Where are they now?

Vesa Pennanen: Vesa lives with his family in Finland and is still involved hockey as he coaches goaltending to youngsters as well as being a Graphic Designer. Vesa's son is following in his Dad's footsteps (and looks just like him). Vesa is married to Marjo and his children are called Nico and Nina.

Thanks to Vesa for providing this information.

Geoff Delderfield: Geoff is still playing competitive hockey at the age of 44. He's lived in the USA since 1999 and works as a Police Officer in Chicago. He plays hockey for two police teams and three non-police teams! Each year they play a charity game against the Fire Department at the United Centre, which is the home of the Chicago Blackhawks. Geoff is also taking his referee's exam in August.

Thanks to Gary Dent of the Oxford City Stars for providing this information.

Ari Arvila: Ari lives in Finland, is married to Outi and has two children. Daughter Nea is 14 years and son Timi is 11 years. Timi is also following in his father's footsteps as he plays ice hockey in Kiekko Vantaa Hockey Team and Ari is a member of their coach team. Ari himself still regularly plays ice hockey (just for his own fun) in TJV Old Stars Hockey Team. It's not easy for Ari to stop playing when he started at age 6! He works as a Sales Manager in a large domestic appliance company. Ari's wife, Outi, says that Season 85-86 in Lee Valley Lions was a great experience for her and Ari - she even remembers the Clockenders' "Trio" song nearly 20 years on!

Thanks to Outi Arvila for providing this information.

Jim Graves: For the past 4 years Jim has been living in Newtownards, near Belfast, with his partner, Arlene. He's lived in Northern Ireland for nearly 12 years. A few months ago Jim decided on a career change and now works as Belfast Welfare Officer for the USPCA (Ulster Society for the Protection of Animals), investigating complaints of animal cruelty, educating people about caring for their animals and fund-raising for the charity. Jim says his work is very rewarding. Away from work Jim is still involved in hockey by coaching the Irish National Senior Team. He'll be taking the sqad to Mexico City in March'05 for the World Division 3 Ice Hockey Championship. In 2003 he was the assistant coach with the team when the tournament was held in Iceland.

Thanks to Jim for providing this information.

Janne Lehti: According to what is last known of Janne, he is married to Leena and has two children. He has remained involved with ice hockey as a coach, although it's not clear whether he still coaches now.

Thanks to Outi Arvila for providing this information.

Terry Locks: Terry was one of the Lions managers from the Lee Valley Park days (Mike Smith, Richie Doran and Terry Mills also managed the team in the pre-British Engine era). Terry has lived in Peterborough with his wife, Jan, since he retired from the Lee Valley Regional Park Authority around five years ago. He maintains a general interest in hockey but says his enthusiasm has never been the same since the Lions' demise. Terry's main interest is now golf.

Thanks to Terry for providing this information.

Mark Locks: Mark is the son of Terry Locks. He played the occasional game for the Lions and assisted with the equipment etc. Mark lives in Peterborough with his wife, Kate, and daughter, Summer. After leaving Lee Valley Mark played a season for Stevenage Strikers in ED1, alongside teams like Streatham and Romford. When Stevenage then folded Mark moved to Peterborough, played a few times for the Pirates and played regularly for the second team for a couple of seasons. These days Mark plays rec hockey as his family and hard landscaping business take up most of his time.

Thanks to Terry Locks for providing this information.

Mick Moorhouse: Mick Moorhouse is the father of Glen Moorhouse, who played for the Lions for a number of seasons. Mick was last heard of living with his wife in Caister-on-Sea in Norfolk.

Thanks to Terry Locks for providing this information.

Dave Ducharme: Dave is happily married with two young sons, Spencer and Ethan. The family lives on Hilton Head Island in South Carolina. Dave says he could never return to the freezing winters of his home town of Thunder Bay, Ontario after having experienced two mild English winters!

Thanks to Terry Locks for providing this information.

Doug McEwen: After leaving the Lions Doug spent ten successful seasons with the Cardiff Devils. He played a record 662 games, scoring 730 goals and 749 assists! A testimonial game was held at Cardiff on 8th December 1998. Doug's #7 shirt was retired during a challenge match on 26th August 2000, when he had gone back to playing for the Peterborough Pirates, the team he was with prior to coming to Lee Valley (Doug used to commute from Peterborough to Lea Bridge Road!). The last time I was at the Ice House (before it was demolished, obviously) the shirt was suspended above the ice (what happened to Eddie Joseph's #2 shirt which used to be on display in the Lee Valley bar?).

Doug spent the 2006/07 season as the Peterborough Phantoms' Head Coach and he was also Head Coach of the Junior setup.

