You're a good man, Charles Schulz.

[Blansky]

For 20 years I lived in Santa Rosa California the home of Snoopy, Charlie Brown et all. And of course Charles Schulz, nicknamed Sparky.

I played hockey at Snoopy's Home Ice, a rink that Charles Schulz built when he moved from Minnesota years earlier.

He was a huge hockey fan, a really good player and sponsored the "Snoopy Tournament" for over 40 years which was a hockey tournament for players over 40 years old. (I played for 20 years).

Usually for 2 weeks in the summer 50-70 teams would show up and the competition ranged from ex NHLers, ex college players, ex AHL players and even a team from Japan showed up every year for something like 25 years until they managed to win one game. Then they didn't show up again.

The teams were divided 40, 45, 50, 55, 60, 65, 70 and over. One guy was still playing in his 90s. In fact the last time I saw him he was in the box for roughing.

The 40 A teams were extremely good players and the one from LA would fly in on TV producers, David E Kelley's jet and were unbeatable. The assistant coach of the Florida Panthers, Jamie Kompon played on that one. Unbelievable player.

Unlike his cartoon Charles Schulz was not especially a warm fuzzy, but he was extremely warm hearted. There were many stories of him hearing about a person or family on the news, having dire financial difficulties and he's have one of his employees send an anonymous check to them to help out.

He didn't suffer fools on his hockey teams either as he was very competitive. He had his own private ice on Tuesday nights at 5:30 and I got to play in that for about 12 years. He died in around 2000 and I met him once but he was pretty sick at that time.

Here is a story of his cartoonists life..

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/...own-and-snoopy