Giving Up a 4-for-4

Originally published in January 1998:

Giving Up a 4-for-4 -- and Hockey, too

Two weeks ago, Western Michigan University coach Bill Wilkinson received a short letter from Greg Mitchell, the 6-5/210 lb. former right wing from the Boston Bulldogs. In the letter, Mitchell, who'd earlier accepted a full-ride hockey scholarship from Wilkinson, announced he was officially giving up the scholarship -- and the game of hockey. The letter was postmarked San Antonio, Texas, where days earlier Mitchell had enrolled at St. Mary's University, his father's alma mater.

"It's all a little strange," says Wilkinson, who in 25 years of coaching hockey at the Division I level has never seen a player give so much up.

For our purposes, the story begins in December when Mitchell, the nephewtchell, the nephew of Pittsburgh Penguins GM Craig Patrick, left the Boston Bulldogs after a game in which Mike Addesa, the junior team's head coach/GM, had left him out on the ice for four consecutive shifts. Mitchell felt that he'd been publicly humiliated.

Wilkinson, when he spoke to Mitchell a week later, simply said, "Let's get you somewhere where you'd like to play."

Mitchell told the coach he wanted to play in the USHL, for the Lincoln Stars. He'd heard good things about the Stars from Brendon Hodge and Tim Peters, a pair of former Bulldogs teammates, and he wanted to join them.

Addesa, however, refused to give Mitchell his release -- at least to Lincoln. But in early January Addesa gave Mitchell his release to go play Tier II for the Caledon (Ont.) Canadians. After two games with Caledon, in both of which he'd played well, Mitchell packed up, quit hockey, and headed for Texas.

The Western Michigan coaches tried to talk Mitchell out of quitting, suggesting he simply enroll at Western and reconsider his decision. Mitchell declined the offer. He'd made up his mind, he said, and the decision was final.

Today, speculation abounds. Mitchell told friends that Addesa's coaching methods had taken all the joy out of hockey for him, and that he no longer loved the game. Others say that he was never passionate about the game in the first place. Quitting now, they added, was a convenient way for Mitchell to avoid facing the prospect of going off to Western Michigan, performing below others' expectations -- and becoming the first member of the Patrick line, perhaps hockey's most illustrious family, to fail at the game their name is virtually synonymous with.

Now we'll probably never know exactly what Greg Mitchell might have become. But for a big guy he could skate well enough to make his mark. He was -- and still is -- suited to the modern pro game.