Traver McLeod stands in front of Maulers Hockey Central in Southgate Mall. McLeod started working at the store a year and a half ago when it first opened. (Kat Franchino/Montana Kaimin)

McLeod brings hockey to life in Missoula

by Tyson Alger | March 12, 2010 | Montana Kaimin

A group of 10 men sat at the Iron Horse Brew Pub, eyes glued to a television screen, watching their game. 

On this occasion, their game featured the Canadians playing the Americans for the Olympic gold medal.

At first, just those 10 men were watching the game, but as the periods progressed and the U.S. narrowed Canada’s lead, more and more stood transfixed. 

By the time that Zach Parise netted the game-tying goal with 24 seconds left, nearly everyone at the bar was partaking in high fives and different variations of man-hugs as the game of those 10 friends became the game for the bar and the country.

Everyone loved this except Traver McLeod. 

As a Canadian transplant living in Missoula, McLeod had to wait through seven more minutes of potential national tragedy before finally erupting in cheers when Sidney Crosby fulfilled Canada’s version of Manifest Destiny — winning gold in Vancouver. 

“That’s the only way it could have ended,” McLeod said as he sat in his office at Maulers Hockey Central, a hockey shop located in Southgate Mall. 

With the autographed approving stare of Canadian hero Wayne Gretzky looking over his right shoulder, McLeod wore a “Missoula Hockey” sweatshirt as he reflected on the ramifications of the tournament.

“There was no better way it could have ended for me,” he said. “It was pretty cool when the U.S. tied it up, but it ended the way it needed to. The game was good for hockey all around.”

Good for hockey it may have been, and many in Missoula say the same about McLeod: Good for hockey all around. 

In addition to managing the Maulers store, McLeod is the commissioner of the Glacier Hockey League, the local adult hockey league that operates at the Glacier Ice Rink.

During McLeod’s tenure as commissioner, Missoula has seen its hockey scene explode. 

Once a town with a rink that resembled a barn, with plywood locker rooms, no stands and a small but dedicated hockey contingent, Missoula has grown into its own hockey metropolis.

Much of it started with McLeod. 

McLeod grew up the same way every Canadian does.  First you crawl.  Then you walk.  Then you skate.

“Hockey is there right from the start,” McLeod says of growing up in Southern Saskatchewan. “It’s a blast up there. It’s just one of those things that all your buddies do, so you do it.”

When he turned 18, McLeod moved to Missoula and became a dual citizen of the United States and Canada, and quickly jumped into the hockey scene. 

McLeod worked at the local Play It Again Sports shop and played in the GHL, which was founded in 1998.

The league, along with Missoula hockey, stayed relatively stagnant for the next several years. 

It was in 2004 that things started to change.  That was the year McLeod became commissioner of the league. 

McLeod took a league that featured one division with six teams and doubled it in size to two leagues with six teams apiece within a year. 

The growth hasn’t stopped.  Today, McLeod presides over one of the fastest-growing hockey leagues on the west coast. 

McLeod has taken a league that started with six teams and maybe 60 participants and transformed it to league that features seven different divisions with more than 800 players. 

“It’s a really rewarding experience to see all of the growth of the program,” he said.  “It’s been a pretty big commitment, but it’s been pretty cool.”

Downstairs from McLeod’s office in the hockey shop is a hockey player’s paradise.  Rows of sticks, skates, gloves, helmets and anything else that directly corresponds with ice is available to the local player. Big flat screen TVs display the day’s hockey games and a skate-sharpening machine sits in the corner with a pile of skates waiting to be sharpened. 

Working down in the shop is Michael Michaels. A UM student who moved to Missoula five years ago, Michaels grew up with the game and has played in the GHL since he’s been in Missoula.  Michaels’ life closely resembles McLeod’s: Hockey is their life.  The only edge McLeod has on Michaels is his Canadian heritage. 

Although Michaels disagrees. 

“I have a shirt that says ‘Hockey. Invented by the Canadians. Perfected by Americans,’” Michaels laughed. “I rubbed it in pretty good with Trav when the U.S. beat Canada the first time. But when Canada won the medal he kind of gave it to me. He came into work and brought some Canadian song and played it on the speakers all day.” 

