by Jack Falla
But Faith said nothing. The silence stretched for miles. Finally, without glancing at me, she said in a cold even voice: “What we have here, class, is a case of denial about a concussion that could lead to brain damage. Or, judging from your last statement, has already led to brain damage.” Long pause: “You’ve got to be out of whatever mind you’ve got left, JP.”
“I want to play tomorrow. And if we win tomorrow I want to play in the Stanley Cup final against San Jose. Players play. And there’s no guarantee I’ll ever get this close again.”
“A few days ago you were in Mass General. You’ve had three concussions this season. No doctor in North America would sign off on your playing.”
“A team doctor would,” I said.
“JP, after a first concussion the chances of a second concussion are four times greater. Even if you take a hard hit on your body the force could get transferred to your brain and that’s it. Four concussions. Grand slam. Don’t be foolish. You’re hurt. There’s no dishonor in not playing. This is about your brain.”
“It’s about my heart, too. In the old no-helmet days guys got their bell rung all the time. And they played. I don’t want my heart questioned. Ever. By anyone.”
“No one IS questioning it, unless maybe you are. What’s this really about, Jean Pierre?”
“It’s about paying the price to be the best at what you do. It’s about our children taking their children’s children to the Hall of Fame and pointing to a name on the Cup and telling them: ‘That’s your great-grandfather,’ or ‘your great-great-grandfather.’ It’s forever, Faith, for all eternity. After you get the money, this is what you play for. No one’s forcing me, I want to play.”
We pulled into the truck stop and restaurant at exit 16 in New Hampshire a few miles east of White River Junction, Vermont. We fueled up the car and bought coffee and snacks for the rest of the trip. Faith got a box of cookies with a drawing of elves on the package. I bought a prewrapped sandwich. “Elves made mine; who made yours?” she said. It was a throwaway line but a casual smile, and there’s nothing better than a smile to draw the poison out of an argument.
We didn’t talk much as Faith drove us through Vermont and over the Canadian border. We’d crossed the Champlain Bridge into Montreal when she said, “You know, JP, if I hadn’t been a player I don’t think I’d even try to understand any of this.”
“Do you think you will understand it?”
“I want to. It seems to me all players are like this. Especially goalies.”
“It’s part of the culture. Georges Vezina almost died in net.” As Faith pushed the Ferrari north into the heart of the city I told her the story of Vezina’s death. On November 28, 1925, in the season opener against Pittsburgh in Montreal the thirty-nine-year-old Vezina began coughing up blood in the first period. By the end of the period he was so weak teammates had to help him off the ice. In the dressing room he kept coughing and spitting blood. Vezina had never missed a game in fifteen seasons with the Canadiens. Over protests of his teammates he insisted on starting the second period. But a few minutes into that period Vezina collapsed in a pool of his own blood. He was rushed to the hospital, where doctors diagnosed him with tuberculosis, a death sentence in those days. After being released from the hospital a few days later, Vezina went back to the rink to get his jersey, the one he’d worn the previous season when Montreal won the Stanley Cup. When Vezina saw his old goalie pads propped up in a corner he sat down and wept. Then he went home to Chicoutimi and died.
Faith let out a long sigh. I didn’t know what that meant. We drove into the city in silence.
* * *
“You going to see Dr. Desaulniers?” Faith asked me as she drove north on University Street.
“First I’ll call Picard. Tell him not to rule me out for tomorrow. Then I’ll try to get a decent night’s sleep. If the headaches come back then that’s the answer. I’m done. If they don’t I’ll talk to Desaulniers. Shouldn’t be a problem. The team needs a goaltender.”
The Canadiens were still providing me with a suite at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel. I called Marco Indinacci before I unpacked. I thanked him for his offer but told him I wasn’t a candidate. “Going to play two more seasons,” I said. Then I told him I was thinking of playing in Game 7.
“Don’t do it, JP,” he said. “Too risky. You’re with a good team. You could win a Cup next season. You could win two in a row. Sit this one out.”
I couldn’t tell Indinacci that I’d probably be back in Boston the next season if Cam’s father bought the Bruins. “Aren’t you the guy who used to tell us you looked for players who wanted to pull the cart, not ride in it?”
