By Steven Scheer
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Kibbutz resident Stan Fischler fell in love with ice hockey by accident, but for more than 80 years it has been his lifeblood. Now it is helping the nonagenarian cope with life as Israel’s war against Palestinian Islamist group Hamas rages.
Fischler, known as “The Maven” for his wealth and breadth of hockey knowledge, no longer is a TV analyst on New York Islanders and New Jersey Devils games, but he still writes almost daily for NHL.com and The Hockey News.
“Hockey motivates me,” Fischler, a longtime professional analyst, author and historian of the game, said in an interview with Reuters from his home on a kibbutz in northern Israel as artillery could be heard in the distance at the border with Lebanon where Israeli forces and Hezbollah clash.
“I am 14-year-old disguised as a 91-year-old.”
Turning 92 in March, Fischler has not slowed down much since moving to his son Simon’s home in Israel from New York in 2018 after his wife Shirley died.
In addition to covering the Islanders, he has just begun also writing about the New York Rangers and Devils – starting his day at 5:30 am, writing his commentary on the night’s games before citing morning Jewish prayers and then eating breakfast by 10 am.
“You are never away from your home in your heart. So I’m here but hockey is in my heart,” the Brooklyn-born Fischler said of being 7-10 time zones away from National Hockey League (NHL) games.
Since the war began on Oct. 7 after an attack on Israel by Hamas gunmen, Fischler says he has been fortunate that there haven’t been many air raid sirens forcing him and his family into their safe room, which doubles as his granddaughter’s room.
His foray into hockey began in 1939 when his father took him to a New York Rovers minor league game at the old Madison Square Garden – instead of seeing the movie “Snow White” as he had wanted.
In 1942, Fischler stumbled on a radio broadcast of the Toronto Maple Leafs and Detroit Red Wings Stanley Cup game and he was hooked, becoming a lifelong Leafs fan with Syl Apps as his boyhood idol along with broadcaster Foster Hewitt.
WASN’T A FAN OF TV
During World War II, Fischler was also captivated by the Coast Guard’s hockey team.
Later, he worked for the Rangers in publicity and New York Journal-American newspaper before shifting into television in 1973, when he and Shirley did color commentary for Hartford Whalers games in the old World Hockey Association.
“I went into it kicking and screaming,” he said, preferring to stay in print although the TV money was too much to turn down.
Fischler began his run in New York hockey telecasts for the Islanders in 1975, the first year the fledgling team made the playoffs. Over the years, he has written some 100 books, most of them on hockey, and he can still recite the 1942 Leafs team in jersey number order.
“He has lived virtually all the history of the game and there isn’t a piece of the game that he hasn’t been a part of covering,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman told ESPN in December.
In 2021, Fischler was inducted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame, and in 2022, the Islanders named its press level at UBS Arena after him.
The NHL is now on its All Star break with the All Star game and related events this weekend, and Fischler has time to recharge. He projects a Rangers versus Edmonton Oilers Stanley Cup final this season and fully expects an expansion team soon in Salt Lake City.
Despite the many changes to the game since he was a kid, he still finds the sport exciting, but misses the days of players not wearing helmets, goalies not wearing masks and the only music coming from an organ.
“The difference between hockey then and hockey now,” he said, “would be the difference between a 1939 Cadillac and a new Cadillac.”
(Reporting by Steven Scheer; Editing By Hugh Lawson)
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