If Ron Aubrey Jr. is smart, he’ll blow out the 48 candles on his birthday cake at lunch Saturday and make his wish. The former Cape Elizabeth hockey star will need some magic before the day’s over.
Aubrey fights former heavyweight champ Samuel Peter in an Oklahoma City arena Saturday night. The fight is scheduled for eight rounds. There may not be a bell to start a second round.
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“I’m going to try to move and jab and stay away from him in the first round,” said Aubrey. “We’ll see what happens in the second round.”
He is 6-foot-4 and will weigh between 280 and 290 pounds. Everything about him is big and intimidating, including a voice that’s a mix of growl and bark. Until he chuckles. “I hit pretty hard. All it takes is one punch, right? I know I’m a long shot, but wouldn’t it be a surprise if I won. Heh, heh, heh.”
Aubrey is a character, but he is no joke. He may have been the biggest kid on skates when he led Cape Elizabeth to its first state hockey title in 1985. He left Maine shortly after to find his fame and fortune in the rinks of minor league hockey.
Yes, he scored only a handful of goals during a 12-year career playing for teams in 23 states. No one signed him to score goals or play defense. If he skated for your team he was the enforcer. If he skated for your opponent he was the goon, the hired thug. He’d be signed for a weekend or a month.
“I never cheap-shotted anyone,” Aubrey has said. He didn’t need to. With his size and pugnacity he didn’t back down. He piled up more than 2,000 penalty minutes, an astonishing number for a player who rarely stuck with a team for a full season.
He was popular in Oklahoma City, where fans loved their Blazers of the Central Hockey League. Crowds of 8,000 to 10,000 were typical in the 1990s. He got married and made a home in Oklahoma. He started a successful drywall business after his hockey career ended in 2000. Seven years later, looking for a challenge or battling boredom, he fought his first pro fight as a heavyweight and knocked out his opponent in the first round. He was the “Iceman” and the fight crowds in Oklahoma City loved him.
“If you’ve never been around Ron, you see this big, brutish guy,” said Glenn Morse, a former neighbor and boyhood friend who was en route to Oklahoma City for the fight on Friday. “If you hang out with him, you find out he’s a comic. He loves to play to a crowd. When he has people watching, he has no fear.”
Morse knows Aubrey is fighting a tough guy. “Ron’s pretty tough himself.”
Several hockey goons or so-called enforcers have tried boxing, including Frank “The Animal” Bialowas, who was on the Portland Pirates roster for one full season and part of a second. Bialowas didn’t last long in his second sport. Neither have many of the others.
Aubrey, who played one game for the Maine Mariners, stuck with it. His fight record is 12-3-1. All 12 wins have been by knockout or TKO, usually in the first round. His last fight was in September 2012. Then he got another call. Peter, who beat James Toney twice and was the WBC heavyweight champ briefly in 2008 and then lost to brothers Wladimir and Vitali Klitschko, is attempting a comeback.
“I met him at the press conference,” said Aubrey. “He shook my hand and talked with me. I usually don’t shake hands with the guys I’m fighting, know what I mean? He’s big, about 280 pounds, too. But he’s 5-11. I’ve got height and reach over him.”
Peter has a 34-5 record. He’s knocked out 27 opponents. “I’m not afraid of him,” said Aubrey. “I know he has more experience, but I’ve been in hundreds of fights myself.”
In a rink, mostly, not in the ring.
Seven years ago, Aubrey’s goal was to improve his ring skills and someday fight a heavyweight contender for a six-figure purse. Saturday, he fights a former champ for very short money that wouldn’t buy a new economy car. Aubrey doesn’t care.
“This could be my last fight. Unless I win. Heh-heh-heh.”
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