BUFFALO, N.Y. — For Duffers, hockey is more than a game. The sport is a tie that binds families and generations together, on and off the ice.

In 1970, the Buffalo Sabres and Vancouver Canucks officially joined the National Hockey League. This same year, a new ice rink was built more than 500 miles away in Downers Grove, Illinois, the hometown to the Granato family. Here, a true franchise began, and Greg “Beak” Lopatka has witnessed it all. 

"The rink opened in 1970 and this guy, Jim Miceli, started collecting $5 a man, and we started playing on Sunday morning and it was awesome," Lopatka, 84, said. "It was just like a bunch of good guys. We call him The Godfather."

What started here as a group of scrappy, rag tag men showing up to play hockey together has forged a spirit that has been passed down to sons, daughters, grandkids and beyond. Cammi Granato, Don's sister and the first woman to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, was the first Daughter of a Duffer to play with the team. 

"He [Miceli] handed it off to his son, and that’s the key to the Duffers: fathers playing with sons. It’s the most exciting thing to do," Loptaka said. "And now I got grandsons and great-grand daughter that's skated with us. It's just the best."

Eventually, the Duffers started taking their team on the road to follow along with wherever the Granatos were coaching or playing: between Cammi, Tony and Don, these trips have reached every corner of the continental U.S.

"It's awesome because we played in the Shark Tank with Tony, we played in Joe Louis Arena when Tony was coaching there, we played in Pittsburgh when Tony was there," Lopatka recounted alongside his son, Ken. "Colorado when Donnie was coaching in Green Bay Gamblers, and we went there three years in a row, when he was in Peoria, we started going there."

2024 was the Duffers third trip to Buffalo, which included a stop at Swannie House. But more important than the wings ordered or the scoresheet recorded (on which Beak recorded a Gordie Howe hat trick) are of course, the memories shared, and players shaped by the time spent together. 

"We laugh a lot. We fall down and we laugh," Greg Lopatka said.

"A lot of good stories," Ken Lopatka said. "A lot of good stories from Duffers to, you know, playing very competitive college hockey, that stuff. I mean, it's everything."