[legendsport]

Louisville, Kentucky - Spring 1971
The 1970–71 season had been a bitter pill for Steve Barrell. For the first time in his professional career, he wasn’t a starter.
A rookie - Arnie Bell out of Lane State - had taken the role Steve once owned, and the irony stung: it was Steve himself who’d mentored the kid on running the Louisville Spirits’ offense.

He still played hard. Seventy-four games. No starts. Fourteen minutes a night - a far cry from the forty he used to log as the team’s engine. When the Spirits finished atop the standings, Steve felt oddly detached. When Norfolk bounced them from the playoffs, three games to one, he didn’t feel heartbreak. He felt relief.

For the first time, the idea of walking away didn’t seem like surrender.

It was also the year his older brother Mike returned from Vietnam - for good, this time, or so he claimed. Their reunion was uneasy. Steve had grown skeptical of the war; Mike still believed in its purpose.

“They play dirty,” Mike said one night, defending the cause. “If they’d fight straight, it’d be over by now.”
Steve had just shaken his head. “You don’t win hearts by blowing up their homes, Mike. You can’t bomb someone into liking you.”

That conversation ended like all the others - in silence.

Washington, D.C. - May 1971
In May, Steve joined the Mayday protests, drawn by his growing disillusionment and the restless energy sweeping the country. The capital swelled with tens of thousands of demonstrators demanding an end to the war. The air was thick with chanting, tear gas, and defiance.

Steve had gone to protest peacefully, but by midday the city was chaos - fires lit, police charging, protestors blocking intersections. Nearly thirteen thousand were arrested, the largest mass roundup in American history.

Steve narrowly avoided arrest, darting down a side street as sirens wailed. He was shaken - not by fear, but by the realization that the country he’d always believed in was fighting itself.

That night, he told his wife Shirley about it. She was six months pregnant with their fourth child, calm and steady as always.
“I didn’t expect it to feel that angry,” he admitted.
Shirley smiled faintly. “Change is always hard. It's also always worth it when things need changing.”

With her and his mother Gladys both encouraging him to stay grounded, Steve found his footing again. In late summer, he decided he’d come back for one more season. Not for glory, but for closure.

Louisville, Kentucky - Winter 1971
When the Spirits reconvened, Steve accepted his new role - the veteran presence, the teacher, the quiet compass. Coach John Robinson pulled him aside after practice one afternoon.

“You’d make a hell of a coach someday,” Robinson told him.
Steve smiled. “Someday might be coming sooner than I thought.”

On New Year’s Day, he sat on the couch beside Mike, watching the East–West Classic. The brothers said little. They’d agreed not to talk about the war.
For now, the game was safer ground.

As the camera panned over Tom Bowens hoisted on his players’ shoulders, Steve leaned back and murmured, almost to himself, “Maybe next year, I’ll finally figure out what comes after this.”

San Francisco, California - Spring 1971
Jack Pollack finished his first full professional hockey season with numbers that barely filled a score sheet - 8 goals, 3 assists in 67 games. But it was the first time he hadn’t spent half the year in the minors, and that felt like progress.

Then came training camp for 1971–72. Coach liked his effort; management didn’t.
“You need more seasoning,” Gulls GM Mike Masson told him.
Jack folded his arms. “I’m not a steak.”

Masson chuckled. “We’ll be watching. Use the time wisely. We need you at your best.”

Jack grumbled but listened. He went to Fort Wayne and tore up the HAA - 20 points in 20 games. When he got the call on December 12th that he was being recalled, he nearly ran to the airport. That night, against the Boston Bees, he logged nine minutes, took one shot, and wore the grin of a man who’d earned his way back.

Calgary, Alberta - December 1971
Benny Barrell had seen better seasons. Calgary’s 1970–71 campaign ended in a miserable 20–43–15 record. Benny’s 52 points were respectable - 18 goals, 34 assists - but he hated losing.

By 1971–72, at 34, he was playing some of the best hockey of his life. Fast, fearless, loose. Maybe too loose. On December 17th, a stick caught him across the eye, cutting his cornea.

His wife, Kathleen Barrell - a Calgary-born professional ice dancer - fussed over him relentlessly.
“You need to be more careful,” she scolded.
Benny laughed. “Careful and hockey are mutually exclusive.”

He was back on the ice a week later. He always was.

Detroit, Michigan - December 1971
The Detroit Motors finished their 1970–71 season at 43–27–8, good for third place - and good enough to be reminded how cruel playoffs could be. Toronto knocked them out in five games.

Left wing Hobie Barrell had nothing to be ashamed of. His “HAY Line” - Hobie with right wing Andrew Williams and center Yves Dagenais - was one of the league’s best. Dagenais tallied 70 assists; Williams, 61; Hobie, a blistering 48 goals and 83 points. By year’s end, he stood at 439 career goals, already thinking about 500.

When the 1971–72 campaign began, Hobie set a private goal: 61. He’d done 63 two years earlier and wanted to match it - if not beat it. But hockey had its way of complicating things.

On November 4th, Dagenais fractured a finger and was ruled out for three months. Charles Bozek took his spot at center, and everyone wondered if the line’s magic would fade. Hobie answered with four goals in a single night - a 9–2 demolition of the Vancouver Totems.

Afterward, he told reporters, “We just play our game. Doesn’t matter who’s in the middle.”
But inside, he couldn’t help smiling. The milestones still mattered; winning still mattered. The fire was still there.