This Tiger Prowls The Ice

The boy opens the door, and you immediately know you've found the right place.

The hat and shirt give it away.

The hat is a Boston Bruins cap. Hockey Is Life is written across the middle of the shirt.

Hockey may not be all of Matt Nelson's life, but it's been a big chunk of it. Matt, an 18-year-old senior at Warsaw High School, owns sports letters from Warsaw (junior varsity cross country) and Carroll High School.

Carroll?

Carroll.

Matt played high school hockey. Only about 25 Indiana high schools offer hockey as a sport. Warsaw is not one, but Carroll is. So Matt, a left-handed shooter, joined Carroll's team as a 15-year-old sophomore.

Voila. He was a Warsaw Tiger and a Carroll Charger.

"Sometimes we get calls from people around here interested in hockey," Bonnie, his mother, says. "They say 'We understand your son is the hockey man in town.'"

Another Warsaw student, Chad Hygema, played hockey for South Bend Riley.

Matt's playing days at Carroll, which ended in April, included a selection to the Fort Wayne Area High School Hockey Association All-Star team this season.

Hockey is in the Nelson family's blood. Bonnie and John, his father, grew up in Massachusetts. Hockey was not a sport; it was the sport. John played pond hockey as a youngster.

"One rule in our family is we don't fight," Bonnie says. "We play clean hockey. We will give a good, hard, clean check to let you know we're there."

Grace College lured John and his family to Winona Lake several years ago. When John learned Fort Wayne had an International Hockey League team named the Komets, he began writing a weekly Komet column for the Times-Union from 1982 through 1987.

During that time, Komet players Steve Salvucci, Paul Addey, Eldon "Pokey" Reddick, Rick Hendricks, Rick St. Croix, Ron Leef, Doug Rigler and former Komets owner Colin Lister ate dinner and studied the Bible at the Nelson home once a week.

Reddick, who went on to win a Stanley Cup with the National Hockey League's Edmonton Oilers in 1989, bought Matt his first hockey stick. Outside his room today is a coat rack made out of several hockey sticks standing upright.

"Steve Salvucci made that for me," Matt says. "I just love that."

The players told John about a hockey youth league in Fort Wayne. With parents who grew up in a hockey hotbed and players who hung out in his house, young Matt needed no convincing. He, too, fell in love with the sport and joined the youth league.

Matt learned to skate by 4 and began playing hockey by 4 1/2. He started out as a goalie. He played left wing and center for Carroll during his sophomore and junior years. He didn't do too bad. He led his team in assists both years.

He switched to defense his senior year. First-year coach Lynn Vardaman needed a leading defenseman. Matt became that man.

"He volunteered to play defense, and he turned out to be one of our strongest defensemen," Vardaman said. "He took a lot of penalties for us. Guys would retaliate, and he would take it. He would draw a penalty on the other team and draw a power play for us. He was real solid getting the puck out of our own end and making that first pass.

"He drove the farthest. It took commitment to make that drive. He's a senior, but I wish I could have him back."

That he has played four positions should not be a surprise. The Komet players debated over dinner where Matt should play.

"Pokey always wanted me to be a goalie," he says. "The others said, 'Nah, he's not a goalie.' Steve Salvucci said it's always a lot more fun to put the puck in the net rather than to stop it from going in."

From September through March the last three years, Nelson went from his home on the west side of Warsaw to Fort Wayne to play his sport - an hour and 15-minute drive each way.

Games in Fort Wayne took place on Tuesday night. Practices were on Wednesday night the first two years then on Monday and Wednesday nights this season. This year's Monday practices were held at Memorial Coliseum, Matt said, where the "boards are softer and the ice smoother."

John and Bonnie shuttled Matt back and forth to games and practices when he was a 15-year-old sophomore. They attended every game they could for three years. The practice trips ended for them when Matt started driving.

The hours, Matt says, were the only drawback.

"One time we had a Wednesday practice after a Tuesday game we didn't play very well in," Matt says. "Coach (Lynn Vardaman) put us through a long practice, and I didn't get home until a quarter after 1.

"The late hours were the toughest thing."

This doesn't count the weekend games. Carroll played on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Most of these games were in Indianapolis against Indianapolis high school hockey teams. Over Thanksgiving, Carroll competed in Detroit against teams from Canada, Michigan and Illinois.

Carroll played a 54-game schedule.

Then there was work. Matt also put in two days per week as a manager at McDonald's.

"Every night I was either playing hockey or working," he says.

He couldn't drop work. He needed the money for the hockey, for school. He plans to study accounting at Manchester College with sights set on becoming a CPA.

His busy schedule hasn't hurt his grades - he was named to the Indiana High School Hockey League Association Academic All-Star Team this year.

Hockey playing will probably end when Matt goes to college, but he would like to coach once he gets settled in the work force.

Even after Carroll's season ended, Vardaman has called Matt, trying to persuade him to play for a team in Michigan. Matt politely declines. He would love to, but work gets in the way now.

"Matt's pretty much had to do this on his own," John says. "It's not like other sports, where the high school helps support them."

A hockey stick? Money out of Matt's pocket. A helmet? Out of Matt's pocket. The gas for the trips to Carroll? Out of Matt's pocket.

His helmet may mean the most to him.

Greg Trundley, an uncle, was a disabled Vietnam veteran who was paralyzed on his left side. Trundley delivered passionate pep talks to Matt before games. They had a streak going. When Trundley watched a game, Matt scored a goal. Simple as that.

Trundley had a heart attack and died Oct. 18, 1995.

Since that time, Greg has written five names inside his helmet: Uncle Greg, mother, father, girlfriend and God.

"God is in big letters and underlined," he says. "They are why I play hockey."