by Ken Dryden
Others have different things they react to, and in filling quiet times this way, occasionally we say the right thing for someone who needs it.
The mood is beginning to change. Programs are down, ice packs, Cokes put away; equipment is taped up, snapped up, laced up; bodies are twitching, coming off walls, eyes narrowing, tightening; moods, still separate, are building, and coming together. It’s like a scream about to happen. Suddenly, it all comes crashing down. Whaack.
Lafleur is back. With heads down retying our skates, we didn’t see him enter, slamming his stick on the table in the center of the room. Tape, gum, laces, ammonia sniffers, eighteen shocked and angry bodies bounce violently in the air.
“Maudit tabernac, Lafleur!”
“Wake up, câlisse,” he laughs, and is gone again.
At 7:53, Palchak walks over to Lapointe, Lapointe looks at the clock, and a little upset tells him he’s early and should come back in four minutes, when he’s supposed to. Watching the clock another minute, at 7:54, Lapointe goes to the toilet. A minute later, he’s back.
Two minutes later Palchak arrives to stone first his right skate, then his left. Finished, he does the same to Robinson’s and Engblom’s skates.
It began with Cournoyer a few years ago—“the magic stone.”
Four minutes remain. All day, bodies and minds have been fighting for control, and now, finally, bodies have won. Metabolisms in slow idle scream louder, and higher. Words grunt from mouths unable to hold them, and crush up against each other.
“Need it! Need it, gang.”
“On that McCourt, guys.”
“Nedomansky too.”
“Don’t let Polonich get ’em goin’.”
“Gotta have it! Gotta have it!”
“Who’s got the first goal?”
“I got it!”
“I got it!”
“That’s it! That’s it!”
The buzzer sounds three times—three minutes to go.
“Wake-up call! Wake-up call!”
“Three minutes to post-time, gang.”
Mondou gets up, walks around the room slowly, stopping in front of each of us, tapping both our leg pads with his stick.
“Gotta have it! Gotta have it!”
“They’re hot, guys!”
“C’mon, put ’em down! Put ’em down!”
“Gotta watch Larson!”
“Good start! Good start!”
“Get on Woods, guys!”
“Skate ’em! Skate ’em!”
“Four-pointer, guys. Four-pointer!”
One by one, we’re standing. Pacing, slapping pads, kicking kinks away, revving up.
Bowman enters. He starts to talk, but we’ve nothing left to hear.
The buzzer sounds again, once. It’s time.
“Okay, let’s go,” Bowman says, and with a shout we break for the door.
I go first, then Larocque, then Lapointe. Lafleur, to the right of the door, taps my left pad, then my right, with his stick, jabbing me lightly on the right shoulder with his gloved right hand. He does the same for Larocque and Lapointe, then squeezes into line, ahead of Robinson.
One by one the tight-faced line continues, to Napier, second to last, and Lambert, last. As we come into view, the noise begins and builds.
“Accueillons, ” the announcer shouts, “let’s welcome, nos Canadiens, our Canadiens!”
The organ rumbles, the crowd lets out a surging roar. I swivel past the players’ bench; my padded legs shuffle in single file through the narrow open door— don’t fall, I think to myself—and I jump onto the ice. The others burst past me. Round and round and round they go. Eyes down, staring at a series of imaginary spots always twenty feet in front, I glide to the net. I clutch the top bar with my bare left hand.
I scrape away the near-frictionless glare ice of my crease. From goal-line to crease-line, my skates like plows, left to right, right to left, sideways eight to ten inches at a time, I clear the ice.
The clock blinks to zero; the horn sounds, the whistle blows, the players spasm faster. …gloves in front, stick to the side, watch for Lemaire, don’t forget Robinson….
They file past.
“Let’s go, Sharty, Bo, Mario,” I roll-call the names as they go, my pads tapped, slapped in return. Lapointe approaches slowly, his stick in his right hand, tapping the left post, both my pads, then the right.
Risebrough slashes hard at my left pad. At a distance Lemaire winks, then taps my blocker. Circling slowly, waiting for the others to go, Robinson, stick in his right hand, taps the left post, both my pads, then the right. Don’t change the luck.
“Mesdames et messieurs, ladies and gentlemen, les hymnes nationaux, the national anthems.”
