Fort Collins – The pasta is done, the noodles glistening in the stainless steel saucepan. The meat is a pleasant shade of pink, its edges nicely singed from flame-broiled heat. The drinks are poured, and ice crackles in the glasses.
For Colorado Eagles teammates and roommates Ryan Tobler and Riley Nelson, it is time to dine: hot dogs, mac and cheese and Gatorade for all.
“You want some?’ Nelson asks a visitor. “There’s plenty.’
The cupboards of Tobler and Nelson’s apartment are full from a recent visit to the nearby Sam’s Club, where the professional hockey players are card-carrying members. They always are on the lookout for a good buy. They have to be, with a weekly paycheck that averages $472.22 before taxes.
That is the average wage for a player in the Central Hockey League, which mandates a weekly team salary cap of $8,500 to be split among 18 players.
But for Tobler and Nelson, this is the life of Riley.
“We play for the logo on the front of our sweater, not the name on the back,’ said Nelson, a 5-foot-9, 27-year-old forward who has been with the team since its inception in 2003 and scored the franchise’s first goal. “We’re doing what we love to do. That’s the bottom line.’
Lest you think Tobler and Nelson’s financial bottom lines are driving them to the soup line, there are some perks to being an Eagle. One of them is that their furnished apartments are paid for by the team, along with utility expenses.
As part of sponsorship deals with the team, the players get breaks from many of the restaurants in northern Colorado. They also get free rounds at Pelican Lakes Golf & Country Club in Windsor, thanks to another partnership.
Big men on campus
And, the players say, they get a certain level of celebrity stature from playing on a team that has been lovingly embraced by the community. The Eagles are in the CHL’s Northern Conference finals and led the 17-team league in wins (43) during the regular season. All of their games at the 5,289-seat Budweiser Events Center in Loveland have sold out.
“We get recognized a lot around here,’ said Tobler, 28, a 6-3 left wing who played four games for the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2001-02. “You get a lot of people coming up to you and thanking you for what we’re doing, giving them hockey to watch in the area. You get a lot of parents who tell you they love taking their kids to an affordable night out of hockey. They’re not spending a couple hundred bucks for a night out like they do in Denver for the Avalanche.’
Still, doesn’t it gall players to know they are playing in front of fans who probably take home bigger paychecks than they do?
“But how many people truly get to say they are doing what they most love to do?’ Nelson said. “We do. We’re not working 9 to 5 behind a desk. We’re playing hockey for a living and having a lot of fun.’
Nelson and Tobler are not living a day-to-day, carefree existence, afraid to grow up. Both recently became engaged, Nelson to a woman he met his first year playing for the Columbus (Ga.) Cottonmouths in 2000 and Tobler to a University of Colorado graduate student.
In the offseason, most CHL players supplement their incomes with other jobs. Nelson said many players work at hockey camps. He also does landscaping in the summers.
Having a working spouse helps, as is the case with Eagles veteran Greg Pankewicz. His wife, Charmaine, is an operating room nurse at McKee Medical Center in Loveland, and they live in a townhouse with their two children.
“We’ll have some of the really younger guys over sometimes, because I know what it was like at their stage of their careers,’ said Pankewicz, 34, who has played for 12 minor-league teams and two NHL teams. “We had one guy (Fraser Filipic) live with us for a month or so last year.’
All in the family
Despite working full-time as a nurse, with two young children, Charmaine said she is happy to be the “den mother’ to some of the younger players.
“We had Riley live with us for a couple weeks last summer, and have had a few others,’ said Charmaine, who is approaching her 11th wedding anniversary with Greg. “We all look out for each other on this team. It’s really your other family. We both know what it was like when we were a lot younger and living the hockey life, and any kind of advice or help we can give them as the oldest hockey couple here, we do.’
Charmaine is lucky, she says, because she works in a profession that makes it easy for her to find work quickly. Everywhere they’ve gone in recent years – including stops in Pensacola, Fla., Houston, Winnipeg, Manitoba and Portland, Maine – she has found work. The couple plan to establish roots in the Loveland area when her husband’s career is through, which Greg said he hopes won’t be for a “few more years.’
Nelson’s and Tobler’s fianc es are not living with them now, but they would be proud of the players’ efficient housekeeping. After lunch is over, the two immediately wash the dishes by hand and tidy up crumbs on the counter.
The decor may not pass Martha Stewart’s muster, however. Golf clubs are in one corner of the living room, and in another corner, Tobler’s laptop computer is dialed into his fantasy baseball page. A Nintendo game dominates a nearby coffee table, and the artwork on the walls includes a poster of the movie “Scarface’; above the kitchen table is a framed Eagles logo adorned with Christmas lights. A check of the bedrooms reveals Tobler’s bed is not made, but Nelson’s is and there is a laundry basket with separate pockets for whites and darks.
“Usually, I do all the cleaning and he does the cooking,’ Tobler said.
Said Nelson: “I make a mean spaghetti sauce. And he’s pretty good at keeping the place clean. We’ve been roomies for a couple years now. It works for us.’
Staff writer Adrian Dater can be reached at 303-820-5454 or adater@denverpost.com.
