Most people remember the short-lived North American Hockey League as the inspiration for the Paul Newman cult classic “Slap Shot” — if they remember the long-defunct league at all.
But for Mark Bronsky, who grew up in Binghamton, N.Y., the league lives on in his collection of jerseys, programs and mementos, which he hunts down along with his son, Mickey.
To Bronsky, the brutish depiction of hockey in “Slap Shot” is little more than a flat representation of the league that he fell head-over-heels in love with at age 12 when a new family moved to town and helped found the NAHL out of the ashes of the Eastern Hockey League.
The father of the family was Jim Matthews, Bobby Orr’s first cousin. Matthews and a group of owners from the defunct EHL banded together in 1973 to found the NAHL, originally a seven-team league, including the Binghamton Broome Dusters, named after Broome County. (The league is not to be confused with the junior hockey league of the same name, which has operated since 1975.)
“Binghamton embraced that team like a nuclear explosion,” Bronsky recalled to cllct. “I was thunderstruck at how much I loved it.”
Bronsky soon began playing hockey with the Matthews kids, relishing the early-morning ice time each weekend and playing street hockey on makeshift nets built out of two-by-fours and chicken wire.
He became obsessed with all things NAHL and Broome Dusters, and he wasn’t alone. It breathed new life into the city.
“It was like every game was a playoff game,” Bronsky said. “The crowd was freaking crazy. Every goal, every save. I mean, the energy was incredible.”
After his brother went off to college, Bronsky’s parents bought him season tickets as a Hanukkah present. Three to each game, enough for him and each of his parents, which they shared with family friends.
Even though his parents were far less enthused — his father would go to games and bring a magazine to read, and his mother once turned to him after a game perplexed and said, “It’s a disc!” — it didn’t dull his passion.
Bronsky began saving programs from games and collecting windbreakers given to season ticket holders. He picked up a few pucks here and there, one of which he still has on his desk.
It wasn’t the NHL, but for Bronsky, it was better — it was his hometown team.
“The NHL was untouchable from Binghamton,” Bronsky said. It was a long drive to Boston to see his favorite team, the Bruins, which he adopted thanks to his Orr connection. “The NHL was great, but it was kind of like a bridge too far."
The Broome Dusters, however, were not only accessible, but ingrained in the community.
That made it all the more painful when, after just four years, the league folded in 1977.
“I was just absolutely devastated,” Bronsky said. Though the team carried on as the Binghamton Dusters of the AHL, it never quite recaptured the magic of Bronsky’s youth.
“Slap Shot” didn’t soothe the sting of the loss.
“It saddened me because it lampooned the league,” Bronsky said of the movie. "Though it was cool to see some of the original Broome Dusters players featured as skaters in the film."
Around a decade ago, Bronsky began buying old programs and a few pucks on eBay, quickly noticing he kept sending money to the same guy. He found his name: Andrew Strong. So he called up a number he found online and reached Andrew’s mother. He told her his name and that he wanted to meet her son.
Soon, Bronsky connected with Strong, who was then working at a car dealership as the manager of maintenance while selling collectibles online as a side hustle.
Over the years, Strong, who would later work for the Binghamton Senators of the AHL and open up his own memorabilia shop, would bring Bronsky opportunities to buy pieces from the NAHL.
“He would call me up and go, ‘Hey, a guy I know owns that’,” Bronsky said. “These guys came right out of college and played at this lower league, but I knew every one of them. So to Andrew, I was a historical reference, and to me, he would help me get these old jerseys and I’d pay a relatively insane amount for them.”
Strong would become a close family friend for Bronsky, as well as his son, Mick, who bonded with his father over the ever-growing collection. “I kind of consider the guy a nephew,” Bronsky said of Strong.
“Since I was born, he’s loved it,” Mick said. “And he bestowed that onto me.”
Every year for Mick’s birthday growing up, the festivities centered around a trip back to Binghamton from their home in Westchester, N.Y., where they would attend AHL games, and later, meet with Strong and connect over the collection.
The trips offered Mick a glimpse into his father’s upbringing, getting to know the city he grew up in while sharing in the passion for all things NAHL.
“It really became a ritual,” said the older Bronsky.
One memory that sticks out to Mick was sitting down with an older gentleman who once owned a local restaurant which had burned down. The interior was stocked with NHL and Binghamton-related memorabilia, some of which the Bronskys acquired. Mick was around 13, and the day spent hanging out with the man helped him reach an even deeper understanding of his roots.
“Once you get to really appreciate the town and the people, it spoke a lot to my dad’s character,” Mick said. “It was very impressionable to me as a young kid.”
When he reached college, attending Cornell in Ithaca, N.Y., he would make the hour-long trip to Binghamton to visit Strong on his own a few times a year. Once, he brought a younger member of his fraternity along for the ride after classes were cancelled for a snow day to see Strong’s new brick-and-mortar location.
Strong took them down to the basement, where he had an overflow of things he couldn’t even get rid of and gave them a box of 50 hats. “I just don’t have the time to sell these,” he told them. “Go sell them, maybe make some beer money for tonight.”
Mick brought them back to Ithaca, and that night he distributed them throughout his fraternity house, and they hosted a vintage hat-themed party.
These days, the collection’s growth has slowed.
“Very few people, if they have any NAHL stuff, are willing to sell,” Bronsky said. It makes sense, after all, these collectors are pure enthusiasts, collecting for passion, not profit.
Still, surprises come out of the woodwork. One of the most remarkable additions to the collection came from Johnstown, Pa., upon which the fictitious city of Charlestown from “Slap Shot” was based.
A flood in 1977 resulted in the Johnstown Jets folding following four seasons in the NAHL. Miraculously, Strong was able to track down the goalie, Ron Dawkin, who was in his late 70s at the time, after finding out he still had his jersey.
Since Dawkin’s jersey was No. 1, it was on top of the pile of jerseys and managed to survive the flood, which wiped out most of the others. Strong bought it from Dawkin, and Bronsky bought it from Strong.
The trio of the two Bronskys and Strong asipred to acquire home and away jerseys from all the original 1973 teams. A few remain elusive, including the Mohawk Valley Comets.
Despite the difficulty, they remain as determined as ever.
“We want to complete the collection,” Bronsky said. “They're probably in some old lady’s or man's attic.”
Bronsky knows it’s meaningful to very few people, but to him, Mick and Strong, it’s a connection to a beloved past, a shared bond and a window into the lasting impact of sports in people’s lives, regardless of the league.
And who knows, maybe the NAHL could see a rebirth of sorts.
Bronsky has looked into franchising an ECHL team, a league which he says is a good approximation of what the NAHL once was. He’s spoken to some successful friends and floated the idea of bringing the "Dusters" back to Binghamton.
“It might be a retirement project for me,” Bronsky said.
Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct.