The Day I (Almost) Killed Two Gretzkys

by James Duthie

  He is a quiet guy at the best of times, so finding the right words is a struggle. You want to tell him you understand. Right words? They don't exist.

  “It was just a devastating time for me. I got on a flight and went home right away. I was surrounded by my family for the next few weeks, but I was in total shock. The first few days, making funeral arrangements, making plans to get her back . . . her body back, all those sort of things you thought you would never do, especially at this point of your life. I remember asking myself, ‘Are you really doing this?’”

  “It felt like a bad dream,” says Tom Pyatt. “I flew right home and Taylor was already there, with friends. There's not much you can say. I just gave him a big hug and told him I'd be there for him.”

  Taylor would spend the next three weeks in Thunder Bay, trying to figure out why the world had leveled him from behind. Answers never came.

  He returned to the Canucks, just before their playoff series with Chicago, hoping to lose himself in hockey. Going to the rink, seeing the guys, trying to win games—it helped.

  But once the team was eliminated, he was left alone, to a summer of mourning, with a feeling that he needed to get far, far away.

  “I felt it was time to move on from Vancouver, time to turn the page, for my personal life and my career.”

  Pyatt was a free agent, and in the harsh world of professional hockey, he was now a bit of a risk. He was a 27 year-old budding journeyman (he had played for the Islanders and Buffalo before Vancouver) coming off a so-so season, and he was a mess mentally. Damaged.

  Only one general manager called him. Don Maloney of the Phoenix Coyotes.

  “We drafted his brother Tom in New York, so I knew the family,” say Maloney. “We didn't have the resources to offer him what he'd been making in Vancouver, but I wanted to see how he was doing, and tell him why this would be a great fit for him.”

  Phoenix was hardly a desired destination for most free agents last summer. The team was in bankruptcy court, ownerless, and hadn't made the playoffs in eight years. It seemed like a one-way ticket to hockey obscurity. And maybe that's what made it the perfect place for Taylor Pyatt.

  “He was looking for a fresh start,” says Maloney. “I think he looked at us in the desert being as far away from all the attention in Canada as you can imagine.”

  He was right.

  Pyatt did need to get away. Away from everything that reminded him of his old life. Of Carly. So he became a Phoenix Coyote.

  Play through pain. That's what hockey players are supposed to do, right? But there was no treatment for this. No ice bags, no pills, no rehab. It was unrelenting. Paralyzing.

  “I think early on in the season I struggled quite a bit. It was much harder than I thought. Mentally, emotionally, the ups and downs of hockey can be tough by themselves. But to add on the grieving process . . . at times it was really difficult. If I had a tough game, in the morning I felt pretty low. I started to wonder if I should step away from the game for a bit . . . if my heart was still in it.”

  During those tough first few months, Pyatt became good friends with Keith Yandle, the Coyotes star-in-the-making defenceman. They would hang out, go to dinner, and when Pyatt was ready, talk.

  “He's a quiet guy, and I didn't really know what was going on inside him. But once he got comfortable, sometimes he'd want to talk about it, and so I'd just listen. That's all you can do is be there to listen.

  “I think it helped him. He started to come out of his shell. He likes to laugh, joke around. It's great to see. I'm engaged right now and I couldn't imagine what happened to him happening to me. He's a really strong kid, and a great guy.”

  As the season wore on, and the Coyotes started winning, hockey started to matter again to Pyatt.

  “It was hard early,” says Maloney. “The holidays were really hard for him. He sat out some games when he wasn't as good as he needed to be. But, the last month he's been terrific. When he's focused, he's an unstoppable force.”

  It's been a year now. And Taylor Pyatt is healing. Slowly.

  “There was no one day that I was suddenly ready to move on,” says Pyatt. “It just comes and goes, and you learn to live with it. I still struggle every day. I still think about Carly every day. But I'm not as emotional as I was. I can smile and laugh about the good times we had. I love playing hockey, and I'm excited about this team and its chances. I'm looking forward to getting that happiness and joy back in my life.”

