Warroad will have fourth inductee to US Hockey Hall of Fame
In the summer of 1995, I worked a three month internship at The Warroad Pioneer, which I'm sorry to say has since ceased operation. This was the first professional newspaper that I worked for in my career, and it turned out to be a wonderful experience. I had only worked at Bemidji State University's newspaper for about a year and half before landing the internship. At The Pioneer I gained experience in sports, feature, beat and government reporting. I designed pages, took and developed photographs and was responsible for community relations. The best part is that I remain friends with the owners nearly 30 years later.
Aug. 15, 1995
By Devlyn Brooks
He has been featured in Gentlemen's Quarterly, a nationally known magazine. He's played hockey at almost every level, achieving many acclimations. He was a sliver medalist in the 1972 Olympics in Sapporo, Japan, and he is one of 10 Native Americans to ever compete in the Olympics for the United States.
He is Warroad's own Henry Boucha, and he will be inducted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame Sept. 16.
Boucha grew up playing hockey in the streets of Warroad with other neighborhood kids. He said they would take an empty snus can and stuff it with paper. Then wrap tape all around it for a puck.
"No one had shin pads so we didn't use real pucks," Boucha said. "We'd play for hours until somebody got mad and took their snus can home."
Boucha said that if they got bored with road hockey, the would grab their skates and head to the Warroad River to play ice hockey. They would clear the ice off to make a rink and play for several more hours.
"One of the sad things to see today, is that none of the kids play (hockey) outside anymore. You never see rinks on the river," Boucha said. "There are very few outdoor rinks in Warroad anymore."
This is not the only difference between today's children and his generation, Boucha said. It is now harder for kids to focus on one thing. Now they have Segas, Nintendos, four-wheel-drives and snowmobiles.
"Most of the kids in my era, and before, they had to make their own fun. That is why we played hockey so much," he said. "Now, it's tough to stay focused on any one thing."
Consequently, Boucha has not yet purchased a Sega for his son. "Summers are too short anyway. They should be outside playing."
Boucha said that kids nowadays are specializing in sports, playing only basketball, hockey or baseball. This is something else that his generation never did. They played every sport in high school. ... Football in the fall; hockey in the winter; and as soon as the snow melted, baseball and track.
"Some kids won't play football because they are worried about the contact, which isn't right," he said. "I think you should play all sports when you're in high school."
Boucha said that he never knew he was going to play professional hockey when he was younger.
"We did it as something fun. We enjoyed ourselves," he said. "You didn't know where you were going to go. You just played because it was fun."
Later, as he got older, people would tell him that he was good, and that if he tried, he could go on to the pros.
"You just played, and when these doors opened up, you went," he said. "As you go up each level, you just get hungrier for more."
Boucha's success began in 1964 when he was a member of the Warroad State Bantam Championship Team. In 1969, his senior year in high school, he was on a state runner-up team. He was on the All-State Team three years running.
After high school, Boucha opted to play major juniors hockey in Canada instead of playing for the University of Minnesota. At the time, he would say it was because you only got one shot at playing pro hockey. He didn't know how correct he was. A severe eye injury in 1975 would, for the most part, end Boucha's professional hockey career.
However, before he was done, he left his mark on the hockey world. He was the leading scorer of the 1972 silver medal-winning U.S. Olympic Hockey team in Sapporo, Japan. He was also a member of the 1970-71 U.S. National Teams.
In 1973, Boucha set a National Hockey League record for scoring the fastest goal at the start of a game. He scored in just six seconds against the Montreal Canadiens. And, in 1992, he was honored in Alberquerque, New Mexico, for being only one of 10 Native Americans ever to compete for the U.S..
Much of what Boucha does today involves giving other Native American children the chances that he received when he was younger.
He works on the Hockey Diversity Task Force with such esteemed organizations as Disney, NHL Enterprises, USA Hockey Inc. and the U.S. Olympic Committee. He said the task force works to give minority kids a chance to play hockey where they might never have gotten one.
"There's a need to look into this and get minorities involved," Boucha said. "Some of them are definitely overlooked because they are minorities."
Boucha also teaches at the annual Warroad Hockey Town Hockey School and travels to Portland to teach at a hockey school every summer. He said that he also plays a couple of celebrity hockey tournaments a year.
Boucha said he accomplished a lot of his goals when he was younger, and now he looks at goals from a different viewpoint.
"If you make your goal, you make your goal. If you don't, you don't," Boucha says now. "It's what you did along the way that counts."
For now, he said that he does not want to "do anything great, just maintain a good lifestyle," and "make sure my kids are alright." He said that it is not important if his 7-year-old son follows in his hockey footsteps if he does not want to.
Although the induction into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame is not a surprise to hockey fans or to the people of Warroad, Boucha takes the honor in stride. He keeps a modest attitude and plans to live out the rest of his life quietly, selling real estate and continuing his job as the Indian Education director for the Warroad School District's 167 Indian students.
"There's a lot of hard work in sports, lots of heartache, adversity, pain. ... And lots of losses," Boucha said. "You work your whole life for one moment sometimes, and every once in a while you are rewarded for your persistence."
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