Memorial Cup winner returns to check out the Gardens

Ralph Intranuovo was back in town last week to visit the inlaws and check out his old stomping grounds before they're reduced to a pile of distorted steel and concrete rubble.

And we caught up with the former Soo Greyhound and Memorial Cup winner at Memorial Gardens, checking to see whether the seat his high school sweetheart used to sit in was for sale.

"They say they are selling the seats so I've been thinking about that," Intranuovo (shown) said. "I might try to get the seats that my wife has been sitting in all the years that I've played here, if they are still available."

Intranuovo played for the Hounds from 1990 to 1993 and was a forward for the club in 1993 when the club won its only Memorial Cup in that building.

"The final game was a good one," he said. "We finally won a Memorial Cup that we'd been seeking for three years."

Intranuovo had been part of the Hounds' Memorial Cup bids the two preceding years and he remembers everyone being ecstatic when they achieved it in his third and final year with the team.

"That was a big thrill for me," he said. "It was a great experience that I remember like it was yesterday."

Intranuovo said he began skating at the age of five at rinks near his family home in Toronto and knew he wanted to play hockey as long as he can remember.

"I left home when I was 16 years old and I think it helped me mature as a person," he told SooToday.com. "When you leave home at that age you kind of get homesick but you learn to grow as a person."

He said he relied on his teammates and billet families to help him out and they supported him effectively when he needed it.

"They [the billet families] treated us like their own kids," said Intranuovo. "Everything we needed, they gave us."

Intranuovo's last billet family, the Varcos, even built another bedroom for him because they thought he was coming back to play with the Greyhounds one more year as an over-ager.

But that was not to be.

In 1993, Intranuovo went to play in Cape Breton for the Oilers of the and stayed with the American Hockey League Club when it moved to Hamilton in 1996.

Then, he went to the International Hockey League in 1997 to play another two years in Winnipeg.

He finished this, his seventh year, in international hockey with a German team and is negotiating to move over to an Austrian team next year.

"Life as a hockey player is great," Intranuovo said. "You get paid for playing a game you love."

And all the while, his high school sweetheart has been by his side.

In 2001, Intranuovo married Teri-Lou Turco and she continued to travel and live with him throughout much of his hockey career since they met in the Sault in 1990.

"It's been a big sacrifice for her as well," said Intranuovo. "She has been travelling with me even before we were married and it's tough for her because she can't work overseas."

But the life of a hockey wife also has some benefits.

"She has made and keeps in touch with a lot of the players and their families," said Intranuovo.

The Intranuovos have a home on Lake Simcoe with their three-year-old son, Marco Louis, and spend much of the off season there.