Saved

by Jack Falla

  We beat Nashville 2–1 and headed into Toronto an abysmal 1–4 on the trip and 3–5 for the season. We had a late-morning practice at the Air Canada Centre, the new rink the Leafs moved into when they left Maple Leaf Gardens a few years ago. We were in the dressing room about ten minutes before practice when Packy walked in and right away one of our rookies, Billy Shannon, started yapping. “Gotta have this one tonight, guys.… Gotta bring it.… Little sandpaper in the game…” Billy shut up as soon as Packy was out of earshot in the trainer’s room.

  “Hey, rook, shut the fuck up. You haven’t hit anyone or blocked a shot in three games,” Flipside said.

  Flipper was right. All that chatter was fake hustle. Not even the coaches are fooled by it. But I don’t like hearing that tone between teammates. That’s what losing does.

  We had a free afternoon, so after lunch I joined Cam on a short walk from the hotel to the Hockey Hall of Fame on Yonge Street.

  We entered the hall through a food court in an ultramodern office-and-shopping complex. Once inside it was like stepping back in time not only because of the exhibits and old photos of players without helmets but because the Hall of Fame is located in what was a branch of the Bank of Montreal built in 1885. The building’s weathered stone exterior and polished oak paneling are a sharp nostalgic contrast to the glass-and-steel architecture of modern Toronto.

  We headed straight for the hall’s sanctum sanctorum—as my religion teacher at St. Dom’s would’ve called it—the old bank vault on the second floor, home of the Stanley Cup. There was the Cup itself, a gleaming silver bowl atop a column of concentric silver bands, each glittering with the engraved names of former winners. Display cases around the room held the older engraved bands that had to be taken off so the trophy wouldn’t stand too high. Some of the greatest names in hockey are on that Cup: Fred “Cyclone” Taylor, Maurice Richard, Jean Beliveau, Bobby Orr, Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux. And Georges Vezina, a Montreal Canadiens goalie from the twenties who had my all-time favorite sports nickname, the Chicoutimi Cucumber. The writers called him that because he was from Chicoutimi and was so cool in net. But it might also be worth noting that Vezina fathered twenty-two children. His wife, Marie-Stella Vezina, should have her name on a trophy. Each year the Vezina Trophy goes to the best goalie in the NHL as voted by the general managers. I’ve been runner-up three times. I’d like to win it. But I’d rather win the Stanley Cup.

  While I walked around reading names Cam stood and stared at the Cup as if it were the Holy Grail or the Hope Diamond. “Money can’t buy that,” he said. “Which is why it’s worth winning.”

  If you win the Cup you get to keep it for a day. A few years ago when Dallas won the Cup a defenseman, Penrose Holiday, put his five-week-old infant son in the bowl for what he thought would be a cutesy nude photo for the family’s Christmas card. Of course the kid did what babies do. Then he did the other thing babies do. You might want to remember that the next time you see a player swigging Dom Pérignon out of that bowl.

  “I think it’s this season or never,” Cam said more to himself than to me.

  “It’ll be never if we don’t get some scoring,” I said. The truth was our defense and goaltending had been solid after opening night but only J.-B. Desjardin and Taki Yamamura were scoring with any consistency.

  “Pisses you off that the Mad Hatter was too cheap to get into the free-agent market and get us a scorer or two,” Cam said.

  “It’s not just the Hatter,” I said. “It’s Gabe’s money.” Gabe Vogel has owned the Bruins for twenty years. We’re part of a worldwide media empire based mainly on cable TV.

  “In Gabe’s eyes we’re just programming,” Cam said. Vogel is listed annually in Forbes magazine as one of the four hundred richest people in the world. Word around the league and among our fans is that his mandate to the Mad Hatter is to build a competitive team but one not quite competitive enough to win the Stanley Cup and cost Gabe a whole lot of money in player contracts. I think Madison Hattigan does what he’s told. We’re always $3 million or $4 million under the cap. And if the rumors about Hattigan getting a percentage of that money are true, then the Mad Hatter is pocketing $300,000 to $400,000 every season.

  I doubt Gabe Vogel would know a puck from a whoopee pie. He hardly ever comes to our games and when he does he sits in his luxury suite. I’ve seen him in our dressing room only once and that was last season after we were eliminated by Montreal in the playoffs. He looked relieved.

