Memories of time spent and lessons learned with Uncle Mel Wakabayashi

UNCLE WOLVERINE

I learned early that my uncle was a Wolverine. Not the actual animal. Not the Marvel Superhero, but a proud alumni of the University of Michigan. Early stories of his exploits in Ann Arbor painted a picture of a sports dynamo. Big accomplishments. NCAA National title in ‘64 where he scored two in the finals. Conference Player of the Year in ‘66. Scoring records. The Great Lakes Invitational. Uncle Mel still holds a solid position on the U of M all time scoring list. Mel’s son Chris followed in his footsteps and attended Michigan in the 90’s. He was in the same class as the Fab Four of U of M Men’s Basketball fame.

MEL and FERGIE

When I burst onto the Wakabayashi scene in the early 70’s, Uncle Mel was already in Japan, transitioning his brilliant ice hockey career into coaching on both the club and National team level.

When the family talked about Mel, they would soon talk about how Fergie was doing in the big bad world of Major League Baseball. Then the stories would come pouring out about Mel and Fergie and the friendship they had growing up at Memorial Arena and old Rotary Park. Fergie was a star in baseball but he really wanted to b a hockey player growing up, and Mel was a hockey star who was just as impressive at the plate with a bat.

In the late 70’s or early 80’s Uncle Mel and family moved to Toronto to be the president of The Prince Hotel and that’s when he got us all tickets whenever Fergie would come through Toronto to pitch. My very first Blue Jays game we had mint seats in the first row of the aluminum bench seats right at the visiting team bullpen in right field. Uncle Mel even knew and talked to some of the guys in the pen.

Great seats and a memory for life. Uncle Mel also had a tight friendship with MLB pitcher and Wolverine baseball teammate Geoff Zahn and we got some great seats at The Ex from him as well in the 80’s

They lived in Toronto for only a brief time before he got transferred to Anchorage, Alaska to run the hotel there for a few years.

I’M NOT IMPRESSED

Fast forward to 1987 and Uncle Mel was coming to Chatham for a 50th wedding anniversary bash that the family was throwing for my grandparents. The rumour was that Herb and Mel were both coming in for the party. It just so happened that I was in the All Ontario tournament that weekend in Toronto and was not going to be able to go to the party, but word was that Mel and Herb were going to watch my game in Toronto before they went to Chatham.

One game in my lifetime when both Herbie and Mel would watch me play. They would both watch me more in the future.

It was the first game of the tournament so the jitters were in high gear, and yep both Mel and Herb were in the stands to watch for the first time ever. We won the game so that’s all that mattered but I’m pretty sure my nerves produced the worst, most selfish game of hockey that I have ever played in my life.

Uncle Mel;

“Dwight, I have heard so much about you and what a player you are. Well….I’m not impressed,” he laughed.

That was Uncle Mel. You had to be producing. In school, in sports, in life, you had to be productive and you had to impress in order to get the love. He had expectations, he was critical and he was blunt. You had to deal with it. He was a very smart and accomplished man who was not easy to impress. He was also laid back, funny and fun as hell sometimes. What a great guy.

His analysis and feedback of my game would improve a lot over the years….More on that later.

THE COACH AND KOKUDO

In the summer of ‘92 I had just moved out to Vancouver with mom and dad and was coming off a nice bounce back season of junior after completely blowing out my knee in the 90-91 season. Nineteen, in a new place across the country I already knew I had a major tryout coming up the next season if I wanted to continue playing hockey. The plan was to tryout for the BCJHL’s Surrey Eagles at the urging of some of my Uncle Herb’s friends. I also had a tryout for the Richmond Sockeyes of the PJHL or Junior B league out there.

I got extremely lucky when I found out that Uncle Mel’s team in the Japanese Ice Hockey League Kokudo was coming to Vancouver to train for two weeks. My cousin Chris was coming to train with them and I was welcome to train with them too. Kokudo was the best team in Japan at the time and Uncle Mel ran a tight ship. I was able to train with them doing two-a-days with a 10 K run after the sessions. Intense. Professional. I was in no kinda shape.