“That was just coach’s talk,” he said. “Can’t that doctor you’re engaged to talk you out of this?”
“That doctor I’m engaged to isn’t happy about it. But I think she’ll understand. Hey, you saw her play. She didn’t leave much on the floor.”
“Didn’t leave many loose balls, that’s for sure. Faith McNeil was a goddamn human dust mop.”
“She’s still a gamer.”
“So are you, JP. But take care of yourself, OK? I’ll be watching on TV. I hope I see you in a suit and tie.”
“No ties. We play sudden death,” I said.
“Sudden fuckin’ death is what I’m worried about,” Indinacci said.
* * *
“There’d be something nice about you coaching one of Lisa’s patients this summer,” Faith said at dinner. It was the kind of thing a Sheri the Equestrienne would not have said. She never seemed comfortable when I’d mention Lisa. And I don’t think Sheri was a big fan of the few photos of Lisa that I kept around the house. But Faith never minded, I think because Faith McNeil, M.D., was born with more self-confidence than you could stuff in a goalie bag.
* * *
Sirens, horns, street drills, and other sounds of the city woke us up Tuesday morning. “How’s your head?” Faith asked.
“Just what I was going to ask you,” I said, smiling.
“Seriously, JP?”
“I’m good to go,” I said. “No pain.”
“Not to throw the rule book at you, but you should be symptom-free for a week before you even think about playing. What’s it been for you?”
“Two days,” I said. “That should be more than enough for any team doctor in any sport in the known universe to clear me to play. Especially if the doc’s team needs a goalie in the deciding game of a playoff.”
“How did you become so cynical?”
“Life,” I said.
I showered. You don’t shave before a playoff game. I was set to leave when Faith glanced up from her third coffee. “Hope that’s decaf,” I said.
“Coffee without caffeine is like sex without orgasm,” she said. Then she asked if she could go to the morning skate.
“Sure. Why?” I said.
“I’ve been through a few thousand basketball practices but I’ve never seen a hockey practice.”
“Hockey practices are colder and less squeaky,” I told her. “Go around to the back entrance. I’ll leave your name with the security guy.” I kissed her and set off for the arena and a meeting with Dr. Wingate Desaulniers. I figured he’d be like the Boston team doc, Send ’Em In Wynne. I’d already nicknamed Desaulniers “Send ’Em In Winnie” by the time I arrived at a small secondary office he maintained at the arena.
* * *
“So they weren’t migraines you needed the pills for,” Desaulniers said, jamming me with his first pitch.
“It was like a migraine,” I said. “Hurt like hell.”
“You’ve had two diagnosed concussions within a month and a probable third one that wasn’t diagnosed,” he said, sounding increasingly unfriendly. I read this as the charade he had to go through to assuage his conscience before he sucked it up and did what he knew the team paid him to do—OK me to play. “Let’s run down the list of symptoms,” he said.
“Amnesia?”
“And you are?” I said.
“Please, Jean Pierre, I need your cooperation.”
I was going to say “and my 1.91 career playoff goals-allowed average” but all I said was “OK.”
“Amnesia?”
“No.”
“Blurred vision?”
“Not anymore.” It was only a small lie. And for a good cause, I thought.
“Nausea?”
“Nope.”
“Ringing in the ears?”
I scrapped the Nine-Inch Nails joke and said, “No.”
“Sleeplessness?”
“You sleep with Faith McNeil, you’re going to lose a few winks,” I felt like saying, but again, all I said was “No.”
“Headaches?”
“Not in two days,” I said, throwing my changeup pitch—the truth.
“Two days? That’s all?” Desaulniers said in a tone that made me wish I’d lied. The doctor did the usual flashlight-in-the-eyes trick. Then he sat shaking his head slowly over a sheaf of papers that I figured were test results faxed up from Boston.
“I can’t do it, Jean Pierre,” he said. “I can’t clear you to play.”
“Can’t or won’t?” I said, figuring I’d cut to the chase and raise the specter of what we both knew would be a disappointed team management.
“Both,” Desaulniers said. “Three head injuries. Three strikes you’re out,” he said.