  I left Cam staring at the Stanley Cup while I wandered downstairs to an exhibit that shows the evolution of the goalie mask. It’s hard to believe but for more than half a century goalies didn’t wear masks. There had been a few unsuccessful experiments with goalie masks but it wasn’t until November 1, 1959, that Montreal Canadiens goalie Jacques Plante put on a mask in an NHL game and changed hockey forever. In the first period of a game against the Rangers at Madison Square Garden, Plante came out of his net and checked the Rangers’ Andy Bathgate behind the Montreal goal. On his next shift Bathgate—who had one of the hardest shots in the league—deliberately put a backhander into Plante’s face, smashing the goalie’s left cheekbone and slicing the side of his nose. In those days team’s didn’t carry backup goalies. If Plante hadn’t returned to the game the Canadiens would’ve been forced to use the Rangers’ practice goalie, an amateur who was one of the Garden’s electricians. Plante had been practicing with a mask of his own design but his coach, Toe Blake, had refused to let him wear it in a game. Blake said it blocked the goalie’s vision at his feet and, worse, was a tacit admission of fear. “If I jump out of an airplane without a parachute does that make me brave?” Plante asked his coach. Realizing the leverage he had, Plante made it a condition of his returning to play that he be allowed to wear the mask. Blake caved. Plante wore the mask and Montreal won the game. And the next game. And the one after that. And the Stanley Cup, their fifth in a row. Plante’s invention didn’t only prevent injuries. It saved lives. Anyone who ever plays goal owes something to Jacques Plante, the most important goaltender of all time. No him, no me, I thought.

  * * *

  During dinner at Giovanni’s in Toronto’s Little Italy I asked Cam what he’d do if he had the Cup for a day. “I’d have to take it to the Carter & Peabody offices because it’d net the company a zillion dollars’ worth of publicity,” he said. “But what I’d like to do is take it back to Vermont. Haul it into our old rink and let Indinacci and everybody get their picture taken with it.”

  I said I’d bring it home to my mother and grandmother. Display it at St. Dom’s High School and maybe at my grammar school. “I’d try not to let a politician get within a five-iron of it,” I said.

  “I don’t remember seeing your mom on opening night. She come down?”

  “Couldn’t. Said she didn’t want to leave my grandmother alone. She’s seventy-eight and her health’s slipping. I invited them for Thanksgiving. Told Mom I’d send a car for them and hire someone to look after Mammam so my mother can get to our Friday-afternoon game.”

  * * *

  The next night we lost 2–0 to the Leafs to close out one of the worst road trips since Lee went to Gettysburg. It was the second time in nine games we were shut out. The only good thing was that Flipside apparently got through to Billy Shannon. The rook had three hits and blocked a shot. Unfortunately he tried to block another shot in the third period. That one ended up in our net. It was a dumb rookie play. One of their shooters was about twenty feet away to my left when Shannon slid out at him pads-first. The puck ticked off of Billy’s leg and over my shoulder into the net. The first thing I wanted to do was yell at Billy. Or point to him and show him up the way I’ve seen a lot of quarterbacks show up receivers who run the wrong routes or pitchers show up fielders who make errors. But that’s not part of the hockey culture. We don’t show up a teammate. Ever. We need each other too much.

  After the game I had a talk with Billy. I told him it’s OK to try to block a shot from beyond the
face-off circle. If he misses, then I still have time and space to see the shot and react. “But when a shooter is in close either check him or drive him off the angle but don’t try to block the shot,” I said. Billy nodded.

  We limped back to Boston 1–5 on the trip, 3–6 for the season, and grateful the Red Sox and Patriots were keeping us buried on page 3 of the sports section. In a quirk of scheduling we had to play Toronto again at our place. Rinky Higgins got the start and we won 2–1. When a coach changes goalies and wins he usually comes right back with the same goalie. Rinky started again versus the Rangers but we lost 4–1. So Packy switched back to me and we closed out October with a 3–2 win in Chicago and a 4–3 loss to New Jersey.

