The Day I (Almost) Killed Two Gretzkys
Page 7
Boston's Tim Thomas is the best thing to happen to goaltending since the mask.
Where do I start? He's small, so his equipment doesn't make him eclipse the net like some of those Jabba the Hutt look-alikes. He doesn't have one of those robotic techniques. Heck, I'm not sure he has any technique! If he does the butterfly, it looks like it's missing a wing, flying in all directions. Every night with Thomas is like Live at the Improv. He's made the position fun again.
“Do you want to look pretty getting scored on, or ugly making the save?” he asks with a rhetorical chuckle.
Thomas makes ugly, ridiculous, impossible saves nightly.
And just to make things interesting, he's occasionally awful. When that happens, when he flips when he should have flopped, he gets so mad at himself, it looks like David Banner turning into The Hulk.
“With most goalies, you know their tendencies, but Timmy doesn't have any tendencies,” says Tampa Bay forward Martin St. Louis, who played with Thomas at the University of Vermont. “I have a tougher time scoring against him than almost any other goalie.”
Good or bad (and the latter is becoming increasingly rare), Thomas is never dull. My buddy, a diehard Bruins fan, calls him “terrifying to watch.” (And he wears a Thomas jersey.)
And he almost never got to watch him. For his entire hockey playing life, Thomas was told he had zero shot at making the NHL. Which is probably the exact reason he did.
He grew up in Flint, Michigan, around the time Michael Moore made Roger and Me, a movie about the town dying. His Dad, Tim Sr., was a used car salesman at a time when no one in Flint could afford a car. So he sold apples door-to-door. He'd sell 10 bushels, use some of the money to buy seven more, and give those to Tim to sell. That's how Jr. raised his money to play hockey.
When things got really bad, his parents pawned their wedding rings to pay for Tim to go to a goalie school.
The son didn't find out until his Dad bought his Mom a new one many years later.
He wore the same beaten-up pads for years, repairing them over and over until they. . . well. . . disintegrated.
“I was playing for the Lakeland Jets and (former NHLer) Joe Murphy was skating with us while he was holding out with the Oilers,” Thomas says. “He took a shot and it literally went right through my pad and out the backside.”
Murphy would do more for the young goalie than give him a great story for beer-night. Thomas was a never-see-the-ice third-stringer on that Lakeland junior team, so he started playing forward. But right after the Christmas break, the starting goalie missed his flight back from Alaska and the backup got in a car accident. So Thomas took all the shots in practice. As he was skating off the ice, he heard Murphy say to the coach: “Why aren't you playing that guy?”
So he did. Every game for the rest of the year. That launched Thomas on a netminding odyssey that would take him to, in chronological order: Vermont (University), Helsinki, Birmingham (ECHL), Houston (IHL), Hamilton (AHL), Helsinki (again), Detroit (IHL), Sweden, back to Finland, Providence (AHL), Boston (cup of coffee), Providence, Helsinki (this is getting silly), Providence, and, finally, at the age of 32, Boston. . . to stay.
“It never once crossed my mind to quit,” Thomas says. “But at one point, I did make peace with the fact I'd be playing in Europe for the rest of my career.”
He might have, except that when a bunch of other NHL goalies came over to Europe during the lockout, Thomas outplayed them all, and forced the Bruins to take another look. Three years later, they're still looking.
His competitiveness is legendary. As a junior, he was invited to the US Olympic Festival, essentially a tryout camp for the World Juniors. The players were split into four squads and played a round-robin. Thomas played half of each of the four games, and gave up just one goal as his team won the tournament. The other goalie on his squad gave up 11, and he was the one picked for the World Junior team.
“I was so mad,” recalls Thomas. “USA Hockey had bought me a dozen sticks, and it was the first time anyone had bought me sticks, so it was huge for me. Well, I went in the back room and demolished every stick against the wall. I was irate.”
Even better story: when he played at Vermont, he once got so mad after being scored on, he picked up the puck and launched it at the scoreboard, shattering lights and causing a fireworks show reminiscent of Roy Hobbs's last home run in The Natural. And that was in practice.
