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I met Bill Wood in 1985...

We both were playing Bandy, a cross between hockey and soccer, for the USA Bandy team, and we went to sweden to play in the world cup tournament. From that moment through last sunday, when I spoke to Woody about our upcoming bandy game (we both still play in the mens league in roseville, mn), this man has been nothing but a steady, consistent delight. We only saw each other at games--pick-up hockey games in the summer, bandy league games in the winter--and there he was, grinning, skating with the college boys (woody is now 53, but on the ice you kinda couldn't tell him apart from the twenty-somethings), and to top it off, two weekends ago woody's senior pond hockey team won the US Pond Hockey Tournament/senior division at lake Calhoun. Woody's team had no subs, just four skaters over 50 who love the game and weren't gonna come off the ice anyways--I was there to help out, and immediately after the championship win, as the players were getting their face-time in front of the cameras, Woody was looking for me, to tell me he had some parts I needed for my skates, and did I want him to drive them over? The next tuesday, which is now little over a week ago, we skated together for the amur tigers, our bandy team, me and woody up at forward together. A great nite, a great hour on the ice, and the comfort of old friends. Then, last sunday came around and I told woody I wouldn't be there that nite, but I would see him thursday, up at top forward, just in time for the tip-off.

Only now there is no tip-off for woody. He died the next day, last monday, of a massive heart attack. This happened to a guy who had skated five pond hockey games in two days with no subs the previous weekend. Needless to say, the shock is complete and the silence that remains is deafening.

Maybe we all have somebody in our lives, somebody quiet, with a crooked grin, who flat-out makes our life better by being in it with us. Somebody who has never, as Chris Middlebrook said, "taken a smile off of somebody's face". Woody, I wish I could talk to you now man, and thank you for your quiet friendship, your selfless way. So selfless, in fact, that when the star-tribune ran a story on you, they used a picture of your pond-hockey teammate, Tim MacDonald. Even in death you were beautifully under the radar. Maybe there is somebody for each of us to notice, now, before it is too late.

Cedric Dickens said that "we will meet again, in the tavern that lies at the end of all roads". I'd like to picture woody, up on the big sheet, as we call the bandy ice, silently skating beautiful, big circles. The big sheet in the sky. Skate easy, old friend.