  We lost the New Jersey game on a power-play goal in the last minute. Their right point guy faked a slapper, then dished the puck to the left face-off dot, where their winger one-timed it into the net. Thunk. Goalies don’t see goals. We hear them. We either hear the puck clank in off the pipes, crossbar, or metal centerpiece or we hear a muffled thud like someone hitting a bass drum when the puck strikes the padded base plate of the goal. If the puck hits the netting then we hear the roar—or collective groan—of the fans. It used to be worse. In high school the steel base plate wasn’t padded and a low shot that beat you would slam into the net with the sharp clank that meant instant humiliation. I hate the sound of a goal.

  One of the few good things to happen in October was my lunch with Faith McNeil. Because the team had a Sunday-morning practice, Faith and I planned to have a leisurely brunch at Sonsie. But Faith checked out of that. When I pulled Boss Scags into her driveway I found her dressed more for the NCAA Women’s Basketball Final Four than for brunch. She wore baggy string-tied gray shorts, a sweat-soaked gray T-shirt, and a pair of beat-up Reeboks. She was shooting a basketball at a hoop suspended over her garage. Her hair was in a ponytail the way she wore it in college.

  “Leave it to you to buy the only house in Chestnut Hill with a backboard and basket,” I said.

  “The house didn’t come with those. I bought them,” Faith said, launching a twenty-five-foot jumper that was nothing but string music.

  “Three-pointer,” I said. I passed the ball back to her and made what I hoped looked like a token effort at playing defense (actually I was trying but I didn’t want it to look that way). Faith drove by me and laid the ball in left-handed.

  “Why don’t we have lunch here and watch the Pats game,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

  Faith went upstairs to shower and I flipped through the Sunday papers. Lynne Abbott wrote her Sunday column on how the Bruins weren’t going anywhere if we didn’t get more scoring.

  * * *

  Faith made Cajun crabcakes—heavy on the crab and cayenne, light on the bread crumbs—and lobster salad sandwiches. We ate sitting on her couch watching the Pats-Jets game. She had a half bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne on ice. I rarely drink at lunch so I took a pass and had a Coke. Faith poured a few ounces of the champagne into a fluted glass. Strange. I’d never known her to be much of a drinker. It was even stranger when she poured herself a second glass just before halftime.

  Halftime was a smile. The TV people did a feature on none other than Patriots Dance Team Coordinator and my ex-girlfriend, Missy Taylor. Missy said the Pats dancers were “an integral part of the total entertainment philosophy of Patriots ownership and a vital channel for the expression of fan enthusiasm and support.”

  “Silly me,” said Faith. “I thought they were a T and A show.”

  Midway through the third quarter with the Pats up by seven and driving, Faith laid her empty glass on the coffee table on top of a stack of Robb Report magazines, tucked her feet onto the couch, and laid her head on my right shoulder. I figured it was the champagne, the lunch, and the basketball workout combining to make her sleepy. I thought that for four more plays when, with the Pats first-and-goal from the five, Faith slid her left arm around my neck and said, “Rehab’s over.” I was about to say “Mine or yours?” but I couldn’t because at that moment I had a mouthful of Faith McNeil’s tongue. Out of the corner of my left eye I saw the Pats score on a quick-out to the tight end just before Faith hit the Off switch on the remote and pulled me down on top of her. Why do women get to decide everything?

  We missed the fourth quarter. We also missed Oakland versus Seattle at 4:15 and Giants versus Cowboys at 8:30, and we would have missed the ’Skins-versus-Colts Monday-night game if I hadn’t had to get out of bed for a morning practice. On the continuum that has sex at one end and lovemaking at the other, Faith and I gave each other both.

  At midnight we were at the kitchen table eating scrambled eggs and English muffins. She said it was so late I might as well stay at her house.

  “You like living alone?” she asked.

  “I don’t find myself bad company,” I said. “I spend so much time with the guys, it’s nice having a little time for myself. You?”

  “I don’t like Sundays,” she said.

  “That explain tonight?”

  “No,” she said. “What explains tonight is that I’ve known you since we were freshmen in college. You were the only guy I could talk to without thinking you were going to hit on me.”

  “I didn’t try out because I didn’t think I could make the team,” I said in one of the hundreds of sports metaphors that had passed between us. We used the language of sport not as affectation but as a way of making ourselves clearer. I reminded her of the day when our history professor was almost finished taking attendance and Faith came rushing into the classroom. “You beat the throw,” said the prof, a baseball fan.