“There were pieces of light falling over the ice,” says St. Louis, chuckling. “It was hilarious.”
Just watch Thomas when he loses a shootout. He sprints off the ice like someone tossed a grenade in his net. Like they're going to send him back to Flint to sell apples.
Somewhat sadly, we're not seeing many of those Thomas tantrums anymore (Angry Tim is my favourite Tim). He just doesn't get scored on much. He was an All-Star last year and his .944 save percentage leads the NHL this season.
And yet, so typical of his Dangerfield existence, he was left off the All-Star ballot. There they go. Doubting Thomas. Again.
“I'm going to have to disappoint you and give you a ‘No comment’ on that one,” he says. That's OK. Sometimes “No comment” says more than a dozen quoted paragraphs.
The ballot snub is just more motivation to go out and contort his body into all those bizarre, wonderful shapes that somehow keep pucks on the happy side of the goal line.
“Dominik Hasek on steroids,” as one opposing forward puts it.
And with every save, every win, it's as if Thomas is speaking to all of those who doubted him along the way, saying:
“How do you like them apples?”
• • •
Postscript: Thomas would go on to win the Vezina Trophy that season, as the NHL's best goaltender. In his acceptance speech, he talked about his parents and everything he had overcome. Then he broke down in tears. Two seasons later, he won his second Vezina, as well as the Conn Smythe Trophy, leading the Bruins to their fi rst Stanley Cup in 39 years.
Chapter 21
Rise of the Raven
March 2003
A magical era ended last weekend.
My beloved alma mater, Carleton U, saw its unparalleled and unprecedented run of never winning. . . anything. . . ever. . . come to a stunning end with a CIS Men's Basketball Championship in Halifax. In the aftermath, I was overwhelmed with emotion.
I mean, WHAT THE HECK WERE THEY THINKING!?! Decades spent perfecting futility, and they throw it all away?!? Talk about disrespecting your alumni.
You see, in my day, we liked losing. Losing was what set Carleton apart. It was our thang.
Saskatchewan and Saint Mary's had football. Manitoba, volleyball. Brandon, hoops. Schools like UBC, Alberta, Western, McGill. . . they were good at almost everything.
And Carleton? Hmmm. Well, we had a relatively solid fencing program, from what I remember. Sabre especially. Épée, not so much. Besides that, we bit.
During the late '80s, CU's policy of admitting almost everyone who applied (a friend of mine still claims he got in with three Grade 13 credits and a 47 percent average) got the school dubbed “Last Chance U.” But when it came to sports, we were “No Chance U.”
The only sporting event people at Carleton got excited about was the annual Panda Game against Ottawa U. We even won that sometimes. But it hardly mattered. Most spent the day cheering for the water balloons slung-shot from the Carleton side of Frank Clair Stadium to the Ottawa U side (we were good at that—solid engineering program at Carleton).
Smacking Ottawa U students with balloons and chanting “What the *#%@'s a Gee-Gee!?!” were pretty much all that mattered.
The football team was actually good. Once. They made the Churchill Bowl my freshman year (1986). And lost 50-10. Two years later, they were 0-7, and then 0-7 again, starting a downslide that would eventually lead to the program being killed in 1998. The reaction on campus was shock:
“You've got to be kidding! We had a football team?”
But it wasn't just footbal
l. We sucked at everything. Except sucking back. A study once revealed Carleton students drank more beer per capita than any other university. And that was during class.
Oh, we knew sports at CU. We just couldn't play them. In my journalism class alone, the graduates included Jason Kay, editor of The Hockey News; Rand Simon, a key man in agent Don Meehan's company; Ken Warren, hockey writer for the Ottawa Citizen; and David Naylor, sportswriter for The Globe and Mail. We would have kicked ass if there were an all-sports Reach For The Top.
The great Homer Simpson once said there's only two kinds of people at college: “jocks and nerds.” We were a little nerd heavy (hence, my presence).
While other schools were known for their particular sporting prowess, when you told people you went to Carleton, you'd get:
“Carleton eh? You guys got a great. . . Architecture Program.”
