Hockey Towns

by Ron MacLean

  It’s the unglamorous part of professional sports. At 10:30 p.m. on July 31, 1992, after twelve years in the league, Steve got a call from the Sharks, who told him, “Thank you for your time. We’re buying out your contract. Good luck.”

  Steve hung up the phone and thought, “Well, I guess that’s it. Forget the gold watch. Now what am I going to do with the rest of my life?”

  Very few players leave the game on their own terms. Only the absolute superstars have that ability. Lanny McDonald did. He went out in a beautiful way, capping a sixteen-year career with the Stanley Cup, but for the majority of the guys, the end comes via a phone call.

  Steve went back to Northern Michigan University, finished his degree and looked for an MBA program. He settled on Harvard because all the other MBA programs talked about teamwork. He figured he’d been on a team for twenty-something years and knew all about teamwork. Instead, he wanted a program that would teach him to stand on his own.

  Today he’s senior vice-president with Simon Property Group, the largest real estate company in the world. He’s back in Boston, running a half-billion-dollar high-rise residential project.

  Big John passed away in 2005. He had a bad heart. His first heart attack happened while playing sponge hockey in Trail when he was only forty-four years old. It just so happened that a cardiologist was playing too. So Big John hung around for another thirty years and managed to see his boy succeed in both hockey and business, and for Steve, that meant more than a truckload of gold watches.

  Victoria

  BRITISH COLUMBIA

  POPULATION:

  80,017

  The Curse of the Leafs

  The very same Terry O’Malley who played defence with Gerry Cheevers at St. Mike’s in the ’50s went on to become president and coach of the Notre Dame Hounds. His former boss and friend, Martin Kenney (the father of Jason Kenney, Canada’s minister of both National Defence and Multiculturalism), died in 2010, but he always insisted there was a curse from heaven on the Leafs.

  During the 1986 Stanley Cup playoffs, Notre Dame alumni Russ Courtnall, Wendel Clark—who was a rookie that year—and Gary Leeman made a name for themselves as the Toronto Maple Leafs’ Hound Line. Russ made a special connection with Harold Ballard, who was the Leafs’ owner at the time. Russ called up Martin Kenney, who was always fundraising, and said, “I think Harold Ballard is prepared to donate some money to the school.”

  So with Russ’s help, Martin Kenney, along with Barry MacKenzie—who was also on the team with Gerry and Terry at St. Mike’s and who was the principal and head coach at Notre Dame at the time—made an appointment to see Mr. Ballard and flew from Wilcox, Saskatchewan, to Toronto.

  When they walked into the Leafs’ front office and said, “We’re here to see Mr. Ballard,” the secretary said, “Well, he’s not here.”

  Martin said, “I’ve got an appointment. Where is he?”

  She said, “You might have an appointment, sir, but you’re not going to have a meeting with him here. If you want to see him, he’s up in the blues and he’ll be there with King Clancy and Gerry McNamara [the general manager], watching the practice.” So Martin and Barry walked into the rink behind the blue seats and spotted the three men. Martin called out, “Mr. Ballard! Mr. Ballard!”

  Ballard looked up. “Who the hell are you?”

  “I’m Martin Kenney! I have a meeting with you!”

  Ballard said, “Why the hell would I want to have a meeting with you?”

  Martin nodded toward the ice. “Well, because of that Hound Line out there.”

  Ballard said, “Oh yeah! Come down here!”

  Martin thought to himself, “This is going to be a good ask.” The two men sat down in front of Ballard, who said, “So what’s this about?”

  Looking back over his shoulder, Martin started talking. “Well, I’m from Athol Murray’s College, Notre Dame, where those boys down there—”

  Mr. Ballard interrupted, “Oh, Athol Murray! I saved his life one time.” And he went on to tell a story about how Père Murray was at a Stanley Cup final in April of 1964 in Detroit, when Leafs defenceman Bobby Baun broke his ankle, carried on and scored the game-winning goal in overtime, forcing a seventh game. While they were celebrating up at the hotel, Murray came up to Mr. Ballard and said, “Harold! You’ve run out of scotch!”

  Mr. Ballard replied, “Yeah, that’s ’cause you drank it all! If you want anything more to drink, you have to go into the bathroom. There’s some beer in the bathtub.”

