Sometimes, when introducing one of my organ concerts, I will begin by saying: “When I used to play for the Minnesota North Stars and The Detroit Red Wings Hockey Teams……..It is what is known as an “attention grabber.”

Instantly, I would have the audience’s full attention. There would be lots of looks of disbelief and some of pity. The disbelievers, especially those who were familiar with the North Stars, were searching their hockey minds to see if they could possibly have heard my name before. Others, who just knew that I had not ever played for the North Stars or the Red Wings hockey teams, would look at me with pity.

I could read their thoughts expressed in their eyes. They were thinking: “How sad, the poor guy has become delusional. Too bad, when he was younger he used to be such a nice guy!”

After a minute or so I would explain. “I didn’t say that I played hockey for the North Stars or the Red Wings, I played the organ for the North Stars and one Red Wings hockey game.

Of course there is a story to tell.

It all began in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. While I was teaching at Suomi College (now called Finlandia University) I had been asked to consult with Michigan Technological University about an organ problem. A totally disassembled authentic three manual (keyboard) Wurlitzer Theatre Organ had been donated to the school, and the school had to decide what to do with it.

My job was to give them options. It was fairly simple. Either have the organ (all of its thousands of parts) brought to the local dump, or have a reputable organ builder restore the instrument and install it in the Michigan Tech Ice Arena. It would be a costly proposition, but by doing so the school would have a unique instrument that could add much to their “hockey flavor.”

The school, being a constant WCHA contender, decided to have the organ restored. They felt that it would be of great P.R. value. In the meantime, the winter had begun and I began to learn what the Yoopers meant by “we get a lot of snow.”

I would learn over the next few years that a winter snowfall (sometimes beginning in September and ending in May) would bring anywhere from 200 to over 300 inches of the white stuff. It was a skiing and snowmobiling paradise.

I was living just outside of Houghton on the Portage (part of a natural canal that flows from Lake Superior on the East cutting the Peninsula in half, to Lake Superior on the West. John MacInnes, the famed hockey coach of Michigan Tech, lived nearby. I had become acquainted with John.

I was a part-time landlord at the time and John had arranged for a number of his hockey players, “Huskies,” to rent one of my properties. Our business relationship soon turned into friendship, and although my hockey knowledge at that time was zero, we did share a love for music. John especially loved jazz.

The Wurlitzer organ, after being in the Wick’s Organ Shop for several months, was returned to Michigan Tech and installed in the ice arena.

I really wanted to play it. John had asked me several times to play for the hockey games. Organists were few and far in between in the U.P., and a theater organ requires a different kind of playing style and technique.

In my organ sales and demo’s I had learned to play “pop” music, it would be useful in playing the Wurlitzer. There was a lot of pressure for me to play for the hockey games, but there was one problem, the organ had been installed on platforms 50 feet above the mezzanine floor. Actually there were twoproblems as I hated heights. Ten-12 feet above the floor was my limit. Climbing 50 feet up a ladder that was bolted onto the wall was more than I could handle! In addition, once (if you manage to make the 50-foot climb, (and live), you have to twist your body a quarter turn, open the door to the organ chamber, and step into the chamber.

Next, you had to turn a couple of switches to start the blower and then, suddenly, you would hear a sound like a mighty wind signaling that the organ was under wind pressure and was ready to play. It was like being in the cockpit of a huge airplane. The gigantic size console was turned in such a way that you have to look over your right shoulder to see the ice, which was 50 feet below the mezzanine level; the level from where you begin the climb to the organ.

For me, it resembled a mountain climb. This was truly a case where I was not ready to “Climb Every Mountain.”

In an area where there were just a few organists, it did not take long for my name to get around. I had been hired as the organist/choir director for Trinity Episcopal Church in Houghton. It housed the only three manual (keyboard) organ in the U. P., and I had been invited to play my European organ debut in the Notre Dame Cathedral of Luxembourg City. My friend, Earl Gagnon (I wrote about him in Gerrit’s Notes No. 13) of the local Daily Mining Gazette paper, wrote a feature story with a picture about my upcoming European debut.

Now the pressure was on. The organ was waiting and so were the locals and hockey coach, John MacInnes. I finally relented. I told the staff at the arena that I was coming over to “climb the ladder.” When I got there everything was ready for me. I had forgotten that the first part of the climb was going up a 15 foot ladder, placed on an angle against the wall; and then you had to take hold of the next ladder bolted on to the wall, straight up to the organ loft.

I said a little prayer and started up the angled ladder. When I almost got to the top of it, I looked down, and decided right then and there that an organ was not worth dying for, and I scooted down. The arena crew was kind and understanding but I felt terrible.

The rest of that hockey season I sat in my purchased seat and enjoyed the games, but I was always reminded “there, up there, was that organ, waiting for me.”

Nobody else was playing it. A student tried playing it once but it reminded me of a beginning organ student. To be honest, it was really terrible, but my inner voice said, “Yeah, but he is doing it, and you’re not.”

The hockey season ended, summer came and I stayed away from the ice arena (and that organ). John never gave up. He encouraged me like a father would encourage his son, or one of his hockey players. The summer flew by and then it was fall. Snow season was approaching and with it, hockey. The snow started early in October and I just knew that I was going to go up that ladder, or at least I was going to try it one more time.

I was teaching music (elementary, junior high and high school) in Ontonagon, a small town in the western edge of the U.P. It was a daily 100 mile round trip from my house in Houghton.

At the beginning of the school year I was notified that if Ontonagon had a Snow Day, they would call me at 5 a.m. to let me know that I did not have to come in. They also told me that if Houghton had a snow day, I would not have to come in either. It was kind of a win-win situation. I stopped by the ice arena and told Bob, the head arena caretaker, that “On my next snow day, I’ll call you, first thing in the morning. Get the ladder ready because I am going to come in to play that organ.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: Gerrit Lamain is a former Copper Country resident who served as a music professor at Suomi College. He was also the organist for the Michigan Tech hockey team before moving on to the Minnesota North Stars.