Connecticut native Jack Stein had to make a few adjustments when he first moved south.

At the Gwinnett Police Department, where he worked for 21 years, some dispatchers spoke with such a drawl that he couldn't understand how to respond to calls.

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Jack Stein played semipro ice hockey in New York and continued playing on an Atlanta police and firefighters team. A former narcotics detective, he 'had a huge, soft heart,' his wife said.

He finally resorted to tape-recording the dispatchers, so he could rewind the tape and listen again.

Over time, he learned to say "y'all" like a true Southerner. He even developed a taste for grits and sawmill gravy.

But one Northern holdover stayed with him — his devotion to ice hockey. He fell under its spell at a Chicago Blackhawks game when he was 5.

"He got a hockey stick autographed by Bobby Hull and Stan Mikita and some other players, and that was it," said his wife, Becky Stein, of Lawrenceville.

"It wasn't about the competition," she said. "Part of it was the camaraderie with his hockey buddies, but for him, it was mostly just a pure love of the game."

The funeral Mass for John William Stein III is 11 a.m. Wednesday at the Catholic Church of St. Monica. Crowell Brothers Peachtree Chapel is in charge of arrangements.

Mr. Stein, 51, committed suicide Saturday at his Lawrenceville residence.

After double hip replacement surgery in 2005, the 6-foot-2, 220-pounder skated back onto the ice and briefly played hockey again, much to his doctors' amazement. By then, he'd played most of his life and dreaded giving it up.

A high school all-American, he served as captain of Iona College's team, played semipro in upstate New York and joined an Atlanta police and firefighters team.

"He hadn't been playing hockey recently, so that contributed to his sadness," his wife said.

"He had a couple of surgeries back to back, and it just took a lot out of him," she said. "He didn't want to retire, but he had to because of his health, and that's one of the things that caused him to be depressed."

Mr. Stein first realized he enjoyed police work when he took a criminal justice class in college. In Gwinnett, he worked on criminal investigations, served undercover as a narcotics detective and patrolled county parks on his bike.

He loved music so much — everything from Bruce Springsteen to Queen to Dwight Yoakum — that his wife said the only reason he never learned guitar was because he was too busy with sports.

Mr. Stein turned his basement into a sports lover's paradise, with framed autographed hockey jerseys on the wall and memorabilia everywhere. Football, baseball — he liked every sport except hunting.

The animal lover owned a series of chow chows, including one he photographed behind the wheel of his patrol car wearing sunglasses and a police hat. When he married his wife 16 years ago, "he was convinced that chow chows were the only worthy animals," she said. She finally talked him into adding a golden retriever to their household, where the dogs outnumbered the people.

When a friend invited him on a hunting trip, Mr. Stein said there was no way he could shoot Bambi.

When he accidentally struck a squirrel with his patrol car, he called the Yellow River Game Ranch to see if they could nurse it back to health.

"He had a huge, soft heart, but he was very gruff on the outside," his wife said. "A lot of people didn't see his soft side because he was Mr. Macho Man, but he had a very tender, kind heart that he tried to keep people from seeing.

"But he had it, and when you've got a kind heart, it's hard to hide."

Survivors other than his wife include his parents, John and Phyllis Stein, of Greenwich, Conn.; a brother, Jim Stein, of Pacific Palisades, Calif.; and two sisters, Jody Hawreluk of Greenwich, and Sue Keenan of Danbury, Conn.