SATURDAY’S GAME
Dayton Demonz vs. Danville Dashers, 7:35 p.m. (home opener)
Tailgate barbecue 4:45 p.m. Hara Arena parking lot
Live music by Kings Landing
Tickets: (937) 723-8461 or Hara Arena box office
Other November home games:
Nov. 8, Danbury, 7:35 p.m.
Nov. 9, Watertown, 7:35 p.m.
Nov. 16, Watertown, 7:35 p.m.
Nov. 23, Danbury, 7:35 p.m.
The Dayton Demonz will open their season with a 3 1/2-hour bus ride to Danville, Ill., Friday afternoon, a game there that night against the Dashers, then an immediate bus trip back to Dayton, arriving here in the wee hours Saturday morning before playing the home opener that night at Hara Arena.
For Anthony Battaglia, the just-named team captain and veteran left winger, that marathon jaunt must seem like nothing more than a quick trip around the block.
Not long ago — in a span of about three weeks — he traversed the globe, visiting five continents, 10 countries and 23 cities while traveling over 30,000 miles.
Along the way he jumped out of a helicopter at 10,000 feet and sky-dived down to the French Polynesian island of Bora Bora, water skied among African crocodiles in the Okavango Delta on Botswana, trekked through the Bernese Alps in Switzerland, the Ubud Monkey Forest in Bali and the Rakaia River Gorge in New Zealand. He was also in Hanoi, Vietnam, Berlin, Germany, Edinburgh, Scotland and Belfast, North Ireland.
Pretty amazing, you say?
Well, if this were hockey, you just scored a hat trick.
Earlier this year, Anthony and his older brother, Bates, a former NHL player, won the 22nd season of the popular TV reality series “The Amazing Race” and the $1 million prize that came with it.
Although that certainly makes him the best-known player on this year’s Demonz, he already had a resume with far more miles on it than anyone else on the roster.
The 34-year-old forward is beginning his 12th season of pro hockey, that after playing junior A hockey for the Soo Eagles in the North American Hockey League and then four years at Western Michigan University .
As a pro he’s played on two continents, for 15 different teams in seven different leagues.
Along the way he’s been on a team bus that caught fire, had a franchise disband a month into the season and twice gotten his teeth knocked out.
“I’ve got eight fake teeth all together,” he said, flashing a perfect white-enameled smile as he sat just off the ice in the chilly, otherwise-deserted Hara Arena following practice the other day. “My second year as a pro I was playing for the Mississippi Sea Wolves when I got hit in the face with a stick.”
He pointed to the four front teeth on his bottom jaw and two more on the side — all cemented-in replacements from that incident.
Another dental casualty came two years ago.
“I was playing for Jersey (New Jersey Outlaws) and a guy for Danville — Lee McClure, he’s my teammate here now — flipped the puck in my face and it knocked out my two upper front teeth,” he said with a shrug
Then with a quick wiggle of his mouth, he popped out the bridge holding those replacements and gave a gap-toothed grin.
‘Bust ‘em in da teets’
Speaking of teeth, there is a part of the story that Battaglia doesn’t tell unless asked directly.
He’s the grandson of Sam “Teets” Battaglia, the once notorious Chicago mobster. An associate of Sam Giancana and once tied to Al Capone, Battaglia piled up a lengthy rap sheet as he ran the mafia’s Chicago outfit.
Anthony and Bates, whose lives growing up in Chicago were completely different, never knew their grandfather, who died in 1973.
“I’m [proud of my family],” Anthony said. “As for my grandfather, they were outcasts back then and they had to do what they had to do. That’s how they got by growing up in Chicago.”
As for the Teets nickname, Anthony explained by mimicking his grandfather’s Italian accent: “If guys messed up, he said he was ‘gonna bust ‘em ‘in da teets.’ ”
That toothy reference became his nickname and it’s one — thanks to hockey — that still fits the family.
Along with Anthony and Bates, their other brother, Sam, played collegiate hockey, as well.
“There’s not a Battaglia who has his two front teeth,” Anthony said with a laugh. “Well, my nephews still do but they’re playing hockey so they might be losing their teeth in a few years, too.”
Anthony said he grew up wanting to be just like Bates, who played in 580 NHL games with Toronto, Washington, Colorado and the Carolina Hurricanes, with whom he made it to the Stanley Cup Finals in 2002.
After college, Anthony played briefly with the Lowell (Mass.) Lock Monsters in the American Hockey League, his highest minor-league club, before embarking on a career that took him to teams in Florida, Mississippi, Utah, Georgia, South Carolina, Michigan, Texas, Oklahoma, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Alabama and Manchester, England.
Leader of the pack
The Amazing Race, which began on CBS in 2001, has included other athletes in its competitions over the years. The Harlem Globetrotters’ Herbert “Flight Time” Lang and Nathaniel “Big Easy” Lofton competed one year. Another time former NFL players Marcus Pollard and Ken Greene took part. There have been pro snowboarders, an Ironman triathlete, a pro bull and bronc rider and Major League Soccer goalie Andrew Weber.
In the current edition, Amazing Race 23, former NFL offensive linemen Chester Pitts and Ephraim Salaam are competing.
“The show is pretty diverse, they had had everything from housewives to lots of sports figures, but never hockey players,” Anthony said. “The casting director started going to NHL teams and a guy with Carolina contacted my brother to see if he wanted to try out.”
Bates runs Lucky B’s — which bills itself as “The Classiest Dive Bar in Raleigh” — and he enlisted Anthony. They sent in an audition tape and their mix of personality and athleticism, along with their storyline, made them one of 11 two-person teams that also included a pair of doctors, two roller-derby moms, two firefighters and two members of the female country group Stealing Angels.
“Playing hockey, especially minor-league hockey, definitely helped us,” Anthony said. “I’m used to sleeping on bus floors, airport floors, wherever, and not having the amenities you usually have in daily life.
“What really helped, though, was our competitive nature — we never wanted to give up, never wanted to give an inch to anybody — and also the fact that we were athletes and could handle challenges that were very physical.”
Although he said winning got him a lot of recognition on Facebook and Twitter, as well as some acknowledgements when he was out in public, Anthony confessed no talent scouts came calling with additional parts and there were no marriage proposals, although — and this he said with a big grin — “the ladies definitely weren’t too shy afterward.”
As for the $1 million prize he and his brother shared, he said, “It has definitely changed my life — especially from a financial standpoint. I’ve played in the minors a long time just for peanuts and always had to worry about my financials. Now I’ve got a little money in my back pocket and that gives me some breathing room.
“In the offseason I tried to do a little real estate and for the past three years I’ve been trying to get in the fire department (in Raleigh).”
Right now he figures he still has something to offer in hockey — “although my body isn’t what it used to be 12 years ago, I still can hang with these young bucks” — and that’s why he answered the call of new Demonz coach Trevor Karasiewicz.
The two had played together the past two seasons, linemates in New Jersey and Williamsport Pa. And in his first-ever coaching job, Karasiewicz wanted Battaglia on his roster:
“He’ll be our captain, our go-to guy, one of our leaders.”
Battaglia sees his role the same way:
“I’m here to kinda be Trevor’s right-hand man. We’ve both seen a lot and can feed off each other. He knows what I’m capable of. He brought me in to help out the younger kids and kind of lead the pack. He knows I can help get us where we need to be.”
Earlier this year that was Bora Bora and Botswana.
This weekend it will be a quick trip to Danville and back.
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