"Why'd They Put the Ginger in the Sun?"

By Bridget (Weide) Brooks

This is not going to be an epic blog. I may have given you the wrong impression when my first post was the definitive guide to seating at the new arena, and the most recent one was about the really epic #TacoCannon.

That wasn't my intention when I started this blog. When I gave the link to my first post in the "closed" Mavpuck.com Group on Facebook (yes, you can apply for membership; we share information in that group that we don't share publicly on our Twitter, Facebook page, or the Mavpuck message board forum), this is how I described it:

It's my hope to aggregate information, curate content from other sources (so it's easy to search/locate later on) and share memories from the first 18 years of UNO Hockey history. We want to tell the story of UNO hockey through blog posts, video, audio, pictures, memories, and more! I also want to do more of the "Where Are They Now" features of former players.

And this post really isn't about me (or Jon)... it's about what I saw on Thursday night at the Omaha Storm Chasers game (the "Salute to UNO Hockey") and how it ties into the early days of Maverick hockey.

Jon and I arrived a little later than we wanted to at Werner Park. I had actually left a meeting (with Sheila and Terry Leahy's family about their "Fundraiser for Sheila" efforts) early to try to get there before the game started, and I was under the impression that they were going to have Ryan Massa throw out the first pitch, and Dominic Zombo drop a "ceremonial puck" at home plate AFTER they did autographs. I was wrong.

Posted by Omaha Storm Chasers on Thursday, April 23, 2015

Jon and I got into the stadium after Massa threw out the pitch -- pretty much right as Coach Blais dropped the puck (Zombo was recovering from surgery and couldn't make it).

Brad Williams, of Brad Williams Photography, captured that moment:

First Puck Drop - Omaha Storm Chasers VS Redbirds 2015-04-23
Posted by Brad Williams Photography on Thursday, April 23, 2015

I hustled over to try and get a picture from behind home plate ... and arrived just as the team was leaving the field.

Here was the Storm Chasers photo of the guys on the field:

Posted by Omaha Storm Chasers on Thursday, April 23, 2015

Here were mine:

These are horrible pictures. I didn't even have a chance to zoom in. So you can't see the smiles on their faces as they left the field.

They sat down at a long table and started signing ... first baseballs, then schedule posters, but also t-shirts, hats, and hockey jerseys. The fans were smiling ... and so were the guys.

Posted by Omaha Storm Chasers on Thursday, April 23, 2015

And I realized I recognized those smiles.

You see, in the early days of the program, before there were Frozen Four appearances (heck, before there were NCAA Regional appearances) … before there was even a conference affiliation … before the team even had a place to play, the early players were ambassadors to the community.

As one of those pioneering #OldBulls told me when I saw him (on the Road to the Frozen Four, these guys came out of the woodwork to celebrate the milestone of the program they had built with their sweat and tears), they sent the players out on a "goodwill" tour of sorts. They met with business people, sponsors, fans ... almost anyone who would agree to see them.

I remember those early days. There were "Hockey 101s" where various players demonstrated their equipment (goalies were a fan favorite) and Jon and I shared the "booster compliance guidelines" publicly. There were pre-season picnics, a fan get-together before the Maverick Stampede in the bowels of the Civic Auditorium, and pre-season Red/White Scrimmages that were open to donors first (and later the general public). There were "Skate with the Mavs" events held on a weekend afternoon, and everyone from little babies to grandparents were out on the ice with the guys.

As an aside:
Here's my niece Emily at age 3 with one of those Skate with the Mavs events with #OldBull and fan favorites, Jeff Hoggan. This would have probably been during the 1999-2000 season:

Emily Weide and Jeff Hoggan in 1999 or 2000.
Emily is now 18, and Hoggan is 38.

Throughout those events, I remember the smiles. The smiles on the faces of the players as they met their fans were genuine. I met Christian Graham the afternoon of the first-ever game. A client happened to be doing some consulting work for UNO Athletics on athlete nutrition, and we were assessing the need for table tents in the UNO "Training Table" -- basically, a private room in the Milo Bail Student Center where the athletes ate. My client introduced me to him, and while I don't remember what he said exactly, what still sticks with me 18 years later was how genuinely thrilled he was that the community was behind the team. (Remember, the announcement of the new team was made and season tickets sold out in just weeks, even though they had no place to play yet.)

Over all the years since, I have to say that I haven't really seen that smile again. I caught glimpses of it here and there. "Tuesday night." The magical trip to the Joe. The first Regional appearance, in Worchester (pronounced "Wooster," I learned while there). But I hadn't ever seen it again out in the "real world." When the players were wearing street gear, not their jerseys.

I saw it on Thursday night. The guys were wearing street gear -- logoed with "Frozen Four," of course.

But this wasn't just another obligatory post-game autograph session (those have largely disappeared too). This wasn't a First National Bank-sponsored Sunday afternoon event for kids to learn from their hockey heroes (forgive me, I can't remember what the name of this event is, and they didn't have one this past year).

In those events, the smiles are a little forced. Sure, every once in a while you get a genuine kid/player interaction where the smile is real. And sometimes, if you stick around long enough afterwards, you get to see goalie Dayn Belfour joyously skate to "Take Me Home Tonight" in epic ice dancing form (with a special appearance by NHL'er Andrej Sustr):



(It helps if they don't think that anyone is watching ... much less videotaping ...)

But on Thursday, these were real smiles.

Here's what Ryan Massa had to say in the Omaha World-Herald article about the event:

Even Coach Blais acknowledged that this public appearance wasn't a chore for the players:

Those smiles were genuine. The fans needed this chance to say "Thank you for an amazing season" one more time ... and these guys needed to hear it.

Even if that meant an April sunburn for the blondes/redheads. As my younger brother said as we watched the autograph session, "Why'd they put the ginger in the sun?"

Those gingers deserve their moment in the sun. I'm glad they got it.