Dan Brown, writing for the Berkely (Ca) Independent, recalls his time as a minor-league baseball player and how, between Christmas and New Year's, he always remembers the year he found out that the Komets hockey conditioning regimen is no easy thing.
He titled the column "Finding Mudville: Terry and Terry". In the column, he recounts how tough Komets players Terry Thomson and Terry Pembroke could train.
Before my third year in baseball I worked out with members of the Ft. Wayne Komets hockey team during that week between Christmas and New Year’s. Actually, it turned out to be more like a week. I called it Eight Days from Hell.
They killed me. I needed a body bag to go home in by the time they were done with me.
Hockey players train differently. First, they train differently because they’re lunatics. Well, first they talk funny because they were all Canadian, and second, they were lunatics.
A hockey player’s game is all about sprinting full-on at top speed until he is out of gas. He then rests until he collects his breath and then sprints full-on again. Basically, running as long as you can and as hard as you can until you can’t run anymore.
You then quit. Take a second breather and then repeat as necessary… and as necessary means for the next 90 minutes.
The sprints we ran usually involved the ramps outside the arena. Eight laps around the outside concourse of the arena, including all ramps was a mile. We’d sprint up the ramps, jog the straightaway and then walk down the ramp to the lower level and then sprint up the next ramp once we reached the bottom.
After 90 minutes of that we’d retire to an 80-degree heated locker room and ride the stationary bikes for a mile.
Yes, again at a full-on sprint.
I did this for six weeks. I didn’t quit because these guys rode my fanny and I’d never hear the end of it if I did.
Terry Thompson could barely walk in a straight line he was so bowlegged and Terry Pembrooke’s knees looked like a rail yard there were so many stitch tracks there, but they ran my tail off.
I showed up for spring training 20 pounds lighter and the closest thing I ever came to resembling stone-chiseled.
So every year between Christmas and New Year’s I think about the Komets and running the ramps with Terry and Terry. And I still break out in a cold sweat, even after all these years.
In the 72-73 team photo, Terry Pembroke is in the front row, 5th from the left; Terry Thomson is in the middle row, 8th from the left next to Bob Chase.
Photo credit: KometLegends
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