BERLIN, NJ – For many of us, this week marks the end of another season. It comes, as it so frequently does, with insufficient warning and without enough compassion. The starting point of the hockey ritual has similarity in that every year the team hands us a calendar, they fill it with a good number of home games, and they let us know how to purchase tickets. The Team Schedule will even show us when the games start. But, at the end of the day, no one tells us how to stop caring when, after the last of these games, the scoreboards turns back to zero.
The team provides us with an Official Program. It is filled with information about our team and there are pictures of our favorite players. We keep these programs from harm and come to feel that the players are our friends. It is not far from the truth. But now our friends are leaving us again…and some will not be back.
We, the fans, only short days ago were drunk with the anticipation of glory and for every mention of our team we breathed fire…until the very exhaustion of a 4th and final series loss. We, the coaches, never out of thoughts, theories or things to say, preached belief…until the death sentence that was secured by this season’s final defeat.
We, the players, continue to dream of a season ending with raised arms; not with a barely manageable handshake.
Now, we the lovers of the great game await the final tally and, in so doing, mourn our losses. Markus Naslund has already made it official. Jeremy Roenick, 20 seasons without the ultimate victory lap, may soon follow. There will be a number of others: all familiar names, all about to deal with the unfamiliar existence of life without a hockey game.
One of the departed is Trenton Devil, Jim Henkel. Let us not overlook him; for, to me, he is the games greatest loss of all. Prior to Game 7, I ran into Jim out on the concourse. He is always out there – seeing him before the pre-game skate is not unusual. We always made small talk. Thinking that the minutes leading up to the season’s decisive game was not a good time to bother one of its players, I only waved and smiled. Jim Henkel did better. He stopped. Put his hand out. Asked me how I was doing. If you want to know how he could possibly be thinking of someone else at a time like that, you have never met Jim.
At the end of our chat I told him that I would see him at practice tomorrow. The way he said “OK, see you then.” made me completely believe that the guys were about to come back from 3-1 down to take this series and advance to the next round.
They did not. And while they were magnificent in defeat, the Trenton boys had to struggle their way down the handshake line. As the Elmira Jackals left for a bus to Cincinnati and the Devils left to pack for summer, Jim Henkel came out for his final lap around the ice.
I thought about all that it took to get where Jim got and wondered what this thoughts were. When he was a little kid growing up in North Jersey, was it already obvious that Jim was a special player? How did it feel when the Los Angeles Kings selected Jim Henkel in the NHL Draft? During the tough part of Jim’s career he went through no less than 6 AHL franchises in a 4 year period, what kept him going? How hard is it to admit that you are no longer the player that you wish to be?
In his four seasons with Trenton, Jim Henkel did it all. He had nothing less than 20 goal seasons; he brought dignity and class every night. This series was no different. Jim skated with purpose and he banged valiantly against larger, younger defenseman. He killed penalties with the urgency of a kamikaze pilot. Jim gave whatever was still left of his body. I saw the expression on his face when Elmira hit the empty netter and again during his final lap. I will tell you with 100% certainty that Jim Henkel cared and that he tried. In this case, it simply was not enough.
At the end the fans stood and cheered. They honked horns. They acknowledged a true hero. They made all the noise that they could. They wanted so much to salute Jim Henkel properly. They cared and they tried. In this case, it simply was not enough.
The record book will list his seasons and account for his statistics. It will not say that Jim Henkel is a true ambassador of hockey, that he is talented yet modest, and that he is a total team player. The record book will not say that he is one of hockey’s greats. Kindly permit me to say so.
Contact pops.ryan@prohockeynews.com
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