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In Trail, Ferraro just one of the guys

After 15 years in the NHL, you can go home again

Posted: Sunday October 03, 1999 08:17 PM

By David Vecsey, CNN/SI

Trail, British Columbia Silver City and Home of Champions Population: 8,000 (21,000 in Greater Trail Area) Founded: 1891 Biggest Employer: Cominco Ltd. (Mining) Special Events: Silver City Days Avg. Snowfall: 77 inches (196.2 cm) No. of Rinks: 4, including NHL-size Cominco Arena. Other Notables: Mike Kobluk who played in the Chad Mitchell Trio with John Denver Web site: www.cityoftrail.com

Over the course of his 15-year career, Ray Ferraro has lived in New York, Los Angeles and, now, Atlanta. But he still calls tiny Trail, British Columbia, home.

Every summer, Ferraro returns to his cottage in the hills. There's plenty of family - brothers Ed and Tony are still running the family cement business - and the people there allow him just to blend in as one of their own.

Home to Cominco Ltd., the largest lead and zinc smelter in the world, Trail was a popular destination for Italians looking to work the hills. Among those immigrants was Ray's grandfather, Tony Ferraro, who arrived in 1927 from Grimaldi, Italy. In 1947, Tony - along with son Ed (Ray's father) - opened Korpack Cement Products Co. Ltd., the company Ray's brothers have been running since Ed's death in 1994.

"They're in there every day with their hands on it," he says. "I make about two phone calls a week about it. That's my contribution."

Ray Ferraro is one of 66 members of the city's Home of Champions Monument downtown. Of course, his hockey achievements rank right up there with his Little League World Series appearance in 1976.

What kind of place is Trail?

Ray Ferraro: Trail is a mining town and the one main industry is Cominco, which produces lead and zinc. It's very much a company town. Everybody either works up there or know somebody who works up there.

When I was there and growing up, there were tremendous benefactors to sport in the community. There have been some great accomplishments really for a little town of 8,000. It's pretty amazing. They've been to the Little League World Series five or six times.

And it's produced a couple of NHLers, right?

Ray Ferraro: I'll bet you there are at least eight NHL players out of there, two who got drafted in the first round this year. It's a great sports town.

There's Steve Tambellini, who must have played 10 years in the league, Cesare Maniago, a great goalie, Adam Deadmarsh in Colorado, this Barrett Jackman who just signed with St. Louis, Steve McCarthy, Chicago's first-rounder, they're both going to be very good players. Dallas Drake.

That's a lot of guys from a little, little place.

How often do you get back? And how do people react to you? What's it like to have an NHLer from their town?

Ray Ferraro: Trail is a funny place like that ... in a good way. People respect and admire a little that you've made it, but you go back and I'm just a guy that lives up in Warfield. I'm just one of the guys who comes back to town. They're the same people you see year after year, they don't treat you any different and it's nice like that.

I go back every summer. I have a cottage 40 minutes from there. It's A beautiful place, right at the base of the mountains, you've got to drive down a four-mile hill to get to the town. It's a great recreation area.

Can you fly in there?

Ray Ferraro: You can fly into an airport about the size of this lockerroom in a town about 20 miles up the road. The major airport that would get you close is Spokane, Wash., which is about 2 1/2 hours.

So, what would be the city of influence?

Ray Ferraro: There isn't one, really. The city of influence is Trail. But, you know, we're an hour flight from Vancouver, an hour flight from Calgary. But the way the town works, you know, it's the same anywhere there's one big industry .. as the large industry goes, so does the town. At one point there were 15,000 people in town, but as the corporation downsized, the town has downsized.

What are the youth programs like?

Ray Ferraro: Very competitive. It's like a lot of towns in Canada: When hockey season rolls around, that's where everybody is. You can find almost everybody at the rink at some point in the day. It's a beautiful arena, two sheets of ice. And there's an arena six miles away.

This is a town very committed to its recreation. They are sportsminded people there.

Was it the typical rink in every yard kind of town?

Ray Ferraro: It depends on the weather. We're only 12 miles outside U.S., it's not the arctic by any stretch. There are rinks, you know, dads build the rinks. That's where I learned to skate, in my back yard. My dad built the rink back there. Everybody loves sports and everybody gives their kids a chance.

As a high-schooler, what did you guys do on Saturday nights?

Ray Ferraro: We had a local junior team, so there were always games on the weekends. In town there, kids are kids, they do what they'll do in city of eight million or 8,000. A lot of guys ski, hunt, fish.