I got to the rink for hockey practice tonight and saw an empty wrapper from some vending machine snack laying on the brand spanking-new floor tiles. “Not like Mark to miss that,” I thought. I was right. Mark didn’t miss it because he wasn’t tending to our rink tonight.
Mark took his last shift on Earth on Sunday night.
Until today, when I was told of his sudden death, I didn’t even know his last name. He was the kind of guy immediately and always associated with the rink: Mark the Zamboni guy, the Zamboni guy, or just plain Mark. Everyone knew him, and he knew everyone. I’ve seen him at South Mountain Arena two or three days a week for the past 9 years, and he always asks how my son’s team is doing, how my daughter’s figure skating is coming along, and where we’re off to next with our skates. He knows how my Hockey North America team is faring, and when we might be playing next on his ice.
Mark loved hockey, particularly the New York Rangers. Seems incongruous, in that he cut the ice for the New Jersey Devils practice rink for the past decade, through three Stanley Cup runs and countless last-minute evaluations, rehab sessions and late-running practices. He was the kind of guy who didn’t mind if you skated a little longer if you had the last paid session of the night. If the rink was his home, he showed his pride in keeping it neat. In two seasons of managing youth hockey teams, Mark had returned jerseys, socks, helmets, mouthguards, paper work, birth certificates (don’t ask), and errant sticks to me, rather than sweeping them out with the trash. At the same time, he knew if there was a pro quality stick (courtesy of our NJ Devils) sitting in the back dumpster, and was happy to see the kids cut it and use it. Practice-used memorabilia never had a better route into the hands of those who deserve it most. His worst at-work experience was having Lou Lamoriello, coach and GM of the Devils, yell at him one day after an ice cut for driving the Zamboni while wearing his Rangers hat.
Tonight we’re all sad and shocked that Mark is off the ice. He was the kind of guy who made a (previously) drab county facility feel more like a home for hockey than a government office building. In a lineup of my favorite Zamboni drivers, from Iggy Pop (in the movie Snow Day) to Sergei Starikov (1980 Russian Olympic hockey team, and the first Zamboni driver at the Union Sports Arena), Mark will always get a special mention.
Good night, Mark, we’ll turn off the locker room lights on our way out.