“With baseball fans like you it’s a wonder the Expos moved to Washington.” I was getting hot now. “I’ll sign a release. I want to play. And the GM and coach want me to play,” I said, trying to raise the fear factor again.
“It doesn’t matter what you sign. If I let you play—or even let you sign a release knowing what I know—I could lose my license. At the very least my reputation would be damaged. The team is important to me. My profession is more important.”
“My profession is important to me, too. And right now it’s important to a lot of other people.”
“I’m sorry, JP. I admire your courage. But my answer is no. I won’t. And you shouldn’t.”
I left the office and headed downstairs for the rink to tell Picard that I was willing to play but that Desaulniers wouldn’t sign off on it. There was a crowd of media in the corridor outside the dressing room where Demetre Fontaine, third-string goalie extraordinaire, was holding court. He’d apparently heard about Lynne Abbott’s nickname for him and was now referring to himself in the third person as “the Demonator.” As in “When his team need him de Demonator is ready.” When Lynne asked him if he wasn’t being a bit brash for a teenager, the kid said, “De puck does not know how old is de Demonator.”
I caught the kid’s eye and nodded toward the dressing room, which was closed to the media. The kid followed me in. “Bonjour, Monsieur Savard,” he said.
“Demetre, you’ll be surprised and disappointed to know I don’t speak French,” I said. “But I speak fluent hockey, and that was a hell of a—what was it, thirty-nine minutes?—you played two days ago.” He nodded. “But let me tell you something that’ll help you last a long time in this league. Don’t look for the spotlight. Let it find you.” I patted him on the shoulder and walked into Picard’s office.
“I tried to get Desaulniers to clear me for tonight. He wouldn’t do it,” I said.
“Tabernac. What do I do, Jean Pierre? McDonough’s confidence is shot and my other goalie is nineteen years old.”
It was an ugly choice and I wasn’t going to make it for him. “I just wanted you to know I’m willing to go.”
“Taber-fucking-nac,” the coach said, burying his face in his hands. “I’m not taking you off our lineup card. Not yet. Maybe our owner knows a doctor who will … ah … cooperate.”
I left Picard’s office and walked toward the rink, where a few of the fourth-liners were already skating around, their blades ripping the new ice—swick … swick … swick—their slapshots booming off the boards and pinging off the glass. Why do they all do that? I wondered. Goalies love slapshots because most players have a backswing like Tiger Woods’s, so it takes them forever to get off the shot and that gives the goalie time to get ready. Wristers and backhanders are the goal scorers’ shots.
I was looking at the ice when Faith, wearing the leather Ferrari jacket she’d given me for Christmas, came up behind me. “Thought you’d be out there,” she said, pointing toward the ice. “What’s the deal?”
“No deal,” I said. “You’ll be pleased to know that Desaulniers won’t let me play. Leave it to me to get traded to the only club in the world with Hippocrates as its team doctor.”
“I guess Desaulniers never heard of Georges Vezina.”
“Guess not,” I said.
“Well screw him,” she said with a vehemence that surpised me.
Faith stared at the few players on the ice for a couple of seconds and said, “Is this all you guys do: skate around and shoot?”
“It’s a game-day skate,” I said. “It’s just for guys to get loose.”
“What do you do at a real practice?”
“Skate around and shoot,” I said.
Faith said that five minutes of watching hockey practice would do her for the rest of her life and she was going shopping.
I was still hanging around the home bench watching practice when Cam’s father and Denny Moran strolled in. I told them I wasn’t going to play. “If you don’t mind consorting with the enemy I got half a luxury box through a guy on the board at the Bank of Montreal. You and Faith are welcome to join us,” Cam’s dad said.
“Thanks. I think I’ll take you up on it.”
“Better not, JP,” Denny said. “You’re still Montreal property. We don’t want photos of you sitting with a bunch of Boston fans.”
I hate that word property. But I knew Denny was right.
I was still talking to Denny and Cam’s dad when the Bruins filed in. They had 11:30 ice.
“I always knew you were a head case, JP. Now it’s official,” Kevin Quigley said, walking over to us and putting his arm around my neck. “How’s the head? Can you go?”