Darn tootin' we do! We could draw up a killer shopping mall, just not a zone defense.
And that's why I loved Carleton. We didn't have to bother battling for bragging rights every year. We didn't care. There was no attitude, like certain other schools which I won't name.
OK, Queen's and Western.
But now, look what's happened! The basketball team wins the title. The men's soccer team comes second, losing the national final in OT. Women's soccer finishes top 10, the swim teams make the nationals for only the second time ever, and both the men's and women's Nordic ski teams win their nationals.
Suddenly, The Ravens are a powerhouse. OK, that's a stretch.
But they're respectable. Twelfth overall in the National Sports Power Rankings.
In my day, I believe we were 178th, just behind Moosejaw Community College.
And it's not just sports. The former “Last Chance U” is now rated in the top 10 schools overall in the annual Maclean's survey.
It's just wrong. I long for the old Raven-way, those not-so glory days, when we were so bad, I could actually pass for a jock.
• • •
Postscript: The Ravens basketball team is now one of the greatest dynasties in Canadian university history, winning championships seven of nine years, as of 2011. Alumni from my era continue to bow our heads in shame.
Chapter 22
Rival Eternal
December 2005
The romantics say we all have a soul mate out there somewhere. (And for the last time, Charlize Theron, I'm not yours, so please stop calling.)
Maybe. But this I know for sure: we do have a sport mate, a half best buddy/half nemesis we are destined to compete with for forever. The French use the term rivalle eternelle. Eternal rival. (Clearly, I made that up. The French don't call it anything. I just was trying to sound worldly again.)
Ali had Frazier. Magic had Larry. Sidney has Ovie. And I have Mark Ward.
I met Wardo in Grade 3, when we invented a bizarre hybrid of soccer, hockey and basketball, where you try to kick a rubber puck between the two base-posts of the playground basketball hoop to score. It was pure genius (we're still bitter we don't get the props Naismith gets), and occupied every winter recess of our public school existence.
The problem was Wardo happened to be better than me at Sockeyhoop. He was a sick combination of Beckham, Jagr and LeBron (in a 3-foot-10 kid-in-snow-boots kind of way).
And this drove me nuts.
Even worse, he could climb the steep aluminum slope and get on the roof of our school, which, in summertime, was carpeted with brand new tennis balls sprayed by adults who practised against the school wall. This made him God of Glen Ogilvie Public. Fresh Slazengers were like crack to Grade 3 boys. Not for tennis, but for road hockey, baseball, Chance (throw ball against wall, must catch it on the way back or you're out). Tennis balls were currency. And he was Bill flippin' Gates.
I would try to climb up for hours, and couldn't get half way. So I'd sit on the grass and catch all the balls he'd throw down. Reduced to a ball boy at age eight. Sad.
This is my first memory of competitive fire. And the moment a lifelong rivalry was born. Wardo would become my best friend. And my eternal rival. My Newman.
For the next 20 years, we would compete at everything. Running, jumping, climbing, marbles, baseball, soccer, hockey, football, basketball, tennis, badminton, wrestling, golf, mini-golf, dodgeball, lawn darts, Frogger, flexed arm-hang, Toss-A-Cross, Risk, hockey-card flipping, Crazy 8s, Electronic Quarterback, caps and, eventually. . . girls.
And that doesn't even take into account the zillions of games we invented. You don't understand. This went on every waking moment we were together. Waiting for the school bus? Who can hit the stop sign with the snowball first! Bored in class? Who can peg Darryl Fogel in the head with a piece of eraser!
We used to walk two miles to the local mini-golf (racing at the end), play three rounds like it was the fifth major, hit two buckets of balls (with an intricate points system for hitting various targets), then wager on how many cars would pass before my Mom picked us up.
It was a two-kid daily decathlon.
We once invented a two-man game of baseball we played on our knees in my basement using one of my Dad's drumsticks for a bat, and a ping-pong ball. We started this when we were 10. It ended only when I moved from that house.
At 21.
This rivalry continued well into our 30s, and it went beyond sport.