A cherubic silver-haired man steps onto the ice—Roger Doucet, his tuxedoed chest puffed like a pigeon’s. I stiffen, then drift in and out as he sings; between anthems I shift my skates so as not to wear ridges in the ice. When he finishes, there is loud applause, the mood two anthems closer to the game.
I take a deep breath. My chin tucked to my chest, my eyebrows like awnings hooded over my eyes, I put on my mask. Referee Wally Harris, turning to his right, holds his right arm in the air, the goal judge to his right flipping on his red goal-light. Turning to his left, Harris does the same. I don’t see him. Years ago, I decided that if I saw a red light before a game or before any period, I would see many more behind me during the game. So I look away, earlier, longer, than I need to, just to be sure. Then slowly I peek upwards—to the faceoff circles, to Robinson’s legs and Savard’s, to Jarvis’s, McCourt’s, and Harris’s legs at the center-ice circle. They are bent, set in faceoff position. I look up.
With a rhetorical nod, Harris asks Vachon if he’s ready; Vachon nods back. Harris turns to me, and nods.
I’ve made it—through a purposely uneventful day, mostly unworried, unbothered, uninjured, undistracted by me or the game, ready to play.
Others may sit in darkened rooms staring at an image—of opponents, of themselves—rehearsing movements or strategies, rehearsing hatreds; I keep moving, physically, intellectually, to keep moving emotionally. For if I let myself stop, I wonder, and if I wonder, I worry, and gradually grow afraid. But fear, like a landscape seen from a passing train, blurs with speed and proximity, becoming nonrepresentational, and unrecognized.
So each year I move a little faster, until now, moving so fast for so long, I find that I can almost forget fear, unaware even of the ingrained superstitions, rituals, newspapers, naps, and walks that let me forget. Finally, they are just natural, unnoticed parts of my gameday routine.
I nod back.
Montreal Part II
For us, this is just another game in a long schedule. It is one of about fifty or sixty such games a season, anticipated with routine emotion, played routinely to an almost certain result. It brings with it no special feeling, and except for the player who scores two goals or more, it will leave nothing special when it ends. Because we are the best, because a long, numbing season rarely permits one team to set an emotional trap for another, our games reduce almost to formula: physical readiness plus emotional readiness equals victory. Only rarely, when everything and everyone feels right, when nothing else seems to matter, does the game ever become pure fun.
Tonight, it won’t happen. Thoroughly inferior and playing in Montreal, the Wings are waiting to lose. Watching us, they are deciding whether to contest the loss or to pack up emotionally and prepare for the next game. In Detroit, they take the initiative from the beginning, using energy drawn from the crowd to drive them on, to disorient the referee and us, in turn to give them more energy. In Montreal, trying to win with most of the game left to play, they would only rouse us into something they know they can’t handle. So they wait, and hope that we’ll wait. And we do.
And as we wait, we play as if distracted by other things. For us the Wings represent an opportunity: for Shutt, who must score fifty goals, and Lafleur, who must score more; for Robinson, who compe
tes with Potvin and Salming; for Jarvis and Gainey, Tremblay, Lambert, and everyone else who has public and private expectations to meet. When hoped-for, planned-for goals don’t come against the Leafs or the Bruins, two or three against the Wings can save a contract bonus, an all-star team place, or a scoring title. So, until the Wings make it a game, until winning and losing seem important, we play with other things in mind. I want a shutout.
The puck goes from Jarvis to Robinson, and quickly into the Wings’(z)one. For thirty seconds, a pack of four or five players chase it from side to side inconclusively. First Huber has it, then Gainey, then Thompson and Jarvis, then Chartraw, Hamel, and Chartraw again, only to lose it, only to get it back, only to do nothing with it. One hundred and seventy feet away, I watch from a deep crouch, inching ahead, turning, flexed in readiness, playing out each play until slowly I realize the game that has occupied me all day is still far away.
Straightening, I wait; and keep moving. I sweep away ice shavings I swept away before. My eyes rebound from the puck to our bench to their bench to the clock to the puck to the clock, until I can’t move them fast enough, and my legs begin to stiffen— c’mon, gotta be ready, gotta be ready. It’s been more than a minute. Their first shot, which once seemed only a perfunctory moment, is building up in me as an event. I shake my legs— c’mon, c’mon —and suddenly, they come.