  • • •

  Postscript: Pyatt played inspired hockey down the stretch and in the playoffs for Phoenix, but his Coyotes were eliminated in the first round in seven games by Detroit. He re-signed with the team and had a terrific 2010-2011 season.

  Chapter 24

  Hockey's Great Recession

  February 2008

  It is hockey's secret crisis. A subject few NHL players want to discuss publicly, but many fret about privately.

  They try to hide it. Cover it up. But if they have it, they know that eventually they will be found out.

  No, not HGH, silly. MPB! Male Pattern Baldness.

  In today's NHL, the feathers are flying faster than the fists.

  Twenty-one-year-olds are already looking like Messier. And I'm not talking about their leadership abilities. Many young hockey heads are in the midst of a full-scale recession.

  I'm not going to name names. This isn't the Mitchell Report. I don't foresee any Congressional Hearings on this matter.

  Indiana Congressman Dan Burton: “We have sworn affidavits that you were wearing a ball cap at the team party in the summer of 2006? What were you hiding?

  Balding Player: “Uhh. . . nothing, sir. It was sunny out.”

  Congressman: “Lies! The party was inside! There was no need for cranial protection! Show us the top of your head, son! Showwww Ussssss!”

  Besides, you watch SportsCenter. You see the post-game interviews. You can tell which scalps are playing shorthanded.

  Sure, a percentage of all young men lose their locks early. But this is an epidemic.

  “The numbers [of balding hockey players] must be way above the norm,” says player agent JP Barry, himself a proud card-carrying member of the hair-impaired.

  “There really are a lot of balding guys in hockey,” says Ottawa native Matthew Barnaby, a hair and teeth guy now for TSN and ESPN. “At least most of them now just shave their heads because there were a few guys who got those plugs, and it wasn't pretty.”

  It could be some freakish statistical anomaly, something hereditary in hockey's collective lineage. Or (cue the 60 Minutes clock-ticking soundtrack), it could be something more sinister.

  After a lengthy in-depth investigation (I made a few calls from my couch while eating Doritos), I have learned that many players believe the cause of their follicle frustrations lies. . . in their helmets.

  “I've definitely heard that complaint in the dressing room,” says one NHLer, whose scalp happens to be fully stocked. “We have one third-year guy who has lost a ton just since he came into the league. He was bitching to his equipment rep about the helmets.”

  The belief is that somehow the foam interior of the helmets, there to protect players from head injuries, is literally rubbing their hair away.

  “The issue hasn't been raised with me,” says NHL Player Association Executive Director Paul Kelly, who wears his full head of hair in the trendy “Retro-Glen Sather” style. “That's because they either are a little embarrassed to raise such an issue, or believe—as I do—that bald ain't so bad! Maybe we can consider asking the guys to wear full head bubbles like in the movie Apollo 13 and lay to rest the baldness and visor issue in one swoop.”

  (This is why I like Paul Kelly. You just didn't get that kind of material from Saskin or Goodenow.)

  My extensive research on the subject (one Google search) led me to Dr. Robert M. Bernstein, a clinical professor of dermatology at Columbia University and the founder of the Bernstein Center for Hair Restoration in New York. He is also a
past winner of the “Platinum Follicle Award.” The knowledge that this award exists will provide me endless amusement for years to come. The Platinum Follicle Award is the Hart Trophy of the hair-loss world.

  I asked Dr. Bernstein about the possibility of hockey helmets causing baldness.

  “No chance. There have been rare cases of traction causing hair loss but that does not involve a normal pattern of baldness and it is usually around the temples and sideburn area. If the players have typical male pattern baldness, it is definitely genetic.”

  Still, Gary Bettman may want to consider hiring Sy Sperling as a special assistant. Something has to be done. Our game may not be able to survive another Al Iafrate balding mullet—the dreaded “Skullet”—or Rob Brown, who seemed to have. . . how do I put this. . . a very solid forward line, but no D.