Back in Chicago, Michaels played a high level of hockey as a member of the New Trier High School team, a hockey powerhouse in Illinois.
Michaels is now on the Mudjackers of the GHL in the cup division, the league’s highest. 

There are dozens of stories that emulate Michaels’: Talented hockey transplants tearing up the ice in Missoula on weeknights. 

Michaels says a lot of the lure of Missoula hockey is because of McLeod.

“As far as Trav goes, he’s just done a lot of things in Missoula for the growth of hockey,” Michaels said. “This is my fifth year in the league and it’s just awesome. And we have the third-fastest youth program in the nation and Trav’s done a lot for that.”

Michaels’ reference to youth hockey is another facet of what McLeod does. 

McLeod is also assistant coach to the Missoula Bruins, who won their first ever high school state championship in Billings last weekend. 

“Winning the championship was pretty cool for Missoula hockey,” McLeod said. “The way we’ve gotten e-mails and parents and people supporting us is crazy.”

One of McLeod’s goals is to continue the growth of hockey in Missoula while helping whichever program he can.

Former UM hockey president Eric Kessler, now a student at the University of Iowa, says he remembers nothing but positive things in his encounters with McLeod.

“If there was any request, Traver was always more than willing to help the team out,” Kessler recalls. “He is all about hockey.  And if there is ever anything that people are doing that speaks toward hockey, he’s always all for it.”

In helping different programs, McLeod says he hopes to keep up the excitement in the sport for kids who are just getting into it.

“There are a lot of younger groups that look up to the older players and we want to keep them in it. The goal of everything is to keep people in hockey,” he said. 

For more hours a week than he can remember, McLeod deals with the logistics of hockey, whether it be behind his desk or on the phone securing sponsors for the league, or at home updating rosters and stats on the GHL’s Web site.
 
Today he is behind the desk, but for all the work he does, the man gets to play.

Tuesday night, McLeod was on the ice in the GHL’s semifinals.

As a member of the Big Sky Brewing team in the cup division, McLeod says getting on the ice makes all the work worth it. 

“That’s the release for me,” he said, scratching his face, which features a goatee and some stubble that resembles a hint of a playoff beard. “You can go out there and slash a guy, score a goal, just be out there with your buddies. In the locker room you’re in there with 15 buddies drinking a beer and just having a fun time.”

Being on the ice also takes away from McLeod’s responsibilities as commissioner.

“When I’m out there playing I’m not worrying about what guy scored what, what other teams won, who I need to move up or down in a league or what guy caused some shit in a game the night before. You don’t have to worry about that stuff when you’re on the ice,” he said. 

Because McLeod has his foot in so many different ponds across the Missoula hockey sphere, everyone who laces up the skates in the city probably knows him.

In games he will constantly get feedback from fans, although sometimes it’s candid ribbing. 

During Big Sky’s 7–4 win over the Shirt Shop team Tuesday, McLeod came down on the ice with the puck and wound up for a slap shot that didn’t quite stun the goaltender who easily made the save.

“You’ll have to wind up bigger than that next time, Trav,” a fan yelled from the stands. 

That’s the sort of notoriety you get when you’re the most recognized hockey figure in Missoula.

“I guess it’s a good feeling, but I don’t get jacked about it,” he said of being widely recognized. “I just figure if I’m positive and upbeat with everyone they’ll help support me too.”

McLeod says he sees that support often when people walk through the mall to his store and purchase hockey products. 

Manager of the shop since its inception in the fall of 2008, McLeod says the store doesn’t always have the biggest array of equipment.

The store primarily sells Warrior brand sticks, although McLeod hopes to expand to other brands such as CCM, Reebok and Bauer in the future.

But the store still sells its fair share of sticks, and, once again, McLeod may be a reason why.

“I always get a high when people come in and purchase a stick,” he said. “It doesn’t seem to matter whatever product I have on my shelves, people still come in and buy.  That’s what rewards me is when people support me.” 

As the 10 men at the Iron Horse basked in the magnitude of their game, so did the rest of the country.  Across the country, hockey made rare appearances in the headlines. 

And as it has been debated over the last two weeks whether or not that game would bring prosperity to hockey in America, there is one town in Montana that the sport is succeeding in, and Missoula can attribute that to its own Mr. Hockey.

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