'Miracle' Comeback, Memorable Finish
February 27, 2014
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
At some point, Jay Jones is sure, he and his friends from Traverse City West will reminisce about playing in the second-longest hockey game in MHSAA history.
Erik Anton always will remember sending the shot into the top corner of the net that made the score 2-1 in favor of his team and ended the seven-overtime marathon against Jones and the Traverse City Bay Reps – but there’s no way Anton will be the one bringing it up.
No need. His goal as midnight approached Monday immediately became legendary in the Traverse City area – complete with a captivating back story as well.
Anton’s shot ended the game after 103 minutes and 33 seconds – or 4:33 into the seventh overtime.
A little more than year ago, Anton couldn’t skate, or for that matter walk – he was hospitalized in Grand Rapids, paralyzed from the rib cage down because of a viral infection.
And among his visitors was Jones, a friend since childhood and the Bay Reps goalie Monday who stopped 48 shots before Anton potted the game winner.
“I don’t think it’s something where I’ll be like, ‘Remember that?’ But obviously it will be in our memories,” Anton said. “We were trying for such a long time. (For them) it was such a heart-breaking experience.
“(But) I might tease him about it a little bit.”
Anton and Traverse City West live on, having also beaten Manistee on Wednesday to advance to Saturday’s Division 1 Regional Final against Grand Rapids West Catholic. A trophy-earning win that night surely would add to an incredibly memorable week.
But it already has been an unforgettable year for the Titans junior wing, even as his most “miraculous” feat came against a friend who has been among those rooting him on these last many months.
Suddenly sidelined
Anton has played hockey since he was 3, and he has six goals and eight assists this winter. It’s his number one sport – although he also plays tennis and lacrosse.
Needless to say, he’s always been an active guy.
Until December 2012. Anton contracted transverse myelitis, an infection affecting the spiral cord caused in this case by a virus. His immune system, mistaking that part of his nervous system for the virus, attacked – causing the paralysis that sent him on a trip to Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital in Grand Rapids.
“How I describe it, I was lying down and somebody just put 1,000 pounds on top of my legs,” Anton said. “You try to move your legs and you can’t.
“(The doctor) would take a pen and touch the bottom of my foot, and it felt like they were taking a lighter to the bottom of my foot.”
His doctor gave him a 33 percent chance of recovering fully. Anton was expected to stay in Grand Rapids at the Mary Free Bed rehabilitation hospital for three months.
That first weekend away from home, Anton was visited by teammates and friends, including Jones. Their travel teams growing up had included about half of the current West team, a few who now play at Traverse City Central and a handful more now on the Bay Reps.
“I was shocked to see him like that,” Jones said, “not being able to move a whole lot.”
Friendly support
Jones, a sophomore, attends St. Francis High School. The Bay Reps are a hockey co-op team comprised of students from seven schools. He and Anton never went to the same one, but their families are friends and they became hockey teammates on the travel circuit when they were 8 or 9.
They also started lacrosse together, played tennis together, golfed and more recently snowboarded together.
Jones first heard of what had befallen his friend in the lockerroom after a practice. Stunned to say the least, Jones didn’t say much for the first day or two before he and their friends made the trip to Grand Rapids.
By Jones’ description, Anton is a funny guy, definitely an extrovert. They together were the talkers on their travel teams growing up. Jones found his friend wasn’t much different in this unusual setting, just a little quieter. “He actually got up and we wheeled him around the hospital area,” Jones said. “We were laughing and making jokes like normal.”
“I just remember being in high spirits,” Anton added. “I always love seeing my friends, and having my friends come down and visit me, just being able to be with them again, especially when I was just laying in the hospital ...”
Anton said he knew from the start that he wouldn’t settle for a three-month hospital stay and surely not for paralysis for life if he could help it. He showed enough improvement to go home after just two weeks. And by the end of the spring lacrosse season, he felt back at full strength.
“It is pretty amazing. Once he got back, everyone pretty much treated him like normal,” Jones said. “He was back to his old self.”
Memorable moment
Anton could feel Jones’ stick jabbing at his skates whenever he came close to the net Monday. Anton laughed to himself at the little unspoken competition between the two.
He felt strong going into the third overtime, but by the fourth his legs were feeling heavy. By the seventh overtime his shifts had shortened substantially as players dug for any energy they could muster.
