(Editor's Note: DNC.com remembers the Good, the Bad and the Ugly in Duffy/NC hockey history. Since this is an era of full disclosure and transparency, we begin with the ugly.  Please submit your story ideas to www.dicknolanclassic.com

Archive-1 - The worst team ever

Archive-2 - The greatest player

Robert Gruarin

        NC 1980

Led Monsignor Martin League in

Goals

Assists

and Penalty Minutes

Greatest Player in NC History

Recently, my cousin chided me over Thanksgiving dinner.

"Glory days," he taunted. "All you hockey players are living in the past with this reunion game stuff."

I thought about it.

What glory days?, I thought.

In fact, if it wasn't for the above referenced person, Robert "Bobby" Gruarin, my entire hockey career in high school would have been spent in the loss column.

There were no glory days, or at least there were very few, with the exception of the 1980 squad. But that's not the point.

If I can quote another member of the 1980 squad, John DeRubes: "(About hockey) ...There's no other sport I'd rather play. And it's even more fun when you can play it with your kids."

That is what the Dick Nolan Classic is all about.

When Victoria Spanbauer belts out the opening to "O, Canada", I feel privileged to have known her father, a good man and a great practical joker in his heyday. When I see the faces of all the kids who come out to skate after the game, I know that there are glory days only in front of us, not behind, as long as we all stay healthy and can see each other the next year.

And as for the debate about who was the greatest hockey player in school history, I'll stake my claim on B. Gruarin. Now there was a hockey player.

Merry Christmas

VJ McConeghy