Eddie’s got a Huge Heart
By Eddie Michels on November 15, 2021So with all this let me just make a closing statement or two that will definitely embarrass all those who have treated me like a second class citizen. First was the comment about me asking a player to reach down and hand me the puck during a game and for good reason I ask them.
You see on February 1, 1968 during Tet my left knee was damaged while I was saving the lives of about 15 unarmed GI’s during an ambush outside “Old Tent City B” near Saigon. My first Purple Heart of three which not one of the GI’s ever thank me for but you tax payers have paid me for. Then there was February 20, 1973 while fighting a house fire as a volunteer fireman in Upstate New York some how my 40-pound Scott Air Pack which was strapped to my back smashed a vertebra in my back. This now limits my ability to pick up things at times from ground level. We will end here on the injuries that have been inflicted on me over the years but my experience has over come some of all this.
As an official I umpired my first ball game in Vietnam in 1969 then worked my way thru college officiating sports. Then in 1974, the same year I started playing Senior-A Hockey for the Syracuse Blackhawks I started as a referee doing only a few games. In fact in early 1977 Dr. Edward Sugarman asked me stop playing hockey because of the damage to my knees but to keep refereeing as it was helping them. You figure that one out. Well I have officiated the nationals, become a USA Hockey Seminar Instructor, a referee in chief which all ended when I moved here to Florida. At least Al Hunter at TBSA used to have me work a game or two as an instructor for his new ref’s as their training was lacking from USA Hockey. If I remember correctly they all made it with me around and Al liked it. All this including umpiring professional baseball, without any training and as the official scorer during major and minor league games I figure I am well qualified so please let me return to the ice.
You all see the money I make pays the operating expenses for the Dunedin Children’s Christmas Fund which I have run since it started and now you-all are blocking our good deeds.
Now in closing I will let people know what you have done not only to me personally but a large number of very needy children this coming holiday season. A Post Script-There is more and maybe I will use it.
Tags: eddie michels, eddie michels purple heart
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