Meanwhile, Jones would smack his stick at the goal posts between periods, swing it at the net – “pretty much trying to stay awake at that point,” he said.
As the overtimes piled up, Jones also began to consider the significance of being part of such a game. It would be talked about for a long time. Everyone would know it was hard-fought. Win or lose, both teams would feel a sense of accomplishment. But if his team lost, he’d be absolutely crushed.
Both he and Anton saw a similar build-up to Anton’s deciding shot. Anton had been on the ice for about 15 seconds. His team was regrouping in the neutral zone when teammate Caleb Breithaupt ended up with a loose puck and pushed it ahead to forward Nick Schultz at the blue line.
Anton took a pass at the top of a circle in front of the Bay Reps’ net. Jones saw him line up the shot. A defenseman skated between them, but remained just off to a side. Anton fired at the high left corner of the net. Jones never saw the puck go by.
It was the Bay Reps’ fifth overtime loss this season. Jones took a knee staring at the ice in front of him. His teammates skated over and provided some support, but the moment was “surreal” – for a moment, Jones said, the ice was completely silent. And then he looked into the corner and saw number 19, Anton, celebrating. He smiled, just a little.
Traverse City West had lost to the Reps in overtime, 5-4, in a 2013 Pre-Regional opener, and then again earlier this season. Those details provide additional layers to an extraordinary experience players on both sides will tell about in the years to come.
It’s what Anton has learned to relish while recovering from his unfortunate circumstance, even if he’ll let others start this conversation the next time he’s hanging with Jones and his other Bay Reps pals.
“I definitely don’t take anything for granted anymore. I always put all my effort into sports, but after going through that, I really try to enjoy it, make the most of it when I can,” Anton said. “I always had a competitive edge, and I still do. Now I definitely try to enjoy it while I’m out there, enjoy the experience.”
Click to read more about Anton’s initial recovery from the Traverse City Record-Eagle.
PHOTOS: (Top) Traverse City West’s Erik Anton (19) unloads a shot at Bay Reps goalie Jay Jones that Jones stops Monday. (Middle top) Anton, seated, is visited by friends including Jones (gray jacket) during his hospital stay. (Middle below) Anton, left, and Jones take a brief moment from lacrosse during their younger days. (Below) Members of the West and Bay Reps hockey teams hold up Anton’s jersey after a game he could not play in last season. (Photos courtesy of Madelaine Jones.)
Brighton Coach's Impact 'Immeasurable'
By
Tim Robinson
Special for MHSAA.com
October 7, 2020
By Tim Robinson
Special for Second Half
Paul Moggach has never been much for looking back.
And as he begins his first season away from the Brighton hockey program in more than three decades, he’s still looking ahead.
“I’m thinking about what I’m going to miss more than the mark I left,” he said in a phone conversation last week. “I guess I enjoyed so much of the time I had, the opportunity to coach at Brighton, I’m thinking more how I fill the time and the things I'll miss.”
Moggach (pronounced MUG-uth) retired as Brighton’s coach this past summer after 25 seasons and having led five teams to MHSAA Division 1 championships. He compiled a record of 466-172-47 during that period.
But that’s not what he remembers most, nor why he wants people to remember him.
“I would like them to remember the teams and players who played for me and my assistants, more than me,” Moggach said. “We have so many blessings and opportunities in our lives, and hockey was one for me and hopefully for the players and assistants I worked with.”
One of those assistants was Kurt Kivisto, who joined the Bulldogs originally as a team manager more than 20 years ago and was a player at Brighton. He eventually won a national championship at Michigan State before rejoining the program as an assistant coach a decade ago.
“The No. 1 thing I’ll take from him is sticking by your beliefs and not sacrificing those beliefs for the team,” said Kivisto, who was named Moggach’s successor in September. “He sticks by those beliefs and ... he’s not willing to sacrifice that even if it could hurt the team. The character and integrity he has, how he treats people with fairness and what he believes is right is the biggest thing I’ll take.”
A stepson, Damon Whitten, played for Moggach at Brighton and at MSU before becoming an assistant coach and eventually the head coach at Lake Superior State, where he is in his eighth season.
