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It ain't over until the fat lady sings. And for Oahu Inline Hockey League children and staff awaiting the official opening of a newly built hockey rink in Hawaii Kai, the fat lady couldn't sing any sooner.
Hawaii Kai's new inline hockey
» Team Outback skates on
rink represents a victory for the
community and possibly the
future of youth recreation
By Keiko Kiele Akana-Gooch
kakana-gooch@starbulletin.comOIHL members say the Kamilo Iki Park hockey rink is finished, and, with permission from the contractor hired by the city to build the rink and upcoming skateboard park, the league has been practicing on the rink for the past two weeks.
Before the first skates slid across the rink, OIHL teams practiced on basketball and tennis courts. Besides the rough surfaces which slowed down the puck, tripped up skaters and quickly wore down equipment, players had to dodge basketball net posts.
But that didn't stop the players and coaches from doing what they love. OIHL coach and board member Wayne Giancaterino led a team that never set skate on a rink to the regional championships. Their win, "given the lack of a facility, is phenomenal," he said. "That's the kind of dedication these kids have."
Giancaterino said playing on such wear-and-tear surfaces inhibited the growth of OIHL.
"We're at the critical point where (the hockey rink) is ready but the city isn't accepting it," said Cy Matsuoka, OIHL treasurer and coach.
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Until the surrounding landscape is set in, the City and County of Honolulu considers that portion of the park incomplete and refuses to claim ownership, leaving the approximately $500,000 rink in the hands of the contractor, PER Inc., and closed to the general public.The inside's all done," said Shawn Petry, PER superintendent and project manager. "It doesn't make sense to make the public wait if the facility's finished, as long as there's a safe route," he said, explaining why his company is allowing limited use of the facility to OIHL's teams practicing for regional championships. The league is able to use the park because it carries its own insurance.
City deputy director of design and construction Eric Crispin said Friday:
"The city will accept the facility once it's complete. The main things that are missing are landscaping, some things with the sidewalks; mostly cosmetic things. But we don't accept it until it's complete."
The grass is being planted and should take root in a week or two, Petry said. Once that happens, his company plans to ask the city to take over the rink, despite a 90-day maintenance period outlined in the contract.
"The grass is one of the minor things of the project," Petry said. "Somebody's got to say, 'Yeah, we'll take responsibility for the grass.'"
In a compromise measure, the city allowed the contractor and the hockey league to come to their own terms on rink use prior to the facility's completion.
"This is a learning process," said Carol Costa, spokesperson for the city. "Each time we go forward with one of these projects, we're learning more." The Kamilo Iki inline hockey rink is the second such facility the city has built, following Mililani's rink.
Still, Costa said the city is proud of the Hawaii Kai rink. "The city is about making things work for the communty. We're very pleased and proud of this facility."
And OIHL is happy to have it.
Giancaterino worked to expedite communication between the different parties involved, including the various city and county departments and the contractor. But his main role has been "making people care," he said.
He is quick to acknowledge the city's role in making the rink a reality, having shortened the two year timespan it would have taken to build the skateboard and hockey rink park at Koko Head Park, as originally planned.
"Mayor Harris saw that we were a strong political force, so he's been very responsive, which has impressed me. The government doesn't always do that," Giancaterino said.
It's also a testament to Hawaii Kai's community involvement. With strong support from that community, OIHL and neighborhood skateboarders successfully lobbied several years ago for the construction of an inline hockey rink and skateboard park in their locale.
"It's been an incredible family, community effort," Giancaterino said. "It's the efforts of the community and everyone recognizing the desire of the kids," although it's hard to explain the project delays to the children.
"They're just saying, 'Where's my rink?'" he said.
Giancaterino said OIHL players went to neighborhood board meetings testifying for the hockey rink. Dressed in uniform with hockey stick in hand, the children spoke from their hearts without any adult coaching.
"That was great for the kids," Giancaterino said. "They got to see government in action.
"The most important thing is that (the government) did listen to the kids," he said. "Maybe it was the sticks."
THE SKATEBOARD park was to have been completed in December 2001. The new finish date is set mid- to late-July, with construction crews expected to pour the inside of the skateboard facility next Tuesday. Rainy weather, changes in design plans and compliance with American Disabilities Act access rules contributed to the project's delay.
"There's a lot involved that people don't see," Petry said.
While the contractor does its finishing touches on the inline hockey rink facility, interest in joining OIHL has increased at least two-fold since the rink's construction, Giancaterino said.
Although registration for next season doesn't begin until August, Giancaterino said church and military groups islandwide have been attending OIHL meetings intending to join the league before its new season starts up in September. Giancaterino said the league could easily double its participation next season, from 205 to 500 players by next season.
That would mean more rinks are needed, something the league is already discussing, with Kailua, Pearl City and Koko Head rinks at the forefront of future plans. Mililani; Kauai; Kona, Hawaii; Kihei, Maui; and various military bases have their own inline hockey rinks and leagues.
The various inline hockey leagues are organizing inter-league competition. However, OIHL is one of the largest leagues in the state. The OIHL board meets once a month to discuss ways to improve and expand the league. It is no longer a question of expansion, but rather how to meet the increased demand for the sport.
ORGANIZED INLINE hockey began 12 years ago, Matsuoka said, with the Hawaii Junior Roller Hockey League. That league was replaced by OIHL in 1998.
Matsuoka became a member of the roller hockey league when his eldest son joined the league. He has been hooked ever since, and said he would still participate in the league even if his two younger sons weren't playing.
"I was lucky that they chose this game," Matsuoka said, citing its ability to help kids stay healthy, learn good sportsmanship and stay out of trouble.
