Aboriginal pro player ready to retire

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At five-foot-six, Mitch Lamoureux is about half a foot too tall to be a jockey.

Considered too short to become a regular NHL player, Lamoureux has still been able to enjoy a rather decent pro hockey career. In his 17th season as a pro, he currently toils for the American Hockey League's Hershey Bears.

Lamoureux, 36, believes the time has come to hang up his skates for good. He's expected to retire after the Bears' season concludes this spring.

"Seventeen years is enough," Lamoureux said in a recent phone interview from his Hershey home. "I now want to move on to other things."

He will remain in Hershey and work as a mortgage broker for a company owned by one of his friends and also plans to continue supporting the Bears - he's made his year-round home in Hershey for the past 10 years - by being a season ticket subscriber.

But one thing he definitely doesn't want to do is remain in the sport via coaching.

"It's a lot of work," he said. "And you never know what your future holds."

If he did get into coaching, chances are he'd be changing addresses on a frequent basis. That thought certainly doesn't appeal to him.

"Throughout my career I've moved 18 times," he said, adding he doesn't want to uproot his family anymore.

Lamoureux's wife is an elementary school teacher in the Hershey area. They have a 13-year-old son, who is content with his budding academic/athletic careers in Hershey.

Lamoureux said he's "95 per cent sure" this will be his final season of pro hockey."

"I'm pretty sure this is it," he said. "But you never say never."

He previously retired at the end of the 1996-97 season. But Hershey came calling last season when it ran into a player shortage due to injuries. He ended up appearing in 22 games.

"After that I got the itch again," he added, explaining why he also returned this season. "And I wanted to play a full year in Hershey."

If not Hershey, he would not have played anywhere else this season.

Drafted in the seventh round, 154th over-all, by the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1981, he ended up playing in 73 NHL games (70 with Pittsburgh; three with the Philadelphia Flyers), scoring 11 goals and picking up nine assists.

Though he put up some rather respectable numbers for most of the clubs he suited up for, Lamoureux's size no doubt hindered him from having more action in the NHL.

But he's happy with the way things worked out for him.

"I've still had a good career," he said. "And it's lasted a lot longer than I thought it would. When I started out, I would have been happy to play maybe 10 years."