Where Are They Now: Brandon profoundly changed Mokosak

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This article was published 13/12/2016 (3401 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Junior hockey has a way of changing people.

But not many were as profoundly altered as former Brandon Wheat Kings forward Carl Mokosak, who played with the team for three seasons from 1979 to 1982. Mokosak said getting away from home helped him with everything that came after in his life.

“I wasn’t very outgoing,” Mokosak said. “I wasn’t popular at home. I was a guy who was working out or running five or 10 miles when guys in the car would pull up with a beer bottle out the window and smoking. I said ‘Nope, can’t do it, gotta work out’ so I wasn’t part of the popular crew. But hockey and going to Brandon helped me come out of my shell. It taught me to be more outgoing or maybe it developed those skills that I had but I never really had a chance to use.

“The whole start for me was going to Brandon and being on my own and having to grow up in a hurry.”

He grew up in Fort Saskatchewan, Alta., where his father Carl Sr., had an engineering position with Sherritt-Gordon mines. His father actually preferred bowling but allowed Mokosak and his brothers to try hockey.

“He started learning all about the game and what went along with it,” Mokosak said. “Ten years later he was actually the president of bantam hockey in Alberta. He really got into the whole hockey scene.”

Sadly, he passed away at age 41 before he could see Carl and his brother John play in the National Hockey League.

Mokosak’s move to Brandon came after he attended a hockey school run by Wheat Kings coach Dunc McCallum. After seeing him play, McCallum urged him to come for his 16-year-old season with the Brandon Travellers of the Manitoba Junior Hockey League.

The Travellers often went to watch the Wheat Kings, and soon Brian Propp and Ray Allison were at MJHL games too.

“They always came to watch our games and one of the guys said ‘You know, they’re coming to watch you,’” Mokosak said. “I said ‘Why’s that?’ and they said ‘Because you’re just a human pinball out here.’ I just loved to hit people so a lot of the Tier 1 guys would come and watch our games because they liked to see what I would do next.”

He said his favourite sound on the ice was knocking the air out of somebody with a good, clean hit.

The hard-working Mokosak missed the legendary 1978-79 team by a year, debuting in 1979-80 with 12 goals and 21 assists in 61 games.

He calls that first season a little odd as he suddenly found himself on the ice with the guys he had heard about. But of equal importance, he had to live up to a promise he made to his mother Joyce to keep his grades up.

She taught him how to do laundry, iron and sew, and warned him that as soon as he failed a class, he was coming home. Not surprisingly, Mokosak became a dedicated student, always taking care of his homework on the road.

“I would set my alarm to get up at 3 a.m., and then go to the card table at the back of the bus and get all my homework done just to make sure that I kept my grades up,” he said. “I was determined to keep my grades up and stay there. I wasn’t going to give my parents an excuse to pull me home.”

Mokosak said following the mythic 58-5-9 team was a tall order, and the 1979-80 team tumbled to fifth place, finishing 33-37-2.

“There were a lot of expectations and we had them for ourselves too,” Mokosak said. “We didn’t want to let the fans down and the area down after the teams they had there the prior few years.”

Mokosak’s production climbed steadily with the team each season.

A year later he scored 28 goals and added 44 assists in 70 games, and in his 19-year-old season in 1981-82, had 46 goals and 61 assists in 69 games.

Of course, there’s another number that has to be mentioned when it comes to Carl Mokosak.

His terrific offensive numbers came while also accumulating season totals of 226, 363 and 363 penalty minutes. His career total of 952 penalty minutes place him second in franchise history behind Randy Ponte, who earned his 1,234 minutes in five seasons,

“Just imagine if I had stayed on the ice what I could have done,” he said.

In his final season, a fiery young goaltender named Ron Hextall joined the team. Mokosak laughs at the memories.

“Some of my favourite stories are just trying to antagonize Hexy because he had a helluva temper on him,” Mokosak said with a chuckle. “There were times you could tell that he was edgy after a game the night before and I would come in and fire one past his ear (in practice). I knew that I better get going because that goalie stick would be windmilled at my head.

“Then he would chase you down the ice ready to fight you with his blocker. He took a lot of that tenacity and rolled it into a hell of a career. I was happy for him.”

In that final season, Mokosak skated with Kelly Glowa, with the other winger cycling in and out. It was the best offensive season of his career.

“It was kind of strange,” he said. “I didn’t really feel like anything was different. I still played the same style of hockey. I don’t know if it’s as you develop a reputation that you start to get a little more room out there. As a rookie you’re trying to feel your way. That first year was kind of a feeling out. The second year I felt more comfortable. You start to get to know your teammates and then that third year, everything was clicking.”

Regardless, Mokosak didn’t get drafted, which remains a disappointment to him.

He was scooped up as free agent by the Calgary Flames, and went on to play one game with the Flames during his last year of junior and 41 games a season later in 1982-83.

Mokosak’s pro career would last nine seasons, with his 83 NHL appearances sprinkled among the Flames, Los Angeles Kings, Philadelphia Flyers, Pittsburgh Penguins and Boston Bruins. He recorded 11 goals and 15 assists to go with 170 penalty minutes.

He isn’t disappointed that his career is partly known for fisticuffs, noting it was a more physical, intimidating era of the game.

“I adapted my game to what I needed to do to stick,” he said. “I wasn’t that Kelly Glowa or Ray Allison or that high-scoring guy. I had to find my niche. I had to have a mix to take advantage of all the opportunities that I was given, to take the body and go into the corner and dig the puck out for those people.”

But the six-foot-one, 180-pound forward could finish when he had a chance, illustrated by the fact that he had 18 or more goals in the American and International leagues in seven of his nine seasons.

He retired after spending the 1990-91 season with the Indianapolis Ice and San Diego Gulls. He had promised his wife Deanna — they had two young girls, Morgan and Kaitlin — that if he didn’t get re-signed he would pack it in.

“It wasn’t easy at all,” Mokosak replied when asked if he missed the game. “I had to stay busy because it’s not just being out on the ice, it’s being around the team and part of something.”

The challenge he faced after he retired was that he had played with 16 teams in his nine-year professional career, so he didn’t have roots or connections anywhere. He went back to a summer job and within six months was running a shift.

Mokosak eventually found his way into sales, working for Kraft for 15 years as a district manager and has been with Mars Petcare for the last nine years.

“I enjoy sales, I enjoy working with people,” he said.

After starting his sales career in Indianapolis, he hoped to get closer to Deanna’s Michigan roots in Muskegon. When a position opened up in Traverse City, he jumped at it, eventually landing in Grand Rapids 15 years ago.

He left the game healthy, and now enjoys his granddaughters — Morgan’s daughter Addy, and Hal, from daughter Chaustine, whom he had with his first wife.

While he hasn’t set foot in Brandon in many years, part of him will always be here.

“Nothing can really replace the camaraderie and the belonging to something and my first real taste of that was in Brandon,” he said. “Brandon is always going to hold a special place in my heart, and so will all the fans. I really enjoyed my time there.”

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