"It's a great commitment" that leaves no time for troublesome activity, he said. With skates on foot, his 13- and 16-year-olds deliver the Star-Bulletin while staying in shape.
Matsuoka and other OIHL board members have big plans for their league.
"We're here and we're here to stay," Matsuoka said. "We're a great organization to be a part of." Matsuoka said there are plans to establish an adult league.
In the meantime, Jeremiah Oshiro, 19, who started playing inline hockey 7 years ago, can only coach and referee while he anxiously awaits the formation of a league in which he can play.
Previously coached by Matsuoka, Oshiro said, "We've been waiting a long time for" this rink. "We never had stuff like this when I was playing." OIHL coaches all reiterated the sense of family associated with their league. Giancaterino said many of the players are brothers and sisters, so it becomes a family sport. Being raised on hockey on the mainland, Giancaterino said he was pleasantly shocked when his son chose inline hockey over soccer.
"It's a very natural, rewarding thing" for parents to share a passion for the same sport with their children," Giancaterino said.
Matsuoka said: "All the kids I coach, they become my kids. They all become my family, so we take care of each other."
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Robert Moylan loved being a young center on the ice hockey rinks of Detroit. Beginning at age 5, he and his father would hose down the back patio at night and awake to a homemade ice rink. Team Outback skates on
Pluck, luck and sponsors' bucks shape
the Hawaii Kai team's Cinderella season
By Keiko Kiele Akana-Gooch
kakana-gooch@starbulletin.comBut at age 10, Moylan took a detour when his family moved to sunny, hot Florida.
"My ice hockey career was pretty much done after that," he said. "I'd love to know what would've happened if we hadn't moved to Florida."
He probably couldn't have foreseen ending up in sunny, hot Honolulu, where he'd be coaching a hockey team on asphalt basketball courts.
Moylan, known fondly as "Coach Rob" to the 11- to 14-year-old players on Team Outback, was "pleasantly surprised" when his Hawaii Kai bantam division team finished their equally balanced win-loss Oahu Inline Hockey League season with an undefeated championship series at Wilson Park in Kahala last month.
Moylan, coaching his first season, said lack of teamwork plagued the young players early on. They hadn't learned, he said, "it's just as important to make the pass that makes the goal as it is to make the goals."
That's when one of their sponsors stepped in. In addition to donating $400 for uniforms and equipment, Outback Steakhouse in Hawaii Kai invited the team to their restaurant for a free lunch and pep talk.
Restaurateur Chris Jones said, "We brought them in here and explained to them how we operate the business and how it wouldn't work without teamwork."
Sure enough, the team responded within a few hours, winning their first playoff game. "That did wonders for the kids," Moylan said. "We saw immediate improvement."
Despite the stereotype of Hawaii Kai as a ritzy neighborhood, Moylan said several players come from single-parent households with modest incomes. And with practices on the rough basketball and tennis court surfaces, "equipment gets ground down to nothing really quickly."
New skates can range from $70 to upward of $400, depending on the brand and quality. Replacing one wheel -- there are four on one skate -- can cost $7 to $15. Hockey sticks are sold separately by the shaft and blade, which are typically $60 and $15, respectively. Kneepads cost between $25 and $30. The sport was costing parents between $300 and $400 on equipment alone, Moylan said.
Parents of OIHL players also pay an annual $25 fee for the national organization, USA Hockey Inline, of which OIHL is a part, and $40 to $60 a year to OIHL for pucks, goalie equipment, nets and referees, who receive $10 an hour for their service.
But equipment should last longer next season when OIHL teams slide onto the recently completed Kamilo Iki Park inline hockey rink. Team Outback parents can also look forward to financial relief in the form of free jerseys, courtesy, again, of some of their biggest fans.
The Hawaii Masons Union also chipped in $400 for Team Outback's equipment.
FOR OIHL COACHES and staff, who go payless, it's a labor of love. "The more I played with the kids, the more I enjoyed teaching them what I knew," Moylan said.
"Getting to know them, earning their respect, all those things made me want to get more involved, plus my desire to play," said Moylan, who follows in the footsteps of his father, Joe, who was captain of the ice hockey team at Boston College before becoming a coach.
Moylan said his father always calls him long-distance from Florida before Team Outback's big games. "He's of course very proud. If I'm having any trouble with the team, he'll give me advice. He still remembers all his stuff."
Moylan hopes to coach again next year, depending on his work schedule. He works 45 hours a week for Atlantis Submarines Hawaii, and used his vacation time and personal leave to attend Saturday hockey games. He hopes to enlist an assistant coach next season.
And OIHL would love to have him coaching again.
League board member and coach Wayne Giancaterino said, "I think Rob has got a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of heart."
"He was able to secure something the rest of us haven't been very successful at, which is sponsorship. That's the beauty of this thing, we're all working for free. We all sort of pitch in, and we each pitch in our interests and our contacts."
Giancaterino, who had previously coached many of Moylan's players, said some of them could have gotten into mischief without Moylan's guidance and influence.
"If they haven't got an outlet for energy, they'd make trouble," Giancaterino said. "He knew this was a much more positive outlet for the kids."
Giancaterino isn't the only one pleased with Moylan's first-time coaching performance. Joshua Holmes, an 11-year-old Hahaione Elemenatry School sixth-grader, considers Moylan an awesome coach because "he relates to kids very well, meaning he is an adult but he understands us kids good. He is also very fair and understanding, and makes the sport fun and exciting."
Holmes plans to play professional ice hockey when he grows up, just like his coach wanted to.
Holmes' mother, Debra Williams, said, "The real question I ask myself everyday is, What would my child have not gained if it weren't for Coach Rob?"
Williams, who doubles as team mom, said: "I believe his passion for these kids took them to the top. His heart is not only in this sport, but in these children."
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