A generation ago, when hockey enforcers and their intimidation tactics were an accepted part of the game, Rob Pfoh had a reserved seat in the penalty box.
Back then, before he emerged as a skilled gamebreaker and playoff MVP for the Prince George Spruce Kings, he was usually first in line to kickstart a brawl.
In 43 games of the 1982-83 B.C. Junior Hockey League season with the Merritt Centennials he racked up 376 minutes of penalty time. That's more than six complete 60-minute games in purgatory, a Cents' record that still stands.
The 55-year-old Pfoh, whose 17-year-old son Brett was traded in October from the Spruce Kings to Powell River, admits he had a short fuse and was quick to anger, like the time he and teammate Tim O'Toole got a drink poured on their heads while they sat in the penalty box in Salmon Arm. On cue they both jumped into the stands to fight the guy who did it, backed by their teammates also leaped the glass to scrap with the fans. The Cents gave up a couple power-play goals, lost their lead and lost the game. At the time, Len McNamara was head coach of the Cents and when the team got back to Merritt he was fired. That story comes with a twist, as Pfoh recalls.
"A year later I ended up in Prince George (where McNamara had just been hired as the Spruce Kings general manager) and he said, 'Before you sign on the dotted line you have to make sure you promise not to get me fired again.'"
While he did clean up his act considerably in the late stages of his junior hockey career, Phoh was certainly no angel. He was a hated target any time he appeared in an opponent's rink, especially in Williams Lake where coach John Van Horlick and tough guy Gary Grant were went out of their way to make his life miserable.
In a January 1984 game at the Prince George Coliseum he ran over Quesnel goalie Ken Zotek and the Millionaires netminder had to be stretchered off the ice with bruised ribs. In that same game, Pfoh bowled over Mills backup goalie Ward Black.
"I was never a great fighter but I fought quite a bit," said Pfoh. "It was more commonplace in those days and everybody had to cut their teeth that way a bit. I wasn't a heavyweight or anything, I was 185 pounds, just willing to go.
"I remember my (Meritt) teammates saying, 'Fobber, you're like 28 minutes off the league record (for penalty minutes), go get in another couple of scraps,' but I was like, "I'm not chasing it."
Pfoh played two seasons for the Cents from 1982-84 and perhaps his anger was justified playing for a team won just 18 games over that span. In a 60-game season they had 10 wins in '82-83 and went 8-51-1 the following season, which still ranks as their worst season ever. That team allowed an average 9.05 goals per game.
"We were terrible. We had a revolving door for coaches," he said.
Pfoh eventually wore out his welcome in Merritt and returned to his home in Kitimat and was playing there on a junior B team when his friend, Daryl Craft, convinced him to try out for the Spruce Kings.
"For me it was polar opposites; in Merritt I was a thug on very much a losing team and in Prince George I was hockey player who won an MVP award in playoffs on a team that had success," Pfoh said.
He arrived in January and with Pfoh playing left wing on a line with Craft and centre Everett Rose, the Spruce Kings dominated the Peace Cariboo Junior Hockey League the rest of the season and won their fourth playoff title in five years. They went 43-7 and lost just two of 10 playoff games to advance to the best-of-three provincial junior A final against the BCJHL-champion Langley Eagles at the Coliseum.
In the first game, a 3-2 Kings' loss in double-overtime, Pfoh opened the scoring with a shorthanded goal after he stripped the puck from an Eagles puck carrier as he circled around the net. The Kings lost the second game 3-2 and Langley went in to win the national championship.
After a second season with the Spruce Kings, Pfoh moved to Edmonton in 1986 and was working as a roofer when he decided to give pro hockey a shot. He went to the Atlantic Coast Hockey League with the Erie (Pa.) Golden Blades and in 32 games scored 12 goals and had 25 points.
Pfoh turned down a chance to attend a free agent camp put on by the International Hockey League when he found out about a new league, the Pacific Northwest Hockey League, which would allow him to stay close to home. But the league folded before it even began, ending his competitive career. He settled in Port Moody and is now in his 27th year with the Vancouver Fire Department, still playing hockey as a goalie with the firefighters.
His son Brett joined the Kings as rookie left winger this season, after two seasons with the Burnaby Winter Club. The Bowling Green University recruit for 2021 had two goals and an assist in 15 games playing on the Kings' fourth line before the trade was made. He has two goals and an assist in 13 games with Powell River.
"I was over the moon about Prince George, I'm thrilled that he's blazing his own trail and getting acceptance at the junior level making the team," said Rob.
"He's a hard worker, like me. He's not big (five-foot-11, 168 pounds) but he's a strong guy. Sometimes he gets frustrated that he's not logging a lot of minutes. It's something all junior players go through and he has to understand that. Everybody considers the physical part of it as being so demanding, and it is, but the mental toughness required to play the game at that level is really hard, too. I'm trying to groom him for that part."
