The captain, dressed in all black, slides off the ice onto a thin carpet and staggers his way toward the locker room, still in skates and pads. He stands, smiling, and tries to remember his hockey beginnings.

“I’ve heard stories,” Joe Piskula begins, because those earliest days of playing hockey in Antigo, Wis., were 28 years ago, and memories often don’t recede that far.

But the stories told him this: He was three years old, the age when most of us are proud to walk consistently, when he approached a faceoff during a game. Then an urge struck: He had to use the bathroom, and thus told the referee that this faceoff would have to wait.

“I think I was pretty small then,” Piskula says, laughing about those days when it all began, and how they led to where he is now: a well-respected, well-traveled 31-year-old defenseman whom the Gulls named team captain on Monday.


Why? “He’s a uniter. He’s quietly shown the attributes we’re looking for,” coach Dallas Eakins says, then lists them off: Piskula, professional and cool, looks out for his teammates before himself, has a strong read on the pulse of the locker room and remains composed during high-pressure situations.

“If we’re up by one with 30 seconds left,” 20-year-old defenseman Shea Theodore says, “there’s a good chance he’s going to be out there.”

Piskula, who was the Milwaukee Admirals’ captain last season, leads quietly. He calls a captain “the heartbeat of the team,” a player knows his teammates deeply and how to encourage them. He reserves the in-your-face inspiration for Shane O’Brien and Brian McGrattan and Harry Zolnierczyk. “We’ve got a lot of personality,” Piskula says, and his job is to ensure it all meshes.

Before all of this, though, Piskula, like many of us, was a kid who loved a sport. He didn’t dream of the NHL like his neighbors to the north and west, but of the next step.


When he arrived at Antigo High School, he thought, Maybe I can play after high school. So he played three years of junior hockey in the United States Hockey League, once coached by Gulls general manager Bob Ferguson, and then three seasons at the University of Wisconsin, where he studied economics and loved college.

Then he realized he could play professionally. So, as an undrafted free agent, four days after he played his final college game, Piskula signed a multi-year, entry-level contract with the Los Angeles Kings. Two days later, he made his NHL debut. “Thrown right into the fire,” Piskula says.

He would play four more games with the Kings that season, and then spend the next eight years bouncing around the AHL and NHL. “I’ve been doing the life of the bubble guy,” says Piskula, who knows the exact number of NHL games he’s played (13).

But it is also that experience, Eakins says, that made Piskula a strong choice for captain. So on Monday morning, he pulled Piskula into his office and told him the news. Then he addressed the team, and the players supported the decision. “Everyone in the room,” Theodore says, “respects him.”


The Gulls play at home on Wednesday against the Bakersfield Condors before two games against the San Jose Barracuda this weekend. Piskula will of course be there, No. 7 gliding across the ice, the captain.

Military Appreciation Week

The Gulls are honoring the military throughout the week. Some season-ticket holders have donated tickets to military members for Wednesday’s game, and local businesses can buy blocks of 250 seats for military members by contacting the Gulls’ front office. It will culminate on Saturday, when the team will wear special camouflage jerseys and members of the military will compete in on-ice activities as part of the Gulls’ “Salute to Heroes” game.