  “All of a sudden,” Mr. Ballard said, he heard this crash, boom, bang, and so he jumped up and ran into the bathroom. There was Murray, headfirst in the tub. Mr. Ballard pulled him up. Père Murray’s hair was stuck to his face like a drowned rat’s as he gasped for air. “And you know what he says to me after I saved his life? ‘Harold, damn that water’s cold!’”

  Ballard told Kenney that story and then said, “Let’s cut to the chase. What do you want?”

  Martin gave him the best line ever. He said, “Well, if I ask for too little, you’ll think I’m stupid. If I ask for too much, you’ll think I’m greedy. I’d much rather you think I’m greedy than stupid. I want a million dollars.”

  King Clancy jumped up laughing and said, “He’s got you there, Harold! You’ve got to come up with it now!” Both McNamara and Clancy were ribbing Ballard because he’d got caught in the web.

  And Ballard said, “Okay, you got it.” Everyone was surprised. And then he added, “But you’re going to have to wait ’til I croak. I’ll put it in my will.”

  The thing is, Ballard never got around to changing his will. So after he died, Terry O’Malley, who was president of the college at the time, wrote a letter to Ballard’s son. But Bill Ballard had been estranged from his father, so he directed Terry to Ballard’s foundation. Terry wrote to the foundation, but they turned him down, saying Notre Dame didn’t fit the criteria. Today O’Malley swears that you’ve got Notre Dame Hounds supporters like Father David Bauer, Athol Murray, Wild Bill Hunter and now Martin Kenney up above, saying that until the Leafs come up with that money, Martin Kenney was right. They will be cursed.

  Père Murray used to travel with his team as a recruitment tool to showcase how good they were. The Hounds came out to Victoria, British Columbia, when Russ Courtnall was just a little kid, and his dad, Archie, took him to see them play. Archie was really impressed, especially because he knew local players who’d played for Murray. A couple of the boys had a tough time in and out of school, but they had come back not only better players but better people.

  On the ride home, Archie told Russ, “You’re going to go to that school someday.” He worried about Russ becoming too soft growing up in a place where flowers bloomed all year. Archie was tough as nails. He grew up in Winnipeg, where they had a real winter. Russ thought Notre Dame sounded like a great idea—snow looked like a lot of fun. Archie just smiled. “Someday, Russ.”

  Russ thought Archie looked like John Wayne. Over six feet tall and tanned from working outdoors, with thick, windswept hair and green/hazel eyes. He was one great-looking guy. Men wanted to be like him and women adored him. He had a very deep, loud voice. He worked in a lumber mill where it was really loud, so his vocal cords got a constant workout. And Archie coached a lot, so he was always yelling across the soccer fields, baseball diamonds and hockey rinks. The family lived about a block away from school, and when supper was ready, Archie would stick his head out the front door and yell, “Dinner!” His voice carried such resonance that when he called for the kids, the doorbell chime would ring.

  He started as a log scraper at the local mill and worked his way up to become general foreman. Archie didn’t have the white-picket-fence upbringing he’d given his four kids, Cheryl, Geoff, Russ and Bruce. His mom died after giving birth to him, and when his dad started drinking, Archie moved in with his grandparents. He was sent to boarding school with his brother in Winnipeg at a very young age, but when he was fifteen or so, his aunt took custody of
the boys. She moved to Victoria, and so that’s how they ended up there.

  Archie wanted life to be different for his sons. Geoff was three years older than Russ, and so they were always at it, like most brothers. Bruce, the youngest, would become the toughest because they both picked on him, but beyond stealing carrots and apples out of people’s gardens, they were good boys.

  The boys often played more than one sport at a time. Saturdays they’d get up, eat, get ready for soccer and run to the car, throwing hockey gear into the back seat. Mom Kathy worked the snack shack and Archie ran the park and coached. The Courtnalls volunteered at every level. At home, Archie was handy. He finished the basement, and when they needed a new roof, he shingled it himself. He was a fun, happy, incredibly great guy.

