Dreams on Ice

Slip slidin' away: Tony Voce in action against the Lowell Lock Monsters at the Wachovia Spectrum Feb. 11. Photo By: Mike Mergen

The Phantoms' native son Tony Voce breaks through as his sport is breaking down.

by J.F. Pirro

Tony Voce, a rookie with the American Hockey League's Philadelphia Phantoms, slips off his skates after a tough 4-1 loss to the Grand Rapids Griffins at the Wachovia Spectrum.

He's wearing a plain black T-shirt, black sharkskin slacks and polished, black, buckled shoes. His black wool hat is propped high so it flops above his ears, conjuring images of Rocky Balboa. Two fresh black stitches beneath the left side of his chin cinch the comparison.

"It's a good thing I'm not good-looking," says the 5-foot-8, 188-pound Voce, shaking off his 15th and 16th facial stitches of the season. "I think I get hit a little more because I'm smaller."

At 24, Voce's young. He's raw. Maybe he takes his lumps simply because he's a blue-collar, Italian, Northeast Philly native.

Sport in Philly is often painful, but last July, Voce's signing pumped local pride when he became the first Philly kid ever to sign with the Flyers organization. (The Phantoms are the Flyers' minor-league affiliate.)

Now, with last week's cancellation of the National Hockey League season, the irony is insidious: The year Voce's arrived, an NHL season hasn't. Voce's dream may be icing over.

He insists the lack of an NHL/Flyers season hasn't affected him, but he agrees it's gouged the game. "It's not the No. 1 sport in America to begin with," Voce says, "so it's definitely hurting the game."

Though it clouds their futures, the lockout has provided more visibility for those like Voce, who was a two-time team MVP at Boston College where he scored 167 career points (90 goals, 77 assists), helped his team win the 2001 NCAA championship, and was a top-10 finalist for hockey's version of the Heisman Trophy, the Hobey Baker Memorial Award.

However, when it comes to hockey — and maybe football and baseball, too — Voce says Philly's no Boston.

"Hockey isn't great here," he says in his first indictment of Philly. "It's definitely a hockey town, and kids play all around the city, but you're not going to get anywhere playing around here. At about 15 or 16, you have to go elsewhere if you want to get anywhere."

After six years with the heralded Little Flyers youth-development system, he left Archbishop Ryan following his freshman year. He ended up at Lawrence Academy in Massachusetts where he became the school's career scoring leader with 206 points (108 goals, 98 assists). He also left school rushing and scoring marks in football.

With the Phantoms, Voce has nine goals and 11 assists (20 points) in 45 games through Feb. 9, but until his goal on the ninth hadn't scored since Dec. 29. It was easier, he says, when the team was winning — when the Phantoms were setting an AHL-record 17-game winning streak — before the team fell from first place to fourth.

Suddenly, Voce's not so sure about being back in Philly: "I was away for so long, and nobody knew what was going on with me," he says. "Now that I'm back, they all want answers, and sometimes you don't have them."

Just like he never has enough tickets for everyone who asks. His parents, Teresa and Tony, get his guaranteed pair, then he borrows from teammates who hail from the likes of Villingen, Germany, and Thunder Bay, Ontario.

Although he had to wander afar in order to come back, Voce will always be Philly at heart. He waited for the Phillies to win the World Series before he was born, nine days later, on Oct. 30, 1980. While just crawling three months later, Dick Vermeil's Eagles were clawing their way to the franchise's first Super Bowl. It was a good first year to be a Philadelphian.

Before skating into Super Bowl XXXIX weekend earlier this month, Voce put on a green Eagles sweatshirt and replaced the plain black "Rocky" hat with an Eagles one. He says he owns Eagles socks, too.

The colors are important. A Boston College grad and a New England prep school student before that, he could easily have sided with the Patriots. But even at BC, he was an Eagle, the school's mascot.

Fat chance of changing now. Apparently as fat a chance as this city ever getting another champion. Or maybe as fat a chance as this city ever seeing another NHL season — or ever producing another native son in hockey.

So, love the one you've got, right? Everyone, even family members, hound Voce for his autograph: "It's a little weird, I'll tell ya' that," he says.

As weird as his reluctant admission that he attended the Patriot's first two Super Bowl parades to cheer on fellow BC-grad and Lehigh Valley-native Dan Coppen, New England's center. Voce says Coppen didn't return his good-luck call before this year's Super Bowl.

That one's left him with social scars.

"I guess he was big-timing me," says Voce, who for the time being will remain content being relatively small-time.