The Hackers Hockey Club’s manager, Tim Garneau, who took the baton from one of the club’s founders, John Battle, six years ago, grew up with winter sports in suburban Minneapolis, and, at 59, remains active athletically here during January, February, and March.
Garneau and his wife, Courtney, don’t run, but they walk and mountain bike on the Cedar Point Park trails near their house, and, reasoning that it takes less time to reach the Rockies by plane than it does to drive up to Vermont, they periodically visit and ski with their elder son, Henry, who lives in Boulder, where he oversees junior programs for the National Outdoor Leadership School.
Hockey and skiing aren’t all for the elder Garneau. Wanting to get in shape, he said he added platform tennis at the East Hampton Indoor/Outdoor Club in Wainscott and squash at the Southampton Recreation Center to his winter sport list.
“Squash is a great way to get in shape for hockey and skiing and mountain climbing on skis, what they call ‘skinning.’ I played at UPenn, but I took it up again this fall. There are six of us who play, at 7 in the morning. I know I’m a little crazy, but it gets me up, and it’s a great way to spend an hour. You feel great afterwards.”
As for hockey, Garneau said he was “born and raised on it. We lived in Minnetonka, a Minneapolis suburb, and there were five outdoor rinks within 10 minutes of us. Every park had a rink and warming house. We’d play pickup after school — I ran the warming house on the weekends. Minnetonka High School is a hockey powerhouse. While I was there six guys were drafted into the N.H.L.”
Speaking of the N.H.L., the Hackers’ manager has had front row New York Ranger tickets for 29 years, and, even though he’s been in East Hampton for the past 20, he makes the trip fairly regularly to see them play. “You drive to Ronkonkoma, take the train to Penn Station, go to the hockey game, and come back out. Actually, wintertime is a good time to go to the city. The restaurants are open, the hotels are cheap. . . .”
“Oh, and Courtney and I bowl too. At the All-Star in Riverhead. Every Tuesday. A mixed league. We did it when we lived in the city. Ten weeks of softball in Central Park and 10 weeks of bowling at Bowlmor, at 13th Street and University Avenue. So, yes, I find enough to do out here in the winter.”