  Archie and Kathy would rent a cabin every year, and the family would sit around a bonfire while Archie and his buddies told stories. Sometimes Russ didn’t know what the hell the adults were talking about, but he loved listening to Archie talk about his grandparents and his uncle, who were from England and moved to Canada in the early 1920s.

  And then when Russ was twelve years old, Archie was offered a promotion at the mill that involved a move to Vancouver. It was the sort of thing he’d worked his whole life to achieve, the money was great and it meant a move up in the company chain. But Kathy didn’t want to go, and so after several arguments Archie turned the promotion down. Unfortunately, the mill had already replaced him in his original job, and the disappointment he felt in himself destroyed him.

  The boys noticed a change in their dad. Something was going on. He just wasn’t the same. He became somebody they didn’t know, a different human being. He wasn’t the same coach, he wasn’t the same father, he wasn’t the same husband, he wasn’t the same friend. He wasn’t the same anything.

  He lost a bunch of weight, dropping from 215 to about 175. He didn’t eat, and he slept a lot. He’d come home from work, lie down in bed and then wake up later and watch TV all night. He’d quit smoking cigars years earlier, but he took up the habit again. When the boys woke up, the house would be heavy with the smell.

  He hadn’t been much of a drinker—maybe the odd beer or Bacardi and Coke, a little bit of wine at dinner. But he started drinking more, self-medicating. When Kathy and the kids talked to him, he was somewhere else. He’d drift off, and when he did answer he zeroed in on some mistake he’d made in the past.

  For an entire year, his family watched Archie fall apart. Geoff was sixteen and dealing with his own teenage life. Cheryl was eighteen, so she was doing her own thing. Bruce was a little younger, so he didn’t quite understand. That left Russ. Conversations were always hard for Russ—he was a really shy kid—so he didn’t say much. But he heard everything. Watching the person he loved and respected more than anyone falling apart was just devastating.

  There were arguments and a lot of blame. Archie talked constantly about the promotion he’d turned down. Kathy begged him to get help, and he did see a doctor who wanted to admit him into a sanatorium, but there was no way he was going into an institution. The truth was, he needed full-on therapy, a professional to talk to instead of just sitting there, going through everything himself.

  Kathy tried reasoning with him, but it was impossible. He still had a job at the mill. They shuffled him around a bit, but he was making himself sick over a decision that had simply cost him an opportunity. Nobody could understand how somebody so strong and wonderful and well respected could be so weak and vulnerable and sad. Lots of people would tell Archie, “Come on, man, just snap out of it!” But the chemistry in his brain had changed. It was not something he could change back without help, which just compounded his shame and guilt.

  Archie attempted suicide twice that year, but when he came home with his wrists all bandaged, he told the boys he’d had an accident at the mill. Kathy was worried about the kids, and so Archie moved in with the aunt who had raised him. They told the boys he was living with her so she could help him get better.

  That August, Geoff was working at the Keg and Cleaver. Cheryl was with her boyfriend, who was playing for the Victoria Cougars. Bruce was away in Penticton with friends, and Russ and Kathy joined Archie’s closest friend, Gary Simpson, and his family at a cabin in Powell River. The Courtnall kids called him Uncle Gary. He and Archie had gone to school together. Kathy really needed the break—it had been an awful year.

  Russ and the Simpson kids were playing around the pier when a big RCMP boat pulled up. They asked to speak to Mr. Simpson and Kathy, so the kids ran inside to get them.

  Uncle Gary and Kathy joined the RCMP in the living room, and the kids were sent into another room so the adults could talk in private. One of the kids was listening under the door and he thought he heard someone say that Russ’s younger brother Bruce had died in an accident, and so for about a half an hour, Russ was just vibrating with worry.

  Suddenly, Gary came in and grabbed all the kids. He loaded them into his boat and sped over to a little island near the cabin. He unloaded everybody but Russ and then whisked him back to the cabin, where Kathy was waiting. She’d been crying. She asked Russ to sit down beside her and she put her arms around him. Uncle Gary leaned forward in his chair and delivered the terrible news. Archie was dead by suicide.

