to college are just as interested as well,” McMonagle said. “When you get a group of guys hanging out at the house while I’m working on it a couple of hours a day, they’re walking in saying what is this and I try to explain it to them. They know their hockey career is going to end soon too so they’re interested in what other jobs are available and what other people do when they’re done playing hockey. It’s always a topic of conversation for guys who have been playing for a while and are looking to move on after hockey.” Judging from the choices these three have made, the transition from playing to post-playing will be as smooth as a resurfaced sheet of ice. Contact the author at don.money@prohockeynews.com