Just before I moved to Vancouver in 1997, we went on one last boy's road trip to Newfoundland. One night at a bar on George Street, we were talking to a cute blonde. When she excused herself to go to the washroom, Wardo said: “She's totally into me.”
“Yeah, right.” I said.
“She's just being friendly, moron. It's Newfoundland. They're friendly to everyone.”
So, of course, it was game on. I stayed in the same spot. Wardo moved to the other side of the mostly empty bar. If she came out, and went to him, he'd win.
Well, she comes out, starts towards me, notices Wardo isn't there, and beelines across the bar to him. He did a victory dance Chad Johnson would be envious of. And just to flaunt his win, he married her.
When my wife gave birth to our first, my first call was to Wardo. It was a touching moment between two lifelong friends.
“One-nothing sucker! I am kicking your ass in babies!”
It went back and forth from there. For the record, it's now 3-3, and due to. . . umm. . . procedures. . . is destined to end that way. Though I'm pondering adopting a baby from China, just to beat him.
Wardo lives in Newfoundland now, so the games have been reduced to hockey pools and one golf weekend a year. But the new generation brings hope.
Last year, a bunch of old friends got together for an afternoon at a park in Ottawa. Wardo was in town with his oldest son (age four), and I brought mine (age 4.5).
We raced them.
For the record, my boy crushed Wardo's boy by 10 feet. We totally rule.
(*By the way, if this constitutes some form of abuse, please don't contact authorities.)
(**Unless you are in Newfoundland. If they take Wardo's kid away, I'll lead 3-2 again.)
• • •
Postscript: Wardo and I played golf together last summer. I had him by a stroke or two all day, until he tied me on 17. Then on 18, he hit an impossible Bob Twayish bunker shot to beat me by one. I hate that guy. But I got even. Wardo actually wrote his own column in response to this, to prove he could write better than me, too. It was pretty good. He wanted me to put it in the book, but then he would have been a published author, too. I couldn't allow that. So I cut it. I now lead him 2-0 in hardcover publishing. Sucka!
Chapter 23
The Longest Season
April 2010
The phone rang around 2:30 in the morning.
One of those disorienting, middle-of-the-night calls, when you grab the phone before you know where you are, before you know whether you are awake or dreaming. It had to be the latter. The words coming from the other end of the line made no sense.
“What?!? How?!? No!”
• • •
It is springtime in Canada, when we inevitably lose our minds about hockey, and talk about wins and losses as if they are life and death. They are, of course, nothing remotely close. And no one knows this better than Pyatt, a tall, bruising forward for the Phoenix Coyotes.
A little over a year ago, he was getting ready for a play-off run with the Vancouver Canucks, and a summer wedding to his long-time girlfriend, Carly Bragnalo.
“We were together 11 years, high school sweethearts.” Pyatt says. “She was just an amazing person. She just . . . always made me feel comfortable. We had a great relationship.”
“Everyone loved her,” says Taylor's younger brother Tom, a forward with the Montreal Canadiens. “She was always happy. She loved to cook. She was always cooking up big feasts for us at the cottage.”
Their cottage, in Thunder Bay, is where Taylor and Carly were to be married. But on April 2nd, 2009, just four months before the wedding, that phone call in the middle of the night changed . . . everything.
“We had a game at home that night against Anaheim. I just went home and had something to eat, and went to sleep. I got a call at 2:30am from Carly's brother. I was still half asleep; I didn't know what he was saying. I couldn't comprehend it. I just dropped the phone. Then I got a call about 15 seconds later from her Dad. He said Carly had been killed in a car accident. I couldn't believe it . . . I kept asking him over and over, ‘Are you sure, are you sure?’ I was in total shock.”
Bragnalo was vacationing in Jamaica. She was in a taxi with her Mom and three others when the driver lost control around a corner, flipped, and hit a utility pole. Carly was the only fatality.
Taylor Pyatt sits in a dressing room at the Coyotes' arena in Glendale, Arizona, squeezing an empty water bottle over and over nervously. This is the first time he has spoken publicly about Carly's death and his year in Hell.