Lessons on Living Long from the World’s Oldest Hockey Player
He broke his own world record at 96 — and at 98, he was still playing.
When I think of myself at 95 years old, my mind blanks out. I can’t because… maybe I’ll be dead by then. Or — if by some health miracle I survive — I hope that I’ll at least be functional, still capable of recognizing people, not too beat up yet to feel no difference between living and existing.
Given that 95 seems to be such a barely reachable age, I was surprised to learn about Mark Sertich:
- He was 95 when he made it into the Guinness Book of World Records for being the oldest hockey player.
- As if that wasn’t already remarkable enough, he broke his own record the next year as a 96-year-old playing at a senior world hockey tournament.
- In fact, when he reached 98, he was still playing hockey — and he died just this August 2020 at 99 years old.
This isn’t ordinary. Well into his 90s, he was playing three times a week with a group of current and retired firefighters. Although they were initially hesitant to let him join in, he was able to hold his own on the ice, soon becoming a regular presence there. They were somewhat like a family, and many of them would even visit Sertich’s home afterwards to hang out and talk about hockey strategies. Amazingly, Sertich said that someone would drop by practically everyday to check on him or to ask if he needed something.
On top of all these, Sertich lived alone — he would drive and do his own cooking and cleaning. It was already routine for him to wake up at 6 AM and warm up with push-ups, sit-ups, and other exercises. When the coronavirus pandemic struck, he managed to continue exercising inside by doing calisthenics and using a stationary bike.
Hockey was always a great love of his, and he used to be a youth hockey coach for decades. He also became interested in marathon running at some point, finishing more than 18 marathons and practicing around the neighborhood so much his neighbors became well-acquainted with him.
And because he was old enough to live through World War II, he also had his own story from then: he helped liberate a concentration camp in Austria. 70 years later, when he revisited it, he cried — one of the rare times his son had seen him doing so.
Mark Sertich has been described as an inspiring man by those who knew him personally. Even though I’m far from an avid sports fan and I’m on the other side of the world, his biography made me think about what it really means to grow old.
The thing is, health is never a guarantee. We can check off everything on the wellness to-do list — eat organic, fill up our plate with superfoods, sweat every day, meditate our way out of stress — but diseases like cancer or Alzheimer’s can still catch up to us. Our health is determined by so many factors, both visible and invisible: (epi)genetics, environment, diet, and lifestyle. We can tilt the odds in our favor through practicing certain habits, but it’s never completely under our control.
Overall life expectancy is supposedly increasing because of advances in medicine (although that might be more because of less babies and kids dying thanks to better sanitation, antibiotics, and vaccines). But as it becomes more common to reach our 80th birthday, I wonder if quality of life is also preserved. It’s not surprising to be old — or even in your 40s or 50s — and endure intense physical discomfort or pain consistently, to the point that you can barely move around on your own.
What’s striking about Sertich is he managed to defy this. People who live up to their 90s deserve a salute in general because they’ve gone through and seen so much, but to be 99 and be able to mow your lawn and do push-ups every morning — that’s an outlier.
How did Sertich achieve this? Maybe he had good genetics anyway as a foundation. Of course, I can only speculate, but there were many aspects of his life that lined up with recommended habits for longevity:
1. Staying Physically Active
This is the most obvious. Aside from playing hockey regularly, Sertich also kept fit with morning exercises. More than that, he wasn’t just exerting himself a few times a week and then remaining sedentary between — he was responsible for maintaining his home, so he had to drop by the grocery, tidy up his space, and do other chores. He was physically active.
Although I used to think of exercise as isolated 30-minute Youtube videos or morning runs, what I’m picking up from this is that it’s also important to avoid long sitting periods — and even something as seemingly relaxed as walking more every day can have a significant positive impact over time.
2. Connecting with People
Social isolation and loneliness have been linked to shorter lifespans because of the increased stress response, and the risk to our health is even comparable to that of smoking 15 cigarettes per day.
When he was still working at a company, Sertich was also juggling raising a family (of seven kids) and coaching youth hockey teams on the side. Loneliness is a major issue that plagues many senior citizens, but upon retiring, Sertich was able to maintain stronger social connections by being active in sports. Through his passion for hockey, Sertich fostered a sense of community and connected well with people, right up to his final years — despite living alone.
He described it like this:
“At my age, it’s a wonderful way of being connected with younger people, and I think that’s very important for an older person. I’m so fortunate that it’s given me a chance to be involved. It’s really the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
3. Maintaining a Positive Mindset About Aging
Even as he reached his 90s, Sertich had a positive mindset regarding aging. Instead of feeling discouraged and quitting hockey because he was getting old, he chose to keep up his physical activities to the best of his abilities while still respecting the limits of his body.
In an interview when he was 95 years old, he joked:
“I think about my age once in a while. I say to myself, ‘You’re only 59. You’re not 95.’ I just turn the numbers around to make myself feel better.”
He didn’t assume that he would be severely debilitated by age — and perhaps he saw age as a number rather than a prophecy. Interestingly, although he got his fair share of injuries from hockey, he placed a huge emphasis on self-healing, believing that he would get well enough to play again.
4. Feeling Purposeful
Because we often rely on work to give us a sense of purpose and structure our day, transitioning to retirement must be jarring because it’s now up to us to set our own agenda. Without a sense of purpose, it’s easy to feel listless, bored, or depressed as each day becomes too similar to the previous one. Sertich has been described as “very competitive,” and he “always wanted to be at the top of his game and the top of his health.”
Waking up at 6 and practicing hockey consistently — enough to join major tournaments — both take a great deal of motivation. Aside from having goals to work towards and things to consciously look forward to, Sertich was also very devoted to hockey, which he’d been passionate about since he was ten. Spending time on our passions brings us joy — and Sertich pursued this joy for around 90 years, always finding his way back to it no matter what.
All four of these are far from esoteric. We can easily integrate at least one into our regular lives — aside from possibly contributing to our longevity, these can increase our wellbeing and improve how we feel on a day-to-day basis.
At the same time, as much as immortality has always been a human obsession — and longevity its realistic compromise —it’s not the length of a life that actually matters but rather what we did with those years. Ultimately, I don’t think there’s any objective metric by which we can assess how well we lived. Everyone has different standards. Would you prefer to measure yours by how much you enjoyed and embraced experiences fully? Or maybe by your impact on other people or your personal growth? But then again, what if life simply is — and however you live it out, whether you flared bright and brief like a star or made it to the end of a century, whatever’s scribbled on your biography, it’s unconditionally beautiful and worthwhile anyhow?
Mark Sertich reminds me of another popular figure who defied what we assume about aging: Tao Porchon-Lynch. Living up to 101 years old, she continued to teach yoga classes and dance in heels well into her old age, while in her youth she’d marched with Gandhi and helped World War II refugees.
Like Sertich, she won a Guinness World Record — this time, for being the oldest competitive ballroom dancer. And like Sertich, she had her own beautiful perspective on aging, made more poignant because she was speaking from experience:
“I don’t believe in age. When people ask me about age, I tell them to look at all the trees around them. They’re hundreds of years old. They may look as if they’re dying at the moment, but they’re not; they’re recycling themselves. And in a couple of months, they’re going to be reborn again.”