McCourt intercepts a pass inside his blueline, hits Thompson breaking at center, and together with Libett they come upon a fast—(r)etreating Savard and Robinson. A jolt of panic goes through me.
Quickly tightening into my crouch, winding tighter and lower as they get closer, my body is telling my mind I’m ready. But I’m trying too hard, winding too tight, too low. Thompson shoots the puck into the corner to my left. I chase back to the boards, but too slowly; the puck hits my stick, flips, and rolls past me. Scrambling for the net, I run into Robinson, knocking him away from the play. Libett shoots the puck in front. My head snaps after it. For a dawdling, tortured instant, I see only blurred bodies—then the puck, on Lemaire’s stick, moving slowly out of our zone.
I breathe a deep breath but feel no relief. I pace my tiny crease, turning, turning again, sweeping away ice shavings no longer there, screaming at myself like the worst cheap-shot fan. I wanted a good start, to send a message to my teammates and the fans, to the Wings, to me. A solid “thumbs up” indicating I was ready and couldn’t be beaten. I wanted to put away my nagging mind and just play. I wanted teammates undistracted, unafraid that what they would do, I might undo. As for the Wings, I wanted to tighten some already painfully tight screws, to force on them the kind of cruel question no one should have to answer: am I willing to go through what surely I must, for something I will surely never get? But with an uncertain start, I’ve delivered another message, and the game will be harder for us.
From ragged play near our blueline, the puck pops loose, Lafleur racing with it for the Wings’ zone, Woods and Miller after him.
Quickly out of room he slows, looking for Lemaire and Shutt, but they are forty feet behind, and he dumps the puck in the corner and goes for a change. Labraaten is open at center, but Larson’s pass is high and behind him; Risebrough steals the puck from Harper, then overskates it; Hamel, Huber, Lapointe, and Robinson bang the puck off the boards to center; Hamel, Miller, and Lapointe bang it back in.
For several minutes, the game stutters on, searching for a rhythm it doesn’t have, seeking a commitment that isn’t there. It won’t come easily. Against the Islanders or the Bruins, one player, any player, can do something special and the others, sharing the feeling and needing only an excuse, will excitedly follow. But against the Wings, against any poor team, all the signs, all the shared feelings, lie on the other side of the emotional threshold on the bored, listless downward side where good plays come and go with no emotional coattails; where bad plays forgive the ones that came before, reinforcing a deadening mood, encouraging others to come after. For the handful of players who start a game with this commitment, the game will beat them down. Their mood is too different (“What’s got into them?” we wonder), the gap between them and us so large that the emotional point of contact necessary to inspire others to follow isn’t there. Lafleur and Gainey, our emotional constants, who in big games set the mood and tempo we want, are almost irrelevant. They are simply Lafleur and Gainey, playing the way Lafleur and Gainey always do. Tonight, and in games like it, it’s the swing players—Robinson, Lapointe, Shutt, Tremblay, and one or two others—who will give the team its mood.
Sometimes they feel the game, sometimes they don’t. They are our emotional bellwethers.
Bowman paces up and back, saying nothing. His chin is forward, his mouth arching up and down in a gentle sneer, his eyes stare vacant and expressionless. Here and there he reaches for an ice cube to chew, lifting his head to the clock, keeping it there for long seconds as if looking through it, its numbers smudging, fading, never seen. Moving along the bench, he taps the backs of those he wants next; on and off, twenty-five seconds, twenty seconds, changing every whistle, miming the pace he’s looking for. But the game bogs deeper. McCourt jumps over the boards; Jarvis, Gainey, and Chartraw follow. They are our stoppers; and starters. They work hard, unfailingly, visibly hard, and in moments of confusion or trouble they give us forty-five seconds of solid ground, and a standard of effort and control for the rest to follow. For them it means few goals, but fewer against; in more graceful hands, for Lafleur, Lemaire, Shutt, and others, it will mean goals.