In April 2007 Doug McEwen announced he was returning to Canada with his family, after spending 22 years in the UK. He returned home on 8th July to start a new life in Sudbury with his wife Julie and his two children Jessica and Corey.

Thanks to Ian Offers for the update on Doug.

Mel Grundy: Mel lives in Birmingham and works as a Psychiatric Nurse for the Army. He's been with his girlfriend for 4 years and shares a house with her in Brighton whenever his Army commitments allow. Mel may play hockey for the Army as a growing number of people are playing. He tried out last summer (2003) and did well, considering he'd not played for 8 years!

Thanks to Mel for providing this information.

Alan Sandford: Alan is going to be sending me some information on himself so I can increase his coverage on the site (see his Guestbook entry). For the time being all I know is that he spent two years in Whittington Hospital, as a result of undergoing major spinal surgery. He is, however, "as good as new" these days.

Thanks to Alan for providing this information.

Will Fish: Will says he thoroughly enjoyed his time with Lee Valley. He teaches English and coaches varsity hockey at Owatonna High School in Owatonna, Minnesota. He works with the youth hockey association in his home town, runs coaches' clinics in his area, and coaches select teams in USA Hockey's Development Program. In Summer 2005 Will spent two weeks working in Los Angeles with the Kings' top prospects camp.

Will still sees Bill Watson on a semi-annual basis and Steve McCormack every few weeks. He's heard from Dave and Jan Wurthman, Zdenek and Rosaria Eisner, Bob Mitura, and Vesa Pennanen. He visited London in August 2004 for the first time since 1986 and spent an evening with Eddie Joseph, watching him coach and catching up on old times.

Will says, "It's great to see Eddie involved in the program - I knew when we played that he'd be an excellent coach. I'd be happy to hear from folks from the old Lions days at wfish at owatonna dot k12 dot mn dot us" (e-mail address written like this to prevent spam).

Thanks to Will for providing this information.

Anders Bach: Anders has now hit his 40s but is still playing hockey in Sweden.

Thanks to Keda Nilsson for providing this information via a post on the guestbook.

Mark Harding: Mark is 38 years old (in 2006) and married with 2 children. He works for Canada Post in the week and is a professional musician at weekends, playing drums for Toronto-based heavy metal band, Warmachine.

Thanks to Mark for providing this information.

Dave Hardie: Dave lives with his wife and son in Regina, Saskatchewan (Canada). He has fond memories of the Lions, although his time with the team was cut short due to a knee injury. He still plays a little hockey and is looking forward to coaching his son, Jackson, who starts his first hockey season this winter (2006) at the age of 3.

Dave Wurthman: Dave and wife Jan have now been married for over 30 years and are as strong as ever both in marriage and health. Having left Southend, Essex in 1996, they moved to the Portsmouth area to embark on a joint venture as landlords and have proved very successful. They now reside in Welwyn Garden, Herts and recently took on their third public house in just under 10 years. They have recently purchased an apartment in Spain and when they are not working, tend to spend a lot of their time sunning themsleves and enjoying the life that Spain has to offer.

After leaving Lee Valley, Dave played for a number of clubs throughout the late 80s early 90s including London All Stars, Romford Raiders and  Chelmsford Knighthawks, but unfortunately due to overworked knees he had to give up his stick. Obviously he still has a massive interest in the sport and tries to keep up with it, but having 4 boys who were more keen to don football boots rather than skates, his attention has shifted to other sports! Weekends during the 90s for Jan and Dave were more likely to be spent huddled round a muddy pitch rather than a cold rink, much to Dave's disappointment.

Thanks to Toby Wurthman for providing this info on his Dad.

Brian Mitchell: Brian emerged from the Lee Valley Whalers with Mark Locks and Glenn Moorhouse.  After leaving Lee Valley he played for Slough Jets and Wight Link Raiders before work commitments took him to New York in 2000. New York is where Brian's career took off and he was even featured on the front cover of an industry magazine, Wall Street Technology. He now lives in Stamford, Connecticut and still plays hockey in the Stamford men's league.

Thanks to Brian for providing this information.

Lou Shipley: Lou and John Gordon were the imports on the team back in 1984. He lives in Andover, MA in the USA and is a General Manager with Citrix Systems. He has worked in high tech for over 20 years and did a one year expat assignment in the UK (Richmond) in 2000. When Lou left the team in '84 he was a student at the London School of Economics and the guys from the team gave him a really nice beer mug which he still uses to this day!  He is married to the woman he was dating back in '84 and he has a 13-year-old son (as of 2008) and daughters aged 10 and 6. Son Clarke is continuing in his father's footsteps, winning his hockey league championship in April 2008!

Thanks to Lou for providing this information.