In this photo: Dianna Hartnell has been teaching Peter Puck classes in Kamloops since 1987. Health problems are forcing her to quit doing what she loves most, with her last session scheduled for March 5. Dave Eagles/KTW
Hartnell keeps one of her students upright in a photo snapped by Kamloops Daily News photographer Wendell Phillips in 1989.
For 28 years, young faces have stared back at Dianna Hartnell, clearly eager to hit the ice, but still listening to their instructor’s words of wisdom: “Remember, if you can’t skate, you can’t play the game!”
Six weeks from now, when Hartnell teaches her last Peter Puck hockey-school class, she will utter those words one final time before leaving the ice for good.
“It’s really tough because I don’t know what I’m going to do when I’m gone,” said Hartnell, who spoke to KTW at the Ice Box, occasionally glancing over at her students.
She was in tears.
“Everybody says, ‘Oh, you can travel. You can do this. You can do that,” Hartnell said. “But, this is the one job I love most.”
Hartnell was on vacation in Arizona last March when she began experiencing extreme pain in her back and was forced to come home.
After multiple MRIs and visits with doctors and specialists, it was revealed she is suffering from a degenerative disc disease and cervical stenosis, a slowly progressive condition that pinches the spinal cord in the neck.
“The doctor said, ‘If you think you’re going to skate, you have to wear a neck brace. If anyone runs into you, you could be paralyzed,’” Hartnell said.
“My legs burn when I’m on the ice. I shouldn’t be out here but, six more weeks, I can do it.”
Hartnell, who started the school in 1987, when she was a City of Kamloops employee, knows it’s time to hang up her skates.
She has decided to sell her Peter Puck hockey school.
It became evident how tough that will be when KTW received 14 emails the day after she was interviewed, each of them with pictures of children she has taught, old newspaper clippings and lists of hockey players and officials who learned to skate with her.
One email, with the subject line ‘Emotional day,’ read: “If my body was healthy and I live forever, I would do Peter Puck forever!!!!”
It might be an exaggeration to say Hartnell is recognized everywhere she goes in Kamloops, but it’s not that much of a stretch.
The encounters are often reminders she is no longer in her youth and, more importantly, indications of her long-lasting impact in the River City.
“I was at this lady’s place yesterday and her girlfriend walked in,” Hartnell recalled. “She walked in and said, ‘Hey, you taught my son. He’s 28 now.’”
Thousands of boys and girls from the Tournament Capital learned skating fundamentals from Hartnell and the school’s instructors, many of whom are former Peter Puck students — “They are amazing. I couldn’t do it without them,” Hartnell said of her helpers.
Guest instructors have pitched in over the years, such as NHLers Shane Doan and Mark Recchi. Hartnell’s twin sons, Sean and Stacey, grew up playing minor hockey with Mark.
“Mark and [former NHL player] Murray Baron were always over for pancakes,” Hartnell said with a laugh, noting she also has a daughter, Wanda.
Peter Puck students have strutted their stuff during intermissions at Kamloops Blazers’ games.
“She has worked very hard to organize events that are mutually beneficial for Peter Puck and the Blazers,” said Ashley Neuls, the local WHL team’s community relations co-ordinator.
“Dianna has done a wonderful job with the Peter Puck program, in large part due to her enthusiasm and caring nature toward her players.”
Messages like this one — “I really want to thank you immensely for the training that you instilled in David. I still enjoy watching the videos of you patiently kneeling, talking and demonstrating techniques with him when he was only two.” — are posted online at peterpuck.ca, sentiments shared by parents across the city.
Peter Puck is not dead in Kamloops. It just won’t be run by Hartnell.
If the school doesn’t sell, Hartnell said she will manage it, but her days on the ice will end on March 5, the last day of winter classes.
At the Ice Box, Hartnell asked her students enthusiastically, “Are you ready to have fun?’”
Most screamed, ‘Yeah!’ while the cheeky students — there are always a few — replied, ‘No!”
Hartnell never missed a beat, smiled throughout and unleashed the future figure-skating and hockey stars into the care of their instructors.
As they scattered, Hartnell skated back over to the bench.
“The kids. That’s what I get out of it,” she said, again becoming emotional. “It’s going to be tough when I run into them and they ask, ‘Where have you been?’
“They say to me they want to be the best and I say, ‘You are No. 1’.
“I really don’t know what I’m going to do without them.”
Peter Puck students listen to instructor Dianna Hartnell at the Ice Box. Dave Eagles/KTW
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