Asked about Moggach’s impact at Brighton, Whitten said, “I’m not sure you can measure it. Your mind goes to the hockey players who have come to Brighton, and that’s a big part. But I think it goes beyond that. The money they’ve raised over the years for different families in need, for example. He’s had a big impact, and the players he had were a big part of that, but it goes well beyond that, and he did it the right way. Thirty-plus years (in the program), and I’m not sure you can count more than a handful of times where he made a bad decision or handled things poorly. He did things the right way, every day, all of the time, and I think it’s why he was so successful for so long.”
The team’s charitable works were mostly kept under the radar – Moggach’s reasoning being his players had been given much, it was their turn to give back, and he didn’t want people thinking they did those things for publicity.
Moggach joined Rick Bourbonais as an assistant at Brighton in the mid-1980s, then switched roles with him for the 1996-97 season.
He realized Brighton’s potential in the 1992-93 season, when the Bulldogs upset perennial state power Trenton in the Class A Quarterfinals before losing to Detroit Catholic Central in a Semifinal.
“That, to me, said, at least in my mind, that we can do this,” Moggach said. “It’s not impossible.”
He slowly began to build the program, getting good players and a schedule that would challenge them.
“You get the players by building a good culture,” he said. “Back in the day, when I started, we weren’t very disciplined and our league wasn’t very disciplined. So I think we realized we had to build that, and I could have an influence on building that in Brighton.”
Along with the culture, Moggach looked for an edge whenever he could find it. He was talked into making a trip to the Keweenaw Peninsula by one of his player’s parents, and found enormous benefits for his team, both competitively and in team bonding.
“It’s a lot about the little things we do,” he said, “that we find joy in, and create those opportunities. Creating the little moments really can build to bigger moments. We played capture the flag one day in about two feet of snow.
“Almost killed them,” he added, chuckling. The exhausted players didn’t have much left for the game that night, but spending time together for four days in a bus and hotel room always brought the team closer on and off the ice.
That first UP expedition also led to more teams making the trip, for team bonding and a glimpse of a part of the state, and themselves, they might never have seen otherwise.
“We didn’t do that for long,” he said. “But we always came back saying we were better together because of that experience.”
Bob Nelson had three sons play for Moggach, and Nelson’s wife, Kris, was president of the team’s booster club during their involvement over nearly a decade in Brighton hockey. Nelson also coached the program’s younger players for five seasons.
“We got to know the Moggachs really well,” he said. “It was a good experience, both as a coach and as a parent as well.”
Moggach introduced other things, including an emphasis on nutrition and off-ice training, that players resisted at first until they saw the benefits.
He savored conversations with referees and opposing coaches before the games and even the occasional reporter after games.
But his first priority was the players. At times he would erupt in practice at a player or, more commonly, the team, and the boys soon learned to hear the message, not the volume. But for a couple of seasons, they also wrote some of his wilder statements down in a notebook after practice.
One year, they read some of them at the banquet, and after each one, Moggach’s wife, Sharon, would look at him and ask, “Did you really say that?”
Moggach would laugh and confess to remembering he had actually done so, then laughing.
“He knew part of what made the program good was his relationship to the players,” Nelson said. “If it was a good time, he wanted to enjoy it, even at his own expense at times.”
Moggach has staying in the background this offseason, letting Kivisto shape the team.
Asked if he were willing to fully switch coaching roles, as he and Bourbonais did a quarter-century ago, Moggach laughed.
“No,” he said emphatically. “Rick wasn’t in his 70s when we made the switch. Kurt needs his time. I’ll be there if he needs me.”
Moggach, who is 74, still works fulltime as the University of Michigan’s director of risk management.
He plans to spend more time with his wife and watch his grandsons play hockey, as well as catching some Lake Superior State games.
“I was really blessed to have Rick and Brownie (longtime assistant Mike Brown) along for the ride, and then to get Kurt involved,” Moggach said. “They weren’t the only ones, but they were the kids for me.
“The other thing is the support from the Brighton (High School) administration, the teachers, and our community. There are more people to thank than I could ever bring up. I do think that, all together, it was a great run. It couldn’t have been any better.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Recently-retired Brighton hockey coach Paul Moggach celebrates the 2018 Division 1 championship game win over Saginaw Heritage at USA Hockey Arena. (Middle) Former player Kurt Kivisto, left of Moggach during the 2018 Semifinal win over Detroit Catholic Central, served as an assistant before assuming the head coaching job in September. (Below) Brighton's 2018 championship was its fifth under Moggach. (Photos by Hockey Weekly Action Photos.)