It's Friday afternoon at the Mullins Center Ice Rink. By the site of a former snack bar stands Donnie Moorhouse, a freelance music columnist and hockey announcer for the University of Massachusetts.
"I guess the snack bar's gone," he says, before heading towards a table that overlooks the rink.
The place is mostly empty, save for a few skaters on the ice. Moorhouse slips into a chair and, although occasionally wringing his hands together, he emanates a relaxed air as he speaks.
Moorhouse, 43, has freelanced for The Springfield Republican since 1993. For the past six years, he provided play-by-play announcing for the UMass Minutemen hockey team. He's also made movies, founded non-profit organizations and covered many concerts.
Before becoming a columnist, Moorhouse was a songwriter. He describes his band, Breakdown, as a roots-rock Americana band in the style of John Mellencamp.
Breakdown gained success, signing with Cypress Records in 1990. But when the label bottomed out, so did the band. It was then that Moorhouse turned to writing.
Chris Hemel, a former music columnist for The Republican, was familiar with
Moorhouse's work. It was Hemel who first urged him to write for the paper.
"He said, 'this is what you should be doing,'" Moorhouse said.
After sending a few sample columns to Hemel, he began contributing frequently.
Moorhouse, who majored in English at American International College, has "never been a stickler for form, or for AP form." Although he purchased a copy of the Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual years ago. "I don't think I've seen it since," he says.
To Moorhouse, it's more important for a writer to be engaged. He can recall attending concerts early on in his career, watching as critics huddled together in small packs to talk about a band's latest tour or album. It was too literal for Moorhouse, who preferred to enter with a fresh perspective.
"I tried not to listen to the band's album or do research beforehand," he said
"Google wasn't around. If you did need to find something, people would use the - well, it's called the rock n' roll bible," said Moorhouse, "the Billboard '94 or something like that." When the bible failed, he would access information through CompuServe.
"Now I can get information here," he says, motioning to the black cell phone that lies on the table in front of him. But information can only take an article so far. The idea, Moorhouse says, is to bring the concert experience alive in print.
To detail his point, he recalls a Phish concert he once covered for The Republican. Immediately, Moorhouse was struck by the show's similarity to "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory." In his article, he likened the show to the experience of entering Wonka's factory for the first time.
And this would be the Gene Wilder version, which, he adds with a smile, plays on loop with "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" in his house.
Moorhouse lives with his wife and three sons, aged seven to 14. He also has a daughter who works at Disneyworld as Mickey Mouse. She loves it, Moorhouse said, because she gets to dance.
Although covering concerts keeps him busy, often requiring that he journey to local and out of state venues, Moorhouse has managed to branch out to other areas of interest.
At 36, Moorhouse began doing radio work for WRNX, 100.9 FM. "I decided that for my retirement, I'd like to do a weekly column and a radio show," he said with a laugh.
In 2006, Highland Shore Media produced "Cathedral Pines," a spiritual thriller which was written by Moorhouse.
"It took two hours and was 30 pages long," said Moorhouse of his initial
script for the film. But to be made, Moorhouse discovered that the script needed to be at least 90 pages long. He returned to the drawing board, using a computer software program to complete the script.
"Pines" is the story of a father haunted by the tragic deaths of his three sons. When a woman surfaces, fearing that the boys may be haunting her, the father is forced to reevaluate his religious faith.
Peter Scolari, former star of the sitcom "Bosom Buddies," joined the cast of "Cathedral Pines" as Father Mike McGary. Moorhouse took the part of the bereaved
father, while his sons played the roles of the three boys.
Moorhouse recounts a scene that occurred in between takes while filming "Pines:" "We were shooting in the woods at night, and my youngest, who was four, shut
filming down. He just announces, 'Okay, I'm done.' Everyone's like, what? But as a
dad, I'm saying 'guys, we're done.'"
By his own count, Moorhouse has acted in "four to five films," including
"Collinsville," an independent horror film released in 2003. Moorhouse returned for the 2006 sequel, "Collinsville II." He was cast as a different character.
But film, he insists, is not his first passion. Neither is music or radio. As passions rank, hockey tops his list.
"From the ice to the smell of exhaust Zamboni, there's nothing like it," he said. He describes hockey as "aggressive and graceful," and recalls his earliest encounters with the sport in childhood.
"My mom brought me to see the Springfield Falcons when I was a kid. My dad was an usher at the rink."
Moorhouse first learned to skate at age 8. Throughout his high school and undergraduate years, he played as a goalie on school teams. He stayed on at AIC for three years, serving as an assistant hockey coach and helping bring the team to a championship in 1989.
"We won the ECAC [Eastern College Athletic Conference]. After that, it felt like it was time to move on," he said.
In 2007, Moorhouse also founded a non-profit organization, The Hockey Project. "The non-profit takes at-risk kids and puts them on the ice," said Moorhouse.
While Moorhouse maintains that his eldest son found his way to hockey on his own, he feels that "hockey is hereditary." Within his family, Friday nights spent at Minutemen games are commonplace, and not just because Moorhouse announces for the games.
"It's how we write our social calendar," he said. "We have Thanksgiving where the tournament is."
Shayna Murphy can be reached at skmurphy@student.umass.edu
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