  A year later, Russ had just turned fourteen when Kathy got a call from Martin Kenney, who had taken over as president of Notre Dame after Père Murray died in 1976. Martin asked if Russ would be interested in coming to Notre Dame to go to school and play hockey. An alumnus from Victoria had heard about Archie’s suicide and called up Kenney—“You know, he’s got these young lads and perhaps to ease the pain, Russ, the middle boy, would be a good candidate to come to Notre Dame.”

  Kathy told Martin, “No, he can’t go. He’s too young, he can’t come now.” Martin thanked her, and then a week or two later at lunch hour, when Kathy was at work and he could speak to the boy directly, he called back and got Russ.

  Russ loved hockey. Archie had always been his coach, and now that he was no longer there, Russ felt a big hole. Playing for the Hounds was an exciting opportunity and a new challenge. Mr. Kenney told him, “Hey, we think you are a good hockey player. We want you to come. Affordability isn’t a problem.” He explained that as long as his mom could come up with five hundred dollars, an alumnus would take care of the rest. Russ had never wanted anything more in his life. He told Mr. Kenney he’d be there. When Kathy got home from work, Russ told her he was going. She didn’t like it, but she wouldn’t stand in his way.

  Four days later, Russ was on a plane to Regina. It was fate. His dad had promised him he would go to Notre Dame, and one year after he died, he got the phone call.

  Gerry Scheibel, a no-nonsense teacher with a heart of gold who would become his bantam coach, picked Russ up at the Regina airport. But they got off to a rough start when they were halfway to Notre Dame and Russ slapped his forehead and said, “Mr. Scheibel, I forgot my hockey bag.”

  Gerry told Russ he could call home on Sunday nights after six, because long-distance rates were cheaper. That night, after a big dinner, Russ called Kathy from the Scheibel home and told her he’d made it safe and sound.

  But the first week was tough. He was so homesick that, most nights, Russ cried himself to sleep. He couldn’t wait to call home on Sunday. At six o’clock he ran to the only phone in the dorm and dialled. When he heard his mom’s voice, he started bawling his eyes out, sobbing so hard he could hardly get the words out. Poor Kathy was beside herself. She said, “I haven’t any money to send you an air ticket. But I’ll find it and we’ll get you home. You call me next Sunday.”

  Some of the guys had seen him crying. There was another kid from Victoria there, an older boy. He invited Russ to go for a walk to settle him down, and they hung out for a couple of hours before bedtime. Meanwhile, Kathy fretted and worried all week. She hardly slept a wink. But she managed to scrape together enough for airfare and then waited for Russ to call.

  The following Sunday n
ight, Russ got on the phone and said, “Hi, Mom! Everything’s fine.” He told her how many friends he’d made and how great it was at Notre Dame. And then he said, “I’ve got to go now. I’ve got to run,” leaving her staring at the receiver in her hand.

  Like the other boys, Russ was assigned three roommates, and they became close friends, like brothers. It was good to know that when you came back to your room, there was always someone to talk to. The students helped one another get through tough times, and so did their house parent, Phil Ridley. He was a young English teacher, in his early twenties. Phil was Mr. Good Chips personified. He’d played football in the Canadian Football League and hockey at Notre Dame. Whenever Russ had downtime, he’d go and sit in Phil’s office for a conversation. Russ didn’t share the truth about Archie’s death. He said his dad had a heart attack. Everyone felt for Russ because he’d lost his dad at such a young age.

  The summer after his first year at Notre Dame, a really good midget team in Victoria contacted Russ. He got talked into coming back home to play, but he regretted it and returned to Notre Dame for Grade 11. The coach that year, Barry MacKenzie, was phenomenal. He had a presence. When he walked into a building, everybody would say, “There’s Barry MacKenzie, the coach of the Notre Dame Midget AAA team.” No one had been able to live up to Russ’s expectations after he lost Archie, until he played for Barry. Barry was just like Archie in many different ways. He was a disciplinarian—but not too strict—he had high morals and good principles, and he made Russ a better player and a better person. Russ loved playing for him because of the similarities to his dad.

  If Barry saw a weakness in a kid, he’d work on it, but mainly he taught the boys to play defensive hockey. They had to play hard, finish their checks and do the right thing for the team. He saw that Russ was a talented offensive player who had tremendous speed, but he told Russ that, as much as his offensive skills might dominate, he couldn’t sit back and not be responsible defensively.