Teacher Professional A's hockey team co-founder and founder of the annual Student-Teacher Benefit Hockey Game, Bob Metzler has finally hung up his skates after 29 years with the team.
Metzler, who started playing hockey in his hometown of Arcola, Saskatchewan. He later played with the Arcola-Kisbey Combines of the Big 6 Hockey League.
He went on to complete his Education degree at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon.
After graduating from the U of S, Metzler taught at Wadena High School for 10 years before moving to Yorkton to take up a phys ed position at Yorkton Compo-site Junior High School in 1981. He lived in Yorkton and taught at the junior high school and at Springside School until he retired in 2001.
Metzler and Dave Baron, both working in the Yorkdale phys. ed. department at the time, saw an ad in the teacher Bulletin newspaper for teacher recreational hockey tournament at Indian Head. "We thought we could put together a team. There are lots of teachers who play hockey here," Metzler recalls. There was no teacher team in Yorkton at that time so the two of them put together a team for that tournament, he remembers.
After the tournament the players decided they enjoyed the experience and wanted to carry on with exhibition games during the winter. Most of those exhibition were played against other rec teams with several charity games added for good measure, Metzler recollects. "Old timers hockey was big at the time," he adds.
The teacher team had no age limit back then so while there were young players on the team. As in typical rec hockey, there was no body contact nor slapshots allowed. Team members included teachers from the Catholic school system, the Yorkdale system and from the Yorkton public school system, Metzler reports. "We had a good variety of people from almost every school in the area," he notes.
Teachers came across youngsters and families who had to deal with severe medical problems. These would come up in discussions in the dressing room. All seemed to agree it would be nice if there was some way to help these youngsters and that's how the event started 26 years ago, Metzler recalls. "It started off very small and its grown into this big event," he says.
Over the years, in addition to running the teacher team, Metzler took charge of organizing the Student-Teacher Benefit Game until about five years ago. "The guys all pitched in and cooperated. All the jobs got done and all of a sudden we were raising money for families in need," he states.
Metzler admits his age has caused him to leave the teacher team to let the younger members carry on. "I'm not going to play with the teacher team because the team we play are all way too young and I'm too slow. So I'm just going to play with guys my age," he concedes. He thinks he might continue to take part in the annual game perhaps as coach of the teacher team.
In leaving the team, Metzler says he hopes the team continues to play hockey and gets all schools involved in the benefit game. He would like the team legacy to continue to provide for youngsters.