  Look, I'm hardly one to mock the coifs of others. After all, my old CFL on TSN pal Matt Dunigan used to tell me I looked like I combed my hair with a rock. But if indeed more young players are losing their lids, it is a true tragedy. “Hockey hair” is one of the great traditions of our game.

  Where have you gone, Ron Duguay? A (hockey) nation turns its lonely eyes to you. Ooh, ooh, ooh.

  There is some historical irony in all of this. In the 1940s, Boston Bruin Johnny Crawford became one of the first players to wear a leather helmet regularly in the NHL. He didn't do it for protection.

  He did it to cover up his bald head.

  • • •

  Postscript: This investigative report was somehow overlooked when they handed out the Pulitzers. Robbed again. Meanwhile, the king of hockey hair, Ron Duguay, did return to the spotlight in 2009, on Battle of the Blades, a show that pairs figure skaters with ex-hockey players. He lost, but his hair remains formidable. It is a national treasure.

  Chapter 25

  Big Fish on the Frozen Pond

  June 2008

  There is a wonderful scene at the end of Big Fish, a movie that makes me bawl like Dick Vermeil, where the son rushes his dying father to a river. When he gets there, the father finds all the people who mattered in his life waiting by the riverbank, applauding. (He then dives into the water and turns into a fish, just so you're clear we're not talking documentary here.)

  This is what the NHL Draft reminds me of.

  Except unlike Albert Finney's dreamy death scene, Friday night was only the beginning for these gifted 18-year-olds. The draft is really a celebration of the people who helped them get this far.

  “Having everyone here to watch is what makes it special,” first overall pick Steven Stamkos says. “Your family, your coaches, your friends, I think it's a moment where they all realize the influence they've had on your life. That they've been a big part of your success.”

  Stamkos had a group of 60 on hand: Mom, Dad, sis, aunts, uncles, cousins, coaches. And, of course, buds: Adam, Justin, Kyle, Mark, Bobby, another Adam. . . there were more, but my hand got tired of writing. Stamkos wanted them mentioned, because, he says, it's their day, too. (To say this kid “gets it” is an understatement.)

  And he's right. It is their day, too. The seats at Scotiabank Place were full of the main characters in the screenplay of these kids' lives.

  Moms and dads who tied skates in the freezing cold for those 5:30 a.m. practices. Older brothers who fired shots in the basement until little bro's body looked like a week-old pear. Younger sisters who had to miss the Hilary Duff concert to go to some tournament in Buffalo. That peewee coach with the funny moustache who kept telling you you'd never make it if you didn't backcheck. And those buddies from grade school who liked you way before you made Bob McKenzie's blog.

  There were about 1,300 tickets allotted for families and friends at this draft. There were more than 3,000 requests.

  Friday's first round was like one big episode of Entourage, except instead of Turtle, Drama and E, it was Grandpa Ernie, Coach Pete and Aunt Mildred.

  Second overall pick Drew Doughty had almost 50 in his group, including his grandparents Marie and Edward.

  “Our family didn't have a lot of money when I was growing up, so they'd always help pay for things and give me rides. It meant everything to me.”

  Toronto's blue-chip blueliner Luke Schenn had a group of about 25 cheering him on, including Barry and Ingrid Davidson, his junior hockey billet family in Kelowna.

  “They've been like a second set of parents to me. There was no way they were going to miss it,” Schenn says.

  Cody Hodgson, who went 10th overall to Vancouver, had a slew of past coaches who impacted his life, including Paul Titanic (who had a bunch of first-rounders to clap for), Tyler Cragg and even Jim Winn, who coached him at the impressionable age of. . . four.

  “He taught me to give and go with the puck. I never forgot it,” Hodgson says with a smile.

  And then there's likely the smallest posse of all. Fifth overall selection Nikita Filatov had only his parents, Helen and Slava, with him from Russia.

