By Ben Conley
For The Dominion Post
Morgantown – This didn’t start out as a hockey story.
It started out as a story about the impact one person can have on their community.
It still is, really.
But when that person is Don Spencer, perhaps the most tangible evidence of his decades of public service is White Park’s Morgantown Ice Arena and the thriving local hockey community that took its first strides there.
The Barn that Don Built?
Spencer demures at the notion.
After all, goalies never take the credit.
On a frozen Sunday afternoon in February, Spencer, 89, stepped inside the rink for the first time since the bulk of BOPARC’s multimillion dollar renovation project was completed. The visit was organized by some of his former players and longtime hockey acquaintances.
“They’ve done a beautiful job with all the renovations,” Spencer said, sitting in one of the facility’s new party rooms.
The man in the mask
There can be no question that Spencer was instrumental in laying the foundation, literally and figuratively, for hockey in Morgantown.
But he’d helped revolutionize the game worldwide before he ever stepped foot in the Mountain State.
A standout high school goalie in Connecticut, Spencer went on to skate collegiately at Hamilton College in upstate New York.
He excelled, going on to captain the All East Team and earn an Olympic tryout that was ultimately declined due to lack of funds.
He was an exceptional goalie, but hockey was changing.
By 1959, his senior season, the slap shot had taken over. Stick manufacturers quickly adapted to the torque and violence of the new technique with stronger, more durable sticks. The combination was a potentially dangerous one for the maskless men in goal.
Spencer said he’d probably already accumulated 50 stitches in his career by February of his senior season, when he suffered a particularly nasty blow to the face.
In response, Gene Long, a Hamilton College athletic trainer, came to Spencer with an idea.
Long had been experimenting with fiberglass, forming heel cups for the school’s long jumpers.
“So, he tried the same thing with my face. He put plaster of paris all around and stuck a straw in my mouth. After it hardened, he took it off, taped in the holes for the eyes and the nose and what have you,” Spencer said. “From that was a mold of my face that he could put the fiberglass on. And so, out of that process came the first fiberglass face mask.”
That was in March 1959.
Sadly, the mask was completed too late for Spencer to don in a game.
But a month later, while scanning the New York Times, Spencer read that Jacques Plante, the outstanding goalkeeper for the Montreal Canadiens, was looking for protection after taking a hit in a contest with the New York Rangers.
“And so, I wrote him a letter and described the process that Gene had done with me. I sent it off to Jacques. Never heard from him. But six months later, he came out with a face mask similar to the one that Gene had made,” Spencer said. “Within 10 years, every National Hockey League player was using a face mask like the one Gene had made for me.”
New home, no ice
Post college, and after years spent tending net at various stops in senior amateur hockey, Spencer was ready for a change.
“There was a campus ministry position here. It was the only one in the United States at the time,” he said. “I had to look at the map to find out where West Virginia was.”
And when he got here, he found out there was nowhere to lace up the skates.
“There was interest, obviously, in skating in the Morgantown area. They tried the trout pond, and that never did freeze very much. They tried to flood and freeze the tennis courts, and that maybe worked a few days every year,” Spencer said. “So, we started a campaign in 1971.”
That campaign led to an overwhelmingly successful special levy through which city voters supported the construction of the Krepps Park Pool, and later, the city’s first ice rink.
“The planning and development started in 1978, and then in 1979, the grand opening of the rink and dedication took place,” Spencer said. “At the time, you know, there needed to be a lot of attention given to helping people know how to use the rink. So, there were classes and different things that started for different people of all abilities. With the new rink the high school team emerged, and the WVU hockey team, which had been going up to Pennsylvania to practice and play, started playing here at that time as well.”
It was Spencer who organized and coached the first high school hockey team in Morgantown. He would go on to spend years serving as coach, and later general manager, for WVU’s club hockey team.
During his time with WVU, Spencer was a driving force behind the creation of the American Collegiate Hockey Association. Marking its 35th anniversary this year, the ACHA now boasts 572 member programs serving 13,000 student athletes and some 2,000 coaches.
The organization bestows the Don Spencer Award for Volunteer Service each year in honor of one of its founding fathers.
“Don, in particular, played a critical role in shaping the organization’s foundation. Known for his exceptional organizational skills, he helped create the original ACHA manual, bylaws and policies and was instrumental in marketing the fledgling association during its early years alongside established collegiate governing bodies,” ACHA Executive Director Craig Barnett said.
The Godfather of Morgantown hockey
To limit Spencer’s contributions to the ice would be a disservice.
He’s spent decades serving the community, both as an elected member of Morgantown City Council and as a volunteer through both the city and his faith.
But it was through hockey, and specifically hockey at the Morgantown Ice Arena, that he made an impression on young men like Todd Stainbrook and John Lichter, now 55 and 67, respectively.
Both still play.
The pair flanked Spencer on his recent return to the rink they once shared.
Stainbrook, also a goalie, said he’s come to appreciate Spencer’s guidance, even if he didn’t appreciate it at the time.
“He used to make me listen to motivational tapes. Every trip on the road, I had to listen to motivational tapes. I hated those things. But that was his way, because it’s more mental than it is physical when you’re a goalie. He knew that,” Stainbrook said. “It’s the most responsible position on the ice, and it’s the most stressful position on the ice. We never take credit for a win, but we will take responsibility for a loss. When you have a child do that, it sets them up for life.”
Lichter, who spent much of his young adulthood in the newly created ice arena, said he didn’t realize the work Spencer had put in or the strength of the foundation that had been laid until he returned to Morgantown years later to find the city had become a hotbed of hockey.
He calls Spencer “the godfather of Morgantown hockey,” explaining the new Hope Gas Ice Pavilion at Mylan Park is a direct result of the community Spencer fostered.
“The more I think about it, and I look at other areas, I think Morgantown is really, really lucky, really blessed that Don Spencer came along when he did,” Lichter said. “I’m sure he’s impacted over a thousand kids in a life-changing way, whether they were six years old or 16, or came here and played under him as a coach.”
It’s for these reasons and more that both men are among a growing number who would like to see the Morgantown Ice Arena named in Spencer’s honor.
“I think it’s only right,” Stainbrook said. “The city needs to do this.”
Reflexively, Spencer throws a hand up to deflect.
Just like a goalie.
Read more from the Dominion Post, here.