“I want to go but the doc won’t let me.”
“Who’ll you guys start in net?”
“I honestly don’t know but if it were me I’d start the Fontaine kid.”
“The Demonatah,” said Quig, laughing. “We watched him on tape yesterday. We shoot high on that kid we’ll put up a numbah that belongs on a cash register.”
“Hey, JP, let’s talk about our injuries and bore these people to death.” It was Taki Yamamura on crutches, his right leg enclosed in a brace that stood out under a pair of sweatpants. I asked him if he thought he could play next season.
“Naw, I think I’m done,” he said. “Besides the broken bone, I tore up the ACL. Docs say it’s spaghetti in there. Insurance will cover most of the money left on my deal.”
Cam’s father laughed when he heard that. “Let me tell you guys something about insurance,” he said. “Insurance covers every goddamn thing except what happened.”
I hung around a few more minutes to watch practice. Ryan McDonough was fighting the puck, dropping to his knees before the puck carrier shot, mishandling shots, and leaving deep rebounds. In the other net Demetre Fontaine was looking large and stopping everything, until Joe Latendresse taught the kid a lesson. Joe, cradling the puck with one hand, knocking away a defenseman’s stick with the other, and cutting to the net with speed, looked up to see the Demonator looming in front of him, seemingly blocking the whole net. Joe, now with both hands on the stick and using his butt to fend off the defenseman, snapped a low shot five-hole—right through the tiny triangle between Fontaine’s pads. “Welcome to the NHL,” Joe said as he skated in front of the beaten goalie. You didn’t have to watch practice for too long to know that the Canadiens didn’t have a major-league goalie.
As I left the rink to go back to the hotel, Cam’s dad invited Faith and me to join him for a pregame meal in the private club for suite holders. I figured there wouldn’t be any media there s
o I thanked him and said we’d see him for dinner.
* * *
Paris, New York, Milan, and Montreal are your Final Four in the world of fashion. And if Vegas line setters saw the women in the Canadiens’ private club they’d make Montreal a ten-and-a-half-point favorite. They might even do that if all they saw was Faith McNeil. She’d gone out that afternoon and bought herself a black leather suit, which she was wearing with black leather ankle-strap stiletto heels and a tailored white shirt unbuttoned to the point where the longitude of taste intersects the latitude of titillation. We also had a couple of age-group medalists in the always formidable Diana Carter and that striking newcomer Jacqueline Monique Savard of Lewiston, Maine. My mother had finally released her blond hair from the confines of the businesslike chignon and had it styled so that she looked more like a network anchor than the grocery store cashier she’d once been. The three women plus Cam’s father, Denny Moran, and me sat at a table under an old photograph of Rocket Richard.
Our table looked like something from a junior high school dance—boys on one side, girls on the other. Faith, Diana Carter, and my mother sat against the wall looking out into the room. Mr. Carter, Denny, and I sat across from them. Cam’s dad told us that if his coming meeting with Gabe Vogel went well he’d buy the Bruins subject only to the approval of the other NHL owners. “You can take Madison Hattigan and color him gone,” Cam’s dad said.
Faith had told Denny who’d then told my mother that I’d tried to get myself cleared to play.
“I thought this doctor had talked some sense into you, Jean Pierre,” my mother said, putting her arm around Faith’s shoulders. That move was unlike my mother, who usually gestured little and said less. Throughout dinner my mother had been more talkative than usual. Sparkling. “Vivacious,” as they say in the high school yearbooks. It wasn’t until we were ready to leave that I saw why. It was warm in the club and I’d draped my jacket over the back of my chair. As I stood to pick up the jacket I looked across the room. That’s when I saw my father.
I’d forgotten he was a luxury suite holder and likely to be in the club. My father was sitting with three men. Our eyes locked for an instant but neither of us gave a sign of recognition. I turned away and was slipping on my jacket when Faith came around the table to join me. The others were already headed toward the door. “Don’t stare,” I said, “but that guy in the blue blazer at the corner table is my father.” Faith, pretending to adjust the shoulder strap on her bag, snuck a look across the room. She said nothing but was giggling as we walked toward the door.
