Below I want to share with you a special piece I wrote on my “Career
Memories” to give you a little background as to how I found my way into the
sports industry back in 1977! Enjoy!
Jim Loria
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Back during my high school days in New Bedford,
Massachusetts, I served as our high school manager of the hockey team. That was
my first introduction to the sport of hockey. Then, Bobby Orr and Phil Esposito
of the Boston Bruins were the talk of the Pro Hockey world and a team I watched
play on TV every night during the winter! My love for hockey, I knew, was real!
So I started to purchase The Hockey News publication weekly to read up on the players. Tucked away in the back end were the minor pros, colleges and junior hockey leagues. I kept noticing a young hockey player that was considered a phenom in the Ontario Canada Junior League by the name of Cary Farelli. He was just 15 years old and dominating his league with players 4-5 years older. I decided to write Cary a (post office delivered) letter to tell him that I was following his career. He surprisingly wrote me back and in his own handwriting thanked me and shared with me his local newspaper address in Sault Ste. Marie, Canada. So I quickly subscribed to his paper and followed Cary's play every day!
Cary and I bonded
over time and he would ask me to come out to Canada and see him play some games
and stay with his family. I happily accepted! We made plans for me to come out
during my birthday week - I turned 19 that March 9, 1974 - because Cary had
three games at home this particular week so it gave me a chance to be with him
a lot and watch his practices everyday too! Cary, his dad, mom and sister
picked me up at the airport and it just seemed like we were family. They knew
so much about me (from Cary) as I knew about his family.
Cary told me at dinner one night that for my birthday he was going to score me a "Hockey Hat Trick -- 3 goals in a game" as his special gift!! At each of the three games, Cary had permission from his coach to let me sit in the first row right behind the players bench. Sure enough on my birthday night, Cary went out and scored THREE GOALS! I will never forget the look and feeling I had when he skated over to the bench ... He yelled out my name and said: "JIM, HAPPY BIRTHDAY BIG FELLA!" ... and then tossed his goal puck to me right in front of the fans!! It was his 50th goal of the season and he was just 16 years old! When Cary and I got back to his home after the game, his Mom had surprised me by baking a Birthday Cake!! This was the most memorable birthday I had in my growing up years!
When I arrived back home, I was quick to tell my Mom that I knew what I wanted to do with my life ... "I was going to work in Junior Hockey!" My mind was made up! That was going to be my focus, my dream! So I took all of my money saved and subscribed to 13 Canadian Newspapers that were from the top Junior Teams in Ontario and Western Canada. My poor mailman! He would deliver to our New Bedford house about 13-25 papers a day depending how backed up some got? I would read through every story and eventually began compiling scouting reports on every junior hockey player. I was formulating statistical trends from home-to-road, to how players played in a big game, to learning about certain player's life stories, their personalities, to what coaches or writers were saying about them. I seemingly became a one-man scouting bureau (I was sort of the Mel Kiper of ESPN back during the 1970's for hockey!)
I would then compile my scouting info and send off to every NHL team and their Central Scouting office in Canada. Letters would come to my house from Scotty Bowman, Max McNab, Ted Lindsay (well known hockey professionals) that were enjoying my data and insights. Ultimately, a Junior Hockey team from Calgary, Alberta was scheduled to move to Billings, Montana for the 1997-98 season. Being that this was an expansion from Canada Hockey to the USA, I decided to write the new Billings GM Bob Strumm a letter. It was 10-pages in depth in which I sent my scouting reports on every single player on his roster. Bob was stunned that someone in Massachusetts knew all of this and phoned my home to ask if I would have interest in joining the front office of his new Billings franchise? I was 22 years old.
I then quit my job at Sears Roebuck in New Bedford and flew away ... and that is how I first started my career in hockey. I did not attend college. Had no management experience. I never lived on my own at the time. Had no drivers license, so I pedaled a bicycle to-and-from work every day no matter the weather. Got paid $7,000 as a salary and I felt like I was KING OF THE WORLD! My Dream just came true!! My famous last words to my Mom upon flying away 2,300 miles to Montana was "Mom, I am going to make it to the National Hockey League in three years, you just wait!" PS I Did!!
THIS IS THE PART OF
“BELIEVING IN ONE’S SELF” THAT I HAVE TRIED TO TEACH YOU THROUGH MY PAST
MESSAGES! THE POWER TO BELIEVE TRIGGERS EVERYTHING IN YOUR BEING! THE WAY YOU
THINK. YOUR ATTITUDE. THE WAY YOU PERFORM ON THE FIELD. IT INFLUENCES YOUR LIFE!
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"If a window of opportunity appears, don't pull down
the shade!" – stated by Tom Peters,
Business Management Author
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"Strength is a matter of a made up mind!" – stated by John Beecher, American Poet
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"It doesn't matter who you are, where you come from.
The ability to triumph begins with YOU. Always!" – stated by Oprah Winfrey
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“Everything you are, and
everything you have, started as a thought in your mind. Your body is merely
there to manifest physically that which the mind tells it to do. Everything
starts with you telling the mind what you desire" – stated by Thomas D. Willhite
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"Your
living is determined not so much by what life brings you as by the attitude you
bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks
at what happens" – stated by Lewis
L. Dunnington, Author
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