New York Aviators Hungry For Success in Gritty Federal Hockey League

New York Aviators forward Andrew Scampoli has bruises all over his body, varying in shades of black, blue and brown. He also has to tape his hands up before every game and has a fingernail ready to fall off.

Just another day of work in the Federal Hockey League.

A Single-A hockey league in New York, Connecticut and Ontario, the league is referred to as “hard-nosed” by many of its players. While the NHL has tried its hardest to reduce the rough stuff over the years, the FHL, which ironically shares the same name as the fictional league in the classic film “Slapshot,” currently averages over 22 minutes a game in penalties, per team.

By comparison, the toughest team in the NHL, the St. Louis Blues, averages only 18 minutes in penalties a game, with most of the league hovering somewhere around ten.

Despite being only 5’10 and 195 pounds, Scampoli has found a way to thrive in these harsh working conditions.

“Somehow he’s able to score goals,” said Aviators coach Rob Miller. “In the end, it doesn’t matter to me how they go in.”

Jesse Felten, another forward on the Aviators, has found a way to stick around the professional hockey scene for three years, in spite of meager size as well. Generously list at 5’8 and 165 pounds, Felten is one of the smallest players in the league. That however hasn’t stopped him from being one of the most exciting players in the league. In 2009, he scored 25 goals and even managed to get in a few fights.

“I’m thinking I don’t want to get beat up,” Felten, who has four points and 32 penalty minutes so far this season, said. “But in this league, you can’t take a shift off. You do and you get benched. You take two shifts off, you get sent home.”

While Scampoli and Felten are the heart of the Aviators, like “Slapshot,” the cast of characters on the team is full of intrigue and color.

Captain K.C. Timmons is a hulking 6’3, 230-pound defenseman, who was drafted by the Colorado Avalanche in 1998, but never made it to the NHL. Playing in the AHL, England and Holland over the past 12 years, he’s the team’s physical leader and has a reel of fight videos on Youtube that would make any potential dance partner think twice about dropping the gloves with him.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, smooth-skating defenseman David Inman is a Yale graduate, who earned his chops at the U.S. National Development Program in Ann Arbor. The team’s leading goal scorer, Matthew Puntureri, catches attention with his quick wrist shot, but his fu manchu induces stares.

“All the guys get along great,” said Miller. “That’s huge. There are no cliques here. It’s easier to coach knowing these guys all want the same thing.”

Friday night’s game against the Danbury Whalers was a typical FHL affair and featured a nice amount of goal scoring and a fight that nearly became a full bench brawl.

The fans didn’t mind the rough stuff though.

“I like it,” said Aviators fan Jonathan Rios. “There’s always going to be hard hits, but the fighting is always cool. It’s my favorite part.”

For some, the fighting shows them something that can be expressed without words.

“It shows a great camaraderie,” said Aviator Sports Center goal judge Edward Blunnie, who has had a front row seat to all the team’s home games this season. “These guys stick up for one another and protect each other. It shows a loyalty some of the pro teams don’t have anymore.”

While the toughness on the ice and bottle-rocket type players such as Scampoli and Felten are a huge selling point, the strongest character on the Aviators’ bench might be their head coach Rob Miller.

“When Rob played, he never asked anyone to do something he wouldn’t do himself. He battled extremely hard, especially in front of the net,” said former Aviators equipment manager Dan Barry. “As a coach, he’s not that inspirational speaker. He’s definitely the ‘looks can kill’ type of guy. He expects a lot of effort from his team.”

Case in point: two years ago, when Miller was a member of the Brooklyn Aces, he appeared at a journalism class at nearby Kingsborough Community College to be interviewed. Serious and candid throughout, one female student eventually asked, “Why do you look so mad”?

He responded, “This is just the way I am.”

At 5’10 and just under 200 pounds and over a decade of professional hockey playing experience, Miller knows what it takes to succeed at this level.

“You have to work hard all the time when you’re out there,” he said. “Otherwise there’s no point.”

And while the team acknowledges that many fans come out to see the fisticuffs, they keep coming back for another reason.

“This is cheap family fun,” said Scampoli. “Fans have plenty of alternatives to us. They come back because of the intensity and energy we show on the ice. If they want to see big moves non-stop, they watch the Rangers, Devils and Islanders.”

That desire and hunger is something Paul Newman and the Hanson brothers never possessed.

“There’s a lot of skill in this league that people don’t know about,” Scampoli said. “Many of these guys are capable of getting to the next level.”

Photo by Patrick Hickey Jr.