from Sam Donnellon of the Philadelphia Daily News,

Larry "The Rock" Zeidel is standing over me now, fists clenched, his mammoth knuckles inches from my face. Four months ago, he was lying pale-faced in the intensive-care ward of Bryn Mawr Hospital, his legs swollen and blackened from a congestive heart condition worsened over the years by a lack of medical insurance. But there is little hint of that man now. Now it is easy to understand why he has ignored those health problems, why he has in the past refused or flatly not sought health insurance provided by the Social Security he collects in his advanced age.

At 85, more than 4 decades removed from his last days as a stick-wielding hockey enforcer, Larry Zeidel lives most of his waking hours still inside that character, rambling on in no apparent chronological order about a modest heyday that he surrendered so much of his life to obtain. In its wake are an ex-wife and a family of four that he speaks of proudly, even while admitting he hasn't seen most of them in more than a decade.

"I've told this to Marie," he says at one point, speaking of a wife from whom he has been estranged for nearly 30 years and with whom he still shares his monthly Social Security check. "She should be in the Hall of Fame for being married to me. Because I was married to the game of hockey."

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