In the News

A scorched earth battle for a U.S. Supreme Court seat and a president people love or loathe have many comparing these days to the turbulent 1960s.

But life is simpler on the hockey rink, where Republicans and Democrats in Congress annually suspend hostilities to make common cause against lobbyists for charity. Yes, the hockey rink.  This isn't the kind of bipartisanship that happens in a floor speech or a resolution drafted by some staffer — it happens on the ice, with sticks and pucks and sharp elbows.

Through corporate contributions, ticket sales and a silent auction of National Hockey League and Olympic memorabilia, the Congressional Hockey Challenge has raised more than $1 million since its 2009 inception for the Thurgood Marshall College Fund and two hockey-related charities.

It couldn't have happened without the cooperation of members of Congress in both parties.

"The lobbyists' bench — you know, we're just a bunch of swamp dwellers on that side," said Nick Lewis, senior vice president of legislative affairs for United Parcel Service. "But the lawmakers' bench is Republicans and Democrats and members of the House and the Senate all together on the same bench, on the same team.

"That's what I like about it — especially now, at a time where people need to come together more than anything."

The sports scene in Congress isn't limited to hockey, of course. There are charitable baseball, softball, basketball, golf and soccer events including various configurations of lobbyists, journalists, members and staffers. But most also pit congressional Republicans and Democrats against each other, albeit in good fun and for charitable causes.

The spirit of unity in Capitol Hill's community of athletes was epitomized at this year's hockey game — the 10th — when Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise did the ceremonial puck drop in honor of all the congressional sporting events that support charitable causes. Scalise was shot and seriously wounded during a June 2017 practice of Republican players in the annual Congressional Baseball Game.

The hockey lobbyists' team included Matt Mika, who also suffered grievous gunshot wounds at the Republican baseball practice.

The 2018 Congressional Hockey Challenge game itself, played March 15 at Kettler Capitals Iceplex in Arlington, Virginia, raised more than $120,000 for the event's three designated charities. "Team Lawmakers" rolled "Team Lobbyists," winning by a lopsided 8-1 margin.

Proceeds from the annual lawmakers versus lobbyists game pays for ice time, equipment and travel to tournaments for the nonprofit USA Warriors Ice Hockey Program for wounded U.S. military veterans and the Fort Dupont Ice Hockey Club in D.C. The Fort Dupont program seeks to get inner-city children involved in organized sports. USA Warriors teaches the game to wounded military men and women as a recreational and therapeutic experience.

The Congressional Hockey Challenge also has funded 10 four-year academic scholarships at historically black colleges and universities through the nonprofit Thurgood Marshall College Fund.

A very Kerry campaign

A blatant ulterior motive fuels New York Congressman John Katko's support for Pete Stauber's congressional campaign.

Katko is open about it. Giddy, in fact. He supports the Minnesota Republican because Stauber would be a ringer for Team Lawmakers next year. Katko is chairman of the Congressional Hockey Caucus — and Stauber is a former member of the NHL's Detroit Red Wings.

It's a good thing — at least for Katko's political standing — he and Stauber are in the same party. But judging by the ear-to-ear grin Katko sported while discussing Stauber outside the House chamber, it may be a secondary consideration to him.

"There's always plenty of motivation (to defeat the lobbyists)," the New York congressman said, noting the nature of the opposition in the annual game.

Katko is no slouch on the ice himself. In the 2015 Congressional Hockey Challenge, he scored the game-winning goal and won the Most Valuable Player award. 

"We’re out there to have fun and raise some money for charities," he said. "We raise a lot of money for inner city youth hockey."

The contingent of elected congressional representatives who can actually play a little hockey is relatively small — just five played in this year's game — so Team Lawmakers filled out its 21-member roster with congressional staffers.

But over the years the lawmakers' team has included the famous and the infamous of Congress — John Kerry and Anthony Weiner, respectively. Kerry, the Democratic nominee for president in 2004, gave the team cache with other potential members in the event's earliest days. Weiner, a New York congressman when he played goalie for the lawmakers, flamed out of Congress under the weight of a sexting scandal in 2011.

