It's Wednesday, it's noon, it's Grand Dukes, an Eastern European restaurant in Downers Grove. Which can only mean one thing. The Duffers are assembling.
"Hey, Bob!" says Jim Glynn, the "Young Guy" at 61, sitting at the bar. Bob Granato is hockey royalty, the uncle of Tony and Don Granato Jr., NHL former players and current coaches, and Cammi Granato, the first woman inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.
Everyone has a nickname. Greg Lopatka is "the Beak" for obvious reasons if you see him in profile. Arvetis M. Dikinis is "Harvey" — you can't expect the guys to handle "Arvetis" — and wears a Duffers jersey, which expropriates the Hamm's Beer bear (artfully if not legally) as their mascot.
And what are the Duffers? Well, that is a long story, starting in 1970, at the new ice-skating rink opened in Downers Grove. Shortly thereafter, the future Duffers found themselves in the stands, watching their sons play hockey.
"Most of us had kids playing at the rink," says Lopatka, 84. "The original guy, Jim Miceli — we call him 'The King' — he said, 'This looks like fun. We should do this.'"
So they started playing Sundays at the rink.
They never stopped. For the next 53 years. They hang out, they play. They even take the team on the road, traveling to distant cities — they've taken 42 road trips over the last half-century — to play at actual NHL arenas after the pros have vacated the ice.
"We've had a lot of fun, thanks to the Granatos," says Greg Zerkis. Tony Granato's father, Don Sr., is also a member.
Today, nine men settle around a large table — a self-described "drinking team with a hockey problem." Talk ranges from an Irish golf trip to the excellence of the zeppelin dumplings, a dish I order for the table, having not tasted it since visiting Vilnius 25 years ago. I'm included because I know Lopatka. He's the former Chicago Public Schools teacher who introduced me to Edith Renfrow Smith ahead of her 107th birthday. I stupidly dragged my feet about coming.
"You're two for two," I tell Lopatka, when I realize what I had thought was a random collection of codgers was actually a quasi-official organization with its own newsletter and website.
My priorities can be as messed up as the next guy's. No wonder society is suffering from an isolation problem. Last year, the U.S. surgeon general called loneliness and isolation "an epidemic" in the United States and drew a direct line between connectivity and health.
If COVID-19 has shredded our already frayed social fabric, the Duffers have not gotten the memo. They eat together, they play together, not only with themselves, but their children and grandchildren and even great-grandchildren join in.
"Hockey brings families together," says Don Granato.
Yes, the intergenerational games require some fiddling with hockey rules — only the older Duffers' goals are added to the score, for instance. There's a lot of assists.
But they create a world unto themselves, spilling off the ice.
"Our team has one of everybody," says Lopatka. "You need a lawyer, we got a lawyer. Doctor, we got a doctor. You need a plumber, you got a plumber. We got everything. You have a problem, you just say it in the locker room and, oh, he'll take care of it."
They bring more to Grand Dukes than their appetites.
"The first day I met them I knew I was going to be friends with them," says Kamila Hargis, the restaurant manager, who greets them with hugs and joins them at their table. "They're more of a community. Everybody takes care of everybody else. If you become their friend, you are their friend forever. Old-school values. I wish there were more guys like this. When my car broke down, every guy offered to drive me around. They always have my back."
And each others' — they're a community, says Greg Zerkis.
"They play on Fridays, they go to lunch on Wednesday, often bowl on Tuesdays, and sometimes go golfing on Thursday. That kind of structure and that kind of community that all of these guys have is gold," says Zerkis.
"And our wives love it," adds Lopatka, imitating one: "'Oh you're going? Bye!'"
Everybody laughs.
