Colley humbled by Hall nomination

Sports

Posted By MORGAN IAN ADAMS

Posted 1 month ago

Tom Colley was in the mood for celebrating, Tuesday.

The former pro hockey player and captain of the Collingwood Shipbuilders got the news a couple of weeks ago he'd been inducted into the Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame; on Tuesday, his son Kevin and daughter-in- law Stacy made Tom a grandfather for the first time.

"I thought that's why you were calling," joked Colley, on the phone at his parents' Toronto home.

Colley was at Toronto General this week for more testing; he has pulmonary sarcoidosis fibrosis and inflammation of the lungs, and is awaiting a transplant. The disease has given him a new focus, though, to lose weight, and be as fit as he can in anticipation of surgery-- whenever the call comes.

Even if the call comes during his induction into the hall of fame ceremony later this fall.

"The folks at Toronto General, they're good people to work with," he said. "And you realize it's more than just you."

He's the youngest one in his group of patients, and sees it as his job to "keep things lighthearted for older folks.

"It's a team concept, too, and that's something I've been used to all my life, is being part of a team."

Colley turned pro in 1973, drafted by the NHL's Minnesota North Stars, and the New England Whalers of the upstart WHA; he'd just come off his last junior season with the OHA Sudbury Wolves, with 117 points in 63 games.

The centreman was sitting in his lawyer's office in Boston, after a few days of being "wined and dined" by the Whalers, when an offer came in from Minnesota. It was for more money, and at 19, he decided to go for the cash.

"My goal growing up was to be in the NHL, and when you're 19, money always talks," he said. "If I were to look back at it, I might have come up through the World league and into the NHL (the Whalers moved to Hartford in the 1974-75 season, and joined the NHL for the 1979 season when the WHA folded)."

Colley spent most of his pro career playing for Minnesota's AHL affiliate, the New Haven Nighthawks. He played one game for the North Stars, earning a two-minute minor for hooking Tom Lysiak in a game against Atlanta.

The lone penalty is the subject of some ribbing with his son Kevin; the younger Colley, also former pro who who had a career-ending injury in 2006 and now coaches the ECHL's Utah Grizzilies, didn't register any statistics in his first NHL game with the New York Islanders.

"He wanted to get back and get more penalties than his dad," joked Tom.

"I would have liked to have had more than one game, but I have no regrets, and I had a great career in New Haven."

(Kevin Colley did, however, beat his dad getting into the Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame, having been inducted in 2007.) Colley spent his final pro season with Hartford's AHL affiliate in Binghamton, before moving to Collingwood and playing with the OHL senior league Shipbuilders.

"Tom could take over a game at the drop of a puck," said broadcaster and former Shipbuilder executive member Dale West, who also called the Shipbuilder games on CKCB. West recalled a game against Chatham when the Shipbuilders were down 3-1; Colley was late to the arena because of work, and didn't join the team until the second period started.

"By the end of his second shift, (Collingwood) was leading," said West. "He just changed the flow of a game."

Colley also scored the last two goals in Shipbuilder history in 1987; tied 2-2 with Dunnville in game six of the senior league championship, Colley netted a shorthanded goal to give the Shipbuilders a 3-2 lead, and followed that with an empty-netter to clinch the game and end the series.

Colley shrugged off that praise as just knowing where to be on the ice, joking that made him seem out-of-place in the senior loop.

"I'd played eight years of pro hockey, and I'd been in an NHL training camp, and exhibition games, and after you're playing at that level, you gain the knowledge and what it takes to get the job done," said Colley. "Even at 28 (when he joined the Shipbuilders), I was a seasoned veteran, and been through the wars at a higher level.

"I looked out of place because I knew where I had to be."

After the Shipbuilders folded, Colley turned his sights to the younger set, coaching minor hockey and serving on the Collingwood Minor Hockey executive.

"I was trying to give my knowledge back," said Colley, who also spent a season behind the bench of the Collingwood Blues as assistant coach to former head coach Tim Dickey.

Once he gets his new lungs, Colley says he wants to get back on the ice -- the doctors have told him he can do it -- and "go back to coaching the kids at the younger ages."

The hall of fame nomination, he says, is humbling.

"It means a lot," said Colley. "Anytime you get inducted into any kind of hall of fame, it's a great honour.

"You can throw a lot of cliches around, but you never get to a hall of fame by yourself... you get a lot of help along the way, from parents, coaches, and the players that surrounded you."

In Wednesday's edition of the Enterprise- Bulletin, profiles on Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame inductees Earl Wilson, and the 2008 CCI senior football team.