From a flash of sticks, Jarvis gets the faceoff to Robinson. He waits unpressured, the game moving before him. First, in safe, prearranged patterns, it flows to the boards or behind the net; then, as he moves slowly up the ice, it cuts and curls into open spaces, Robinson to Savard, back to Robinson, to Jarvis, who quickly passes to Gainey as he breaks clear at center. Larson, set for a slow-developing play, backpedals, then turns and sprints after him. For two or three frozen seconds, the game stops. It’s just Gainey and Larson, a private duel of speed and muscle, and finally of will. Straightening from my crouch, I watch Gainey—his body bent parallel to the ice, relentless, driving, like a train across an open field, an enormous force. Watching him the crowd moans. Larson angles sharply across the blueline, meeting him at the faceoff circle. They come together, bumping, straining at each other. Slowly, then suddenly, Gainey powers by. A hard, low shot that hits the middle of Vachon’s pads is no anticlimax. The crowd settles back, a little flushed.
Sometimes a game offers such little gems, brief inspired moments, unplanned, unconnected to anything else in the game, meaningless to its outcome, that make a game better. They represent something more basic than goals or assists, something pure, something treading close on the essence of a game and those in it, something unmeasurable, unrecorded, quite unforgettable.
I remember another such moment a few years ago. It was early in the third period in a game against the Los Angeles Kings and Henri Richard, nearing forty but still a brilliant skater and puck-handler, took the puck near our blueline and started up the ice. In three or four strides, sensing someone behind him, he glanced back and saw the Kings’ Ralph Backstrom, a former teammate and himself a great skater, only a stride behind. Richard speeded up, turning, twisting, turning back on himself several times, but Backstrom stayed with him. What had begun as an undifferentiated moment among hundreds in a game was becoming their special moment, and they knew it. For long seconds it continued, and though they wound in and out of other players, no one intervened. Later, an emotional Toe Blake, who had coached them for many years, remembered it as how it had been in Canadiens practices so often before. I don’t know how it ended; it didn’t seem important at the time.
Now Tremblay runs at Huber, then Hamel. Lambert finesses the puck along the boards, Risebrough digs it out for Lapointe, but his shot is blocked, a scramble ensues, and the game breaks down again.
The whistle blows, the teams change, forty seconds later the game starts up, twenty seconds later the
puck goes over the boards, the whistle blows again. More than thirty seconds later when a new puck is dropped, the game’s uncertain momentum is gone.
About eighty times a game it stops—for offsides and icings, for penalties, for pucks frozen under bodies, along boards, in goalies’ hands, the number varying little from game to game, though to a player or a fan it never seems that way. For when a game is exciting, it never stops, continuing through whistles and commercials in painful expectation of new excitements. But when a game has trouble, when it has only a fragile momentum on which to build, every whistle conspires against it, interrupting it, making it start and restart again and again, stopping it dead.
Greeting the game with routine excitement, the fans move slowly back in their seats, watching, waiting, nothing to cheer, too early to boo, uncomfortable in their patient impatience. The whistle blows, the organist pounds out a rollicking tune—life for the fans to give to the players to give to the game—coaxing only spiritless clapping in return. When the puck drops, the music stops, the clapping stops, and the rhythmless game begins again.
I look at the clock; it’s moved forty seconds since I looked at it the last time. The out-of-town scoreboard shows no score in the Leafs-Flyers game. The shot clock says I’ve had three shots—one from forty feet by Libett, another by Hamel from almost the centerline, the other I don’t remember. At times, I’ve felt involved in the game, but too often it’s distant, and each time I lose it. And whenever we get a penalty, whenever I see them come this way, I get the same unnerving twinge of panic, my mind nagging the same doubts, my body finding the same phony ready posture. I can’t get comfortable. I’m not bored, but I’m not enjoying this very much.
When a game gets close to me, or threatens to get close, my conscious mind goes blank. I feel nothing, I hear nothing, my eyes watch the puck, my body moves—like a goalie moves, like I move; I don’t tell it to move or how to move or where, I don’t know it’s moving, I don’t feel it move—yet it moves. And when my eyes watch the puck, I see things I don’t know I’m seeing. I see Larson and Nedomansky as they come on the ice, I see them away from the puck unthreatening and uninvolved. I see something in the way a shooter holds his stick, in the way his body angles and turns, in the way he’s being checked, in what he’s done before that tells me what he’ll do—and my body moves. I let it move. I trust it and the unconscious mind that moves it.