  “Nope. I slid in under the tag,” Faith said, a better metaphor.

  We cleaned up the kitchen and went back to bed.

  I wouldn’t have expected Faith McNeil to be a cuddler or a babbler but she was both. She had her left arm around me and for most of an hour walked me through her childhood and adolescence. She grew up in Cambridge, a suburb of Boston, and went to a Catholic grammar school and Cambridge Catholic High School, where she earned twelve varsity letters, four each in soccer, basketball, and softball. She sounded like one of those lost-in-the-glory-days guys we all know as she described almost every game of her high school career. I fell asleep with Cambridge Catholic trailing Wakefield by five in the Eastern Mass quarterfinals with two minutes to play and Faith on the line for the front end of a one and one.

  When I woke up it was 8:30, which really pissed me off because it meant I wouldn’t have time to go home and change before practice. Faith had asked me if I’d wanted to set an alarm and I’d said no because I’m a light sleeper and I’ve always had an internal alarm clock I can set for whatever time I want to wake up. On the road I leave a wake-up call if we have an early flight but that’s just for backup. I’m always awake when they call. But I must have been so relaxed from my night with Faith that I slept an hour more than I’d planned to. I took a fast shower. Faith was half asleep when I kissed her good-bye. She said something that sounded like “Mmmmaahhbye…”

  I felt happier, more buoyant, than I had in years as I drove Boss Scags through the back streets of Boston toward the Garden. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned about Happiness it’s that when Happiness is up and dancing it’s only because Trouble is taking a nap or making a run to the convenience store for cigarettes and lottery tickets. Trouble doesn’t stay gone long.

  We had a ten o’clock practice and it was 9:30 when I came scrambling into the dressing room, the last guy to arrive. I’m usually the first. It didn’t go unnoticed that I was wearing the same chinos and golf shirt I’d worn the day before.

  “Even in college you had two sets of clothes,” Cam said.

  “GQ called. They want you for the cover,” Jean-Baptiste said.

  “Jean Pierre Savard, one of the eight hundred and twelve best-dressed players in the NHL,” Kevin Quigley said.

  There were other remarks but I stopped listening when Cam, who has the locker to my left, said, “Gotta
talk to you.”

  I suited up and headed for the ice with Cam behind me. We skated to the visitors’ bench, where we always stretch before practice. No one else was within earshot when Cam asked, “You spend the night with Faith?”

  “And a fine night it was.”

  “Good. Should’ve happened a long time ago. Guys she’s been going out with are lighter than the women you’ve been going out with. But that’s not the problem.”

  Cam and I each put a leg up on the dasher board in front of the bench and began stretching when he said: “Sorry to screw up the afterglow, JP, but I’ve got bad news. The Mad Hatter’s trying to trade me.”

  Trouble was back from the convenience store.

  Four

  The vampire bats attacked me the moment I opened the door.

  “Trick or treat, Mr. Savard,” said the first vampire bat, who was Lindsey Carter decked out in a bat costume the wings of which Tamara had made out of the remnants of an umbrella. “Trick or treat,” echoed the smaller bat, Caitlin Carter. Tamara and Cam stepped in behind the bats. I’d almost forgotten it was Halloween until Faith came over to watch Monday Night Football, bringing with her a few packages of miniature candy bars and two pumpkins. She’d also brought a scalpel with which to turn the pumpkins into jack-o’-lanterns. Lindsey and Caitlin went to the kitchen to watch Faith perform some tricky maxilofacial surgery on the pumpkins. Meanwhile Cam updated me on our GM’s move to trade him.

  It was Lynne Abbott, Knower of All Things, who told Cam that the Hatter was offering him around the league, trying to swap Cam, a proven defenseman (and the one guy Hattigan can’t control with money) for the forty-goal scorer we needed. Lynne said she’d heard it from her front-office sources in Vancouver and L.A. Lynne told Cam she planned to break the news later in the day on the Boston Post’s Web site. Cam said if she waited two days she’d have a better story but that he wouldn’t elaborate. Lynne said she’d give Cam only one day because of her fear of being scooped. Cam acted fast.