USHL Waterloo Black Hawks

Jack Barzee: Hockey Player

Published on February 4, 2021 under United States Hockey League (USHL)
Waterloo Black Hawks News Release


PART I IN A SERIES ABOUT BARZEE'S REMARKABLE HOCKEY JOURNEY When Mike Randolph joined the Waterloo Black Hawks as a 19-year-old center in 1971, he had a gold medal-winning U.S. hockey star on his left. Paul Johnson had spurred the 1960 U.S. Olympic team to international hockey's preeminent prize and spent many of the intervening years establishing himself as one of the most talented scorers in the United States Hockey League. In 2001, Johnson was honored with recognition in the United States Hockey Hall of Fame.

On the opposite wing, Randolph found another well-established USHL veteran. Jack Barzee's accomplishments did not draw renown comparable to Johnson, but he had been an effective forward during Waterloo's championship era in the middle 60s. Although he was preparing for his seventh straight season in the league, Barzee was still relatively early in the long hockey life, for which the Black Hawks are now nominating him for the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame's Class of 2021.

"I had a couple of great linemates," remembered Randolph, the longtime head coach at Duluth East High School. "Jack, on Day One, made me feel comfortable, because I was very young...He just took me under his wing.

"He brought a lot of energy to our locker room, a lot of energy to me as a player. He was very positive on the bench and played the game with a lot of passion. He played the off side - which back then there weren't many players playing the off side - he was a left-handed shot who played the right side."

Randolph's opportunity to play senior hockey in Waterloo came after the Twin Ports native had first moved to Canada to skate at the junior level. Returning to the States and lining up for the Hawks between a pair of veterans, the first-year center was an exceptional addition. Although he may have been the youngest Waterloo player, his older teammates voted him the club's MVP and the United States Hockey League named him Rookie of the Year. Randolph spent the next several of years in the professional minor leagues and much of one winter touring with the U.S. National Team. Later transitioning to a behind-the-bench roll, Randolph would begin one of the most successful careers in Minnesota high school history, leading to his induction into the state coaches association Hall of Fame in 2018.

"I went on and played in the minors for five more years, and Jack had a lot to do with that, because I saw myself in Jack," Randolph remembers. "Anything around the game, he loved doing, and anybody who hired him would just see that in his personality: that you've got somebody who loves the game and is not doing it as a job, he's doing it as a passion."

A decade before Randolph and Barzee were teammates - when Barzee was roughly the same age as his future center - Barzee's options to pursue his own career were limited.

"When I left high school, if you didn't go to college there were senior teams and minor league hockey, but the American players didn't get the door open very easily," Barzee notes.

He did not take the college route, instead working and playing senior hockey near his home in Connecticut. At age 20 during the winter of 1961/62, Barzee hoped to represent the country on the U.S. National Team. Despite a strong tour with the "Nationals" through January, he was cut with the rest of his line when the squad had the chance to add more experienced forwards. From there Barzee moved from club to club on the senior and minor league circuits, often wearing more than one sweater in the same season: Pittsburgh, Muskegon, Windsor (Nova Scotia), Halifax, among other stops.

"I was a 'bouncin' around' guy for quite awhile, and I was getting ready to maybe pack it in when I got a call from Bob Flynn in Waterloo. He was looking for another American player, because they could only list so many Canadians on the roster," says Barzee, who didn't wait long before deciding to come to Iowa.

"The next day I was on the plane with my hockey bag and a couple of suitcases and never looked back."

During the years when Barzee had been hoping to find his way in the sport, Waterloo had shot to the top of the United States Hockey League. The Hawks were .500 in 1962/63, the year they entered the USHL. They went on to scratch out league titles in each of the next two seasons.

Entering the fall of 1965, player/coach Bud McRae and defenseman Bill Dobbyn provided Waterloo with a formidable blue line. Former Michigan netminder Jim Coyle was well-established in goal. Veteran forwards like Tim Taylor, Duke Dutkowski, and Dave Swick were joined by Johnson during the gold medalist's first full season in the Cedar Valley. With Barzee as part of the group, the Hawks won seven of their first eight league games, on the way to a 21-9-0 record and another closely-contested USHL championship.

"That's the first time I was ever on a winning team in my life," says Barzee, smiling at the memory. "I celebrated maybe for a month...I was just happy to be on the team with those guys. They were all pretty darn good hockey players."