Finding members of Congress with experience on the ice was a real problem when Lewis and a small band of hockey-playing pals set out to create the Congressional Hockey Challenge in 2009.

As Lewis recalls it, the roughly half-dozen men were getting dressed to play a little pick-up hockey as they did every Monday night. There was a particularly strong buzz of anticipation in the locker room about the finals of the NCAA "Frozen Four" Division I men's hockey tournament, which would be played in Washington's Verizon Center.

"Someone said, ‘You know, we should look into having a (congressional) hockey game,'" Lewis said.

These were men with the connections to make it happen — D.C.-based lobbyists, congressional staffers. But they knew members of Congress would be the draw — not them. What they didn't know was whether any members actually played hockey.

One of the merry band, a photographer working for the U.S. Senate, knew that body's 100 members well. Soon enough, he sniffed out a lead: Kerry, a future U.S. secretary of state but then a senator representing Massachusetts, had played freshman and junior varsity hockey at Yale in the 1960s.

Kerry was a big name. It was only a few years before that he had come within a whisker of being elected president. If other members knew he was involved, it would give the endeavor enough credibility to lure more of them. That, of course, would be the way to attract sponsors.

Kerry was a busy man, he told the hockey delegation, but he ultimately signed on.

"He sort of said, 'If you promise not to ask me about this again, I'll do it,'" Lewis recalled with a laugh.

And it was all downhill from there. It had taken just seven weeks to turn the Congressional Hockey Challenge from locker room talk into reality.

An Indiana iceman

The stalwarts of today's Team Lawmakers crew include many with experience playing hockey at a high level. Like Minnesota Congressman Tom Emmer, who played at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks and with the United States Hockey League's Bloomington All-Stars. Emmer's done some coaching too.

And then there's Indiana Congressman Larry Bucshon, a former heart surgeon, who didn't take up the game until he was 40 — almost a decade before he was elected to Congress. Bucshon is 56 now.

"I learned to play because my son, Alec, who was about 7, wanted to play," Bucshon said in his Capitol Hill office. "As a family, we started skating every Sunday night at open skate night at Swonder (Ice Arena in Evansville) because I hadn’t skated since I was a kid, and he needed to learn — and the only way to skate is to go."

Bucshon got at least good enough on the ice at Swonder that a handful of dads who played competitively — and whose sons played with his boy — started noticing his moves. 

"They said, 'Hey you should play hockey,'" Bucshon said.

Initially surprised and intrigued, Bucshon got some gear and started playing locally. The Indiana iceman never lost his taste for the game — but he has lost some playing time due to injury. In fact, it changed his role on Team Lawmakers.

"I tore the ACL in my left knee six years ago, and this year I chose not to play because, honestly, I hadn’t been on the ice enough, and I didn’t feel like I was in good enough shape to play," Bucshon said.

Instead, the former heart surgeon showed up for the game as "team doctor."

The 55-year-old Katko joked that a heart surgeon is still a big help to players whose best days in hockey are far behind them.

"When I get elbowed, he picks me up off the ice and makes sure I’m still alive," the New York congressman said. "I remember a guy got hurt, and (Bucshon) came flying across the ice to make sure he was OK — so it’s great to have a doctor, that’s for sure. You need a dentist, though, when you’re playing hockey."

Emmer also plays an important role on Team Lawmakers — flamboyant, Don King-style talker of trash.

"The congressional team absolutely mopped the floor with the high-paid, well taken-of lobbyists (this year)," the Minnesota congressman said in his office. "It was an 8-1 final, and I think they got 12 shots on that."

Emmer turned serious, reflecting on the twin missions of the Congressional Hockey Challenge and Congress' hockey caucus.

"We’ve got to expand (the caucus) beyond just hockey players. We have to expand it to more people in our (Republican) conference and in the Democrats' conference and on the Senate side," he said.

"Because the game is not just about boys and girls being boys and girls and having a little bit of fun with people who work on and around the Hill. It's really about inner-city kids and building scholarship money for inner-city kids for college."

Thomas Langhorne
Courier & Press