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Although he spent years playing professional hockey, Janeville's Darryl Knowles didn't get his start in the sport like most youngsters do today.

"I never played any minor hockey," admitted the 57-year-old during a recent interview at his home in Janeville. "The only thing I ever played around here was pond hockey."

Knowles, who played hockey throughout North America and even appeared in the movie Slap Shot, grew up in Clifton in the late 1950s and early '60s.

"I played one year with the Clifton Clippers in the old industrial league," he said. "Hubert Pouliot saw me and gave me a tryout with the Bathurst Juveniles. Then I went to Quebec for a tryout with the Senior Aces. I didn't make that team, but (after the tryout) I got a call from Peterborough (Ontario). They had a juvenile team there so I played for them that year and we won it."

While living in Peterborough, one of the teachers at Knowles school was the late Roger Neilson, who would go on to coach 1,000 games in the National Hockey League before his death from cancer in 2003. Neilson invited Knowles to try out for the Ontario Hockey League's Peterborough Petes, who he was coaching at the time. Although he didn't stick with the Petes, Neilson found him a place to play with a tier-two junior team in Brantford, Ont. where Knowles got the chance to play against two of hockey's most famous sons, Mark and Marty Howe.

"I had a fight against Marty, and I played with both of them at the all-star game that year," he recalled. "Gordie Howe's wife Colleen was the president of our league, and every time we played in Detroit it was packed with 15,000 fans and Gordie Howe in the stands."

Following his stint in Brantford, Knowles turned down scholarships from Clarkson, Colgate and Saint Lawrence (all three being universities in the state of New York), to accept an offer to play with the Eastern Hockey League's Charlotte Clippers. However, fate intervened at that point via an injury.

"I ended up breaking my jaw playing softball in Bathurst that summer," he said. "That set me back two years. When I came back, I played for the (Bathurst) Alpines with a football helmet."

Once he was fully healed, Knowles landed a spot with the Syracuse Blazers of the North American Hockey League, a farm club of the World Hockey Association's New York Golden Blades, and won a Lockhart Cup with the team in 1973. He even suited up for a few exhibition games with the club's WHA parent team after they relocated to San Diego. (The WHA, which lasted from 1972 to 1979, was created as a rival league to the National Hockey League and is where players like Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier and Mike Gartner all got their start in professional hockey.)

Knowles played four years with Syracuse, picking up 44 goals and 62 assists along with 397 minutes in penalties in 181 regular season games, and finished his professional career in the Pacific Hockey League with the San Francisco Shamrocks, in 1977-78, and the Tucson Rustlers, in 1978-79.

"I was an in-your-face type of player," said the right winger. "I was the hitter and the mucker in the corners. I was on a checking line and was assigned a guy to watch. That was my job – every time he touched the puck I hit him and followed him around. I wasn't a real good stick handler or anything but people didn't like playing against me."

In addition to getting the opportunity to be in a motion picture with Paul Newman, he also got to spend time with NBC broadcaster Bob Costas.

"He was our radio announcer getting news back to Syracuse when we were on the road," he recalled.

By the early 1980s, Knowles was back playing for the Bathurst Alpines, and even took on the dual role of player coach for a while. He even has a place in the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto.

"My number 23 (Syracuse) Blazers jersey is there," he said. "It says Darryl Knowles wore this sweater when they won the Lockart Cup in 72-73."

Knowles stopped playing the sport competitively in the late 80's, although he gets in the odd oldtimers game from time to time.

"I was 36 when I stopped playing for the Alpines," he concluded. "I did fairly good coming off the pond." Knowles and his wife Linda have two grown daughters, Angela and Kelsey.