With Barzee contributing in the years which followed, the Hawks were at the top of USHL twice more for a run of five straight titles. The league's team-of-the-decade was most dominant in 1967/68, running away to the USHL crown with a record of 27-6-1.

Barzee did not produce the type of eye-popping offensive totals which Johnson regularly achieved. His play did not lead to National Team opportunities like those which arose for Taylor, Keith Christiansen, and some of his other teammates. However, Barzee was a strong defensive forward and penalty-killer. He also developed a knack for clutch scoring. One of his timeliest goals came during a rare close game with the Hawks at the height of their success in February of 1968. Forcing a Rochester Mustangs turnover with under five minutes to play, he scored unassisted to lift Waterloo to a 2-1 victory amidst a string of 18 wins in 19 matchups.

Hockey income did not provide a viable living for any of the Black Hawks in the 1960s. Like his teammates, Barzee worked outside jobs to continue playing. He primarily paid his bills through summer work as a union elevator technician back in Connecticut, while taking other short-term positions in Waterloo during the season.

"I really didn't want to work; I wanted to just play hockey in the winter. I worked hard enough in the summer," Barzee says, conceding, "I probably would have been a mechanic in the elevator business the rest of my life if I didn't stay in the hockey rink."

When the Black Hawks went dormant for the 1969/70 season to allow the Minnesota North Stars' Central Hockey League affiliate to move into McElroy Auditorium, Barzee stuck with the USHL, joining the Green Bay Bobcats that winter. Minnesota relocated their farm team again the next summer, providing an opening for the Black Hawks to return and for Barzee to move back from Wisconsin. By that time, Waterloo's stable roster of the 1960s had started to shift toward younger players as the sport grew and changed across a wide spectrum.

"When you talk about the players that were in the league in the 60s: the Herb Brooks's and the Lou Nanne's and the George Konik's, there were no other places [for them, because] there were just six teams in the NHL. These guys were good," Barzee notes. "When you got to the 70s, the picture started to change. It was more college kids coming to play in the league and trying to get a job."

The Hawks did not return to championship form, but did finish second during 1970/71 and tied for second in 1971/72. With Barzee advancing into his early 30s, the allure of a new opportunity pulled him away from Waterloo during the 1972 offseason. In fact, it took him out of the country. Barzee moved to the Alps to skate for Kusnacht in the Swiss B League. There he got to know Czech-born player-coach Vladimir Kobranov.

"He was a legend from the Czech National Team in the late 40s...He lived in Zurich and I lived in Kusnacht. He ran the youth program and I was his assistant with all the young kids, and I learned so much. I was on the ice five hours a day, it was just awesome. I took so much away from that, and I never realized what I had learned until the years started to go by."

Although his time on the ice had nearly run out, when Barzee returned to the Black Hawks for the 1973/74 season, he was still playing at a high level. He averaged a point per game that season (46 of each, with 21 goals and 25 assists). He was also chosen to skate in the USHL All-Star Game just shy of his 33rd birthday. Waterloo ended the year with a stout 29-18-1 record and reached the USHL Commissioner's Cup championship series, falling to the Thunder Bay Twins.

On Thanksgiving in 1973, Barzee produced his most memorable individual performance as a Black Hawk. Waterloo hosted that year's holiday contest against the Milwaukee Admirals, and the adept penalty-killer churned out four points. His two goals and two assists were all shorthanded. The effort contributed to Barzee's career total of nine points on the holiday - a Waterloo hockey fixture to this day - which tie him with Johnson for the most ever on Thanksgiving by a Waterloo skater.

By 1973, the Black Hawks were evolving from a non-profit organization into a business owned by large number of shareholders in the community. In addition to playing, Jack was the team's publicity director and managed day-to-day operations. His wife, Kathy, worked for the team fulltime, with the couple fully invested in growing the sport.

"I was running around to schools, and selling tickets, and talking up the game and trying to get kids to join the youth program, and talking to the Rotary Club," Barzee remembers of that transitional time.

As he eventually left the ice in the spring of 1975, Barzee's zest for hockey never diminished. The years which followed opened a new phase in his career, during which he was able to create opportunities for a new generation in the sport and a pathway toward advancement that he - and players like Mike Randolph - never had at the same age.

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United States Hockey League Stories from February 4, 2021


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