I got to hang out with Uncle Mel at night during those two weeks as well and we played cards and shared laughs at the old Gage main dorm on the UBC campus. Off the ice, this is my greatest memory of time with Uncle Mel and Chris. They both laughed at me soo much during the card games because I was so competitive.

I’m pretty sure Uncle Mel still thought I was a pretty arrogant hockey player, so he ran me in most of the drills against the top D pairing they had. I remember an intense one on one drill with the JIHL Norris trophy winner Takage and he schooled me pretty good while Uncle Mel laughed. I didn’t quit though. I battled, and enjoyed every minute of it.

The two week camp ended with a full game scrimmage against some UBC players current and past and Kokudo had a full camp roster so Chris and I played for the UBC team against Kokudo in that game. I played left wing with Chris on the right side and UBC and Japanese League alum and family friend Mike Ikeda as our center. I remember a much better review of my game.

Uncle Mel;

“Geez you guys played really well, the best line they had, but you just can’t put the puck in the net.”

Our line did generate a lot of offence and I remember vividly Chris and I had a nice tic tac toe and I missed a gaping cage. Such a great memory and game playing with Chris and we didn’t look out of place against the best club team in Japan.

The bonus to that opportunity to train with Uncle Mel was that it led me right into my junior tryout season out in Vancouver. I ended up walking on to the 1992-93 Richmond Sockeyes. I was on the bubble for pretty much the entire camp but I was in superior shape to some of the guys I was battling with and I ended up making the team. I credit both Uncle Mel and Uncle Herb for my time playing junior in British Columbia.

THE INCIDENT AT THE PRINCE HOTEL

It’s 1996 now and I have just finished school and am working up in Toronto. Uncle Mel is also back living in Toronto and managing the old Prince Hotel at York Mills and Leslie. I would pop in to the hotel to visit him once in a while and see him in his office with his desk covered in newspapers with him going through all the baseball news. He was involved in baseball scouting at the ice as well.

I had an idea to get the old boys together for a hockey tournament in TO so I asked Uncle Mel about the rates for the hotel. Not sure what the fuck I was thinking other than impressing the boys with a stay in the luxury of The Prince. Everyone arrived and the the tourney was a success however……

THERE WAS AN INCIDENT that happened that put me in the penalty box with Uncle Mel for quite some time. I was already in my room asleep of course preparing for the next day’s games and many of the guys were too. It was about 3 or 4 in the morning and the guys who were awake decided to make the fourth floor hallway their one hundred meter race track. No names will be mentioned but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Vandy, Barney or Tewkes. Up and down the hall they flew. I’m pretty sure they had heats and everything because they must have had about 6 races.

Apparently the track was too short like those indoor 60m ones so a large hand hole ended up on the wall at the finish line end.

I found out the next morning when I woke up to rally the troops and no one would look me in the eye.

OH FUCK I said. Mel’s gonna kill me.

I didn’t hear anything about it from him but was sure he would find out. So I went to visit him the next week in his office, apologized and offered to pay for the damages. He didn’t accept any money of course but he did lecture me for a while and tell me how disappointed he was. He was pretty easy on me.

The last time I saw Uncle Mel was around 2006, just before he moved back to Tokyo. I had heard he was doing well and loved to walk around Tokyo getting various snacks and sweets along the way. Most recently, like in the last few months we had all heard that he was really sick with stomach problems and that things weren’t very positive.

Uncle Mel passed away this past week and while sad that both he and Herbie have both passed on, I feel incredibly blessed and privileged to have known and learned from him and his amazingly accomplished life.

RIP Uncle Wolverine #12 #9

Published by wakafightermma

Married father of two beautiful kids and Freelance Writer/Reporter who has covered MMA for over 12 years. An extensive background in studying mixed martial arts and a graduate of print journalism. I also write stories of inspiration and the fighting spirit. Author of three short books. "The Toughest Guy In Here", "Finding Bruce Lee and My JKD" and "Cate's Weekends with Daddy" Studied Bruce Lee and Jeet Kune Do from an early age and am a Lee historian. Covered mixed martial arts at every level from youth jiu-jitsu right up to being fully credentialed media member by the major organizations like the UFC, Bellator, WSOF, MFC and Score Fighting Series. View all posts by wakafightermma