When he wasn't wearing his badge, the Adams County deputy who was shot and killed Wednesday wore a different kind of uniform.
In his downtime, Deputy Heath Gumm was a defensive player on the Fighting Nemos club hockey team. His teammates say he lived his life just as he played on the ice with "passion, toughness, and with a little bit of goofiness mixed in."
In their next game, the team will play for the first time without Gumm and his number 17 jersey. The very thought of the idea was enough to cause Chris Hester, one of Gumm's teammate, to choke up.
"It's surreal," Hester said. "You don't want to believe it. You never want to believe it."
Hester said one of his first conversations with Gumm surrounded a roll of tape. Rather than hockey tape players often use to hold their shin pads in place, he said Gumm used a tape from the U.S. Postal Service.
"I just couldn't stop laughing," he said. "It was the funniest thing. I mean, up until his last game he played, he was still using that tape."
The team posted on its Facebook page Thursday that Gumm "gave his life in service to his community."
"He was very passionate about his work," Hester said. "Often, I asked him about his job. Just, you know, asked him how things are going and what he's seen out there. You could start a conversation with him and he was just open and honest."
Hester said when Gumm was identified as the deputy who had been shot and killed, he didn't believe it.
"You just don't expect these things," he said. "I've lost friends at young ages in car accidents. I've lost family members at young ages to, you know, stupid stuff. It's just, you know, the suddenness of it, I think, and the violence."
The hockey teams plans to honor Gumm at their next game on February 11. Hester said exact plans haven't been made but there is talk about retiring the deputy's jersey number.
