Cold Blooded Killer: My Time With An Enforcer In The Canadian Amateur Leagues

Snow has just started falling as he pops the back door of his old Dodge van and tosses in a bag of sweaty gear. His face is in rough shape: a black eye, stitches across his nose, a freshly missing tooth. But under all this, a look of determination as cold as the weather on this frosty night in Manitoba.

This is Mitch Muswagon, an enforcer for the Cross Lake Selects of the Men’s Division 5 Amateur League in Manitoba, and one of the most feared fighters in the province. I spent a week with Mitch this season, learning what it takes to survive in the world of Canadian semi-pro hockey.

“I was trying to kill that guy in the second fight tonight,” says Muswagon as we pile into his van and head into the bleak countryside. “Tried to knock his nose bone up into his brain. So close.”

In fact, Mitch had beaten an opposing player to within inches of his life earlier in the evening. It took three refs and the opposing coach to pull him off the guy. He fights like a man on a mission. He’s incredible.

Just another day on the job for this tough-as-nails, blue-collar journeyman.

** ** **

The life of a hockey enforcer in the amateur Canadian leagues is the life of a warrior. It’s part prize fighter, part judge, jury and executioner. The enforcers deal out the vigilante justice on the ice while testing one another in a bid for supremacy. It can be brutal business, and no one does it better than Mitch Muswagon.

“Why do you do it, Mitch? What drives you,” I asked him one evening.

“I love to hurt people,” Muswagon told me as we barreled down a frozen highway, his eyes two blank canvasses on which countless works of violence have been painted. “I love the crunch of bone beneath my fist, the way hot blood flows from a fresh wound. It really… gets me going.”

You don’t have to spend long with Mitch to hear something like this. He embodies dedication. He carries the mantle of this age-old hockey tradition with honor and grace, and clearly takes his responsibilities seriously.

** ** **

Along the road we come across a deer that has been hit by a truck, laying dead by the side of the road. Mitch pulls off the road and stops nearby. We get out of his white, windowless van and walk over to the roadkill.

“Do you ever get curious about how things look on the inside?” Mitch asks me.

“I think that about buildings sometimes,” I reply.

Mitch stands over the dead deer for some time silently.

“When I was younger I used to catch stray cats and… take them apart,” he says after a while, staring blankly at the mangled deer.

To look at him out here on the side of a highway in the Canadian countryside is to stare into the soul of what makes hockey great. The pure, tortured loneliness of this grizzled veteran is almost too beautiful for words.

** ** **

On the ice, Mitch has never been the most talented player. In fact, coaches say, he often forgets his stick when heading on for a shift, so focused is he on his duties as enforcer.

What he lacks in technical skill, however, he makes up for in sheer grit. Mitch’s style of play has been described by some as ‘dangerous,’ ‘bloodthirsty,’ or even ‘criminal,’ but in my book, I’d call it ‘classic.’

His every move harkens back to the days of no helmets and fewer penalties. When players had noses that were broken so many times they looked like bolts of lightning. Before the NHL decided it would start the process of pussifying hockey.

** ** **

Mitch’s career has certainly been anything but easy. Although, as I understand it, this is par for the course for a hockey enforcer in the Canadian backcountry.

“I spent last season in Alberta, but I was forced to move on when our coach disappeared mysteriously,” Muswagon tells me one day.

I asked him if that was altogether unusual in these leagues.

“It’s happened to me once or twice… or eight times, I’d say. Can’t speak for other guys though,” Mitch says, expressionless.

In this you can see the dedication that Mitch has to the game. In the face of losing eight coaches to mysterious circumstances, he soldiers on. This is the spirit of hockey. This is Canada.

** ** **

It’s the final game on my roadtrip following Mitch and the Cross Lake Selects. The Selects are down 3–1 in the second period and the coach decides the team needs an energy boost. This is where Mitch comes in.

As soon as Mitch hits the ice, players from the opposing team scatter. However, one bigger guy is a bit too slow, and Mitch is on him immediately. It’s a flurry of fists that is terrifying to behold.

The crowd sits in stunned silence, taking in the beauty of the battle. The opposing players screams are drowned out only Mitch’s maniacal laughter.

By the time officials can react, the opposing tough guy is a bloody mess. They drag Mitch by the jersey across the ice by the jersey. Mitch, a far-off look in his eyes, grins as he licks blood from his hands.

And then, he catches my gaze in the stands and mouths the words, “You’re next.”

What a legend.