  “I owe everything to my Mom,” Filatov says, in excellent English, which his mother has been teaching him since he was four. “Everything I have accomplished, it is all because of her.”

  “He is such a good boy,” Helen says proudly, eyes moistening. “This is the moment he has worked for all his life.” (Aside: Helen also wanted the hockey world to know that Elton John messed up with his song “Nikita.” Nikita is not a girl's name in Russia. Boys only. It drives her nuts when she hears the tune. Safe to say Elton is not on any Filatov iPods.)

  Alas, not everyone made it to watch his or her Big Fish make the jump. Colin Wilson's roommate Vic from Boston University was going to come. That is, until Colin got locked out of the dorm in his underwear at 5 a.m. Thursday while trying to move some stuff to his car. He had to throw rocks at the window to get let back in. When the alarm went off a couple of hours later, Vic wasn't budging.

  “Sorry, dude,” he said. “I'll watch it on TV.”

  • • •

  Postscript: The NHL Draft remains my favourite event, every season. The only difficult part is watching kids who expect to go in the first round drop lower. Landon Ferraro, the son of my TSN colleague, former NHL star Ray Ferraro, desperately hoped to be a first-rounder at the 2009 Draft in Montreal. He was sitting just a section up from the stage where we were broadcasting. As name after name was called, I would glance up and see the increasing anxiety painted on his face. When the 30th and last name was called that night, he bolted from the arena in seconds. “That was a really hard night,” Ray would tell me later. But the next morning, Ferraro's name was the second one called, 32nd overall by the Detroit Red Wings. All the disappointment of the night before was gone in a heartbeat. “He didn't take off that Red Wings hat for three days,” says Ray.

  Chapter 26

  Torture Tunnel

  November 2009

  I have a new least favourite acronym. Leaping past PMS into top spot: MRI.

  You know the term. You hear us use it all the time.

  “Sidney Crosby will have an MRI Friday. . .”

  “Chris Bosh still awaiting the results of his MRI. . .”

  “The MRI revealed a tear in his left buttock.”

  Well, if you don't know what MRI stands for, I'm here to tell you. It stands for. . . DEATH TRAP! HELL HOLE! TORTURE CHAMBER! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!

  Oh sure, the medical community will tell you it stands for “Magnetic Resonance Imaging.” Whatever. More like “Most Revolting Incident”. . . of my adult life. I just had my first, and last—no matter what I do to my body from here on in—MRI. *Note: Yes, this is one of those first-person accounts, and usually I hate first-person accounts by columnists. Unless it's titled “My Wild Weekend of Hot Monkey Love with Heidi Klum,” you could probably care less. But THIS. . . you need to know. If you are. . .

  Claustrophobic

  A wuss

  Both (see: Me)

  Do not do this! Just have the darn surgery. Or be content with the use of one arm.

  I had to get MRI'd as a
result of a tragic tubing accident at my cottage last summer. (Hey, did you know that if you flip a tube at 30 miles an hour and don't let go. . . eventually it will flip back up? Of course, your arms will now be longer than Sasquatch's, and you'll never be able to lift a fork again, but it's still pretty cool.) Anyway, I shredded some shoulder ligament, or cartilage, or muscle, or something. And after X-rays revealed nothing, the orthopedic sadist, sorry, surgeon recommended the MRI.

  This was not a concern. I'd had surgery before. I've dislocated shoulders and torn knees. Not to mention my pectoral implants. I could surely handle some puny medical test.

  Or not.

  I'll skip the boring science part (mainly because I don't understand it). All you really need to know is that an MRI is a giant magnetic cylinder, a couple of metres high, a couple of metres wide, and maybe three metres long, with a round hole in the middle where your body fits in. So, basically a giant coffin. Somehow, it's able to take 3-D images of your tissue. (NOTE: Lower body MRI's are no problem, as you get to keep your head out of the machine. It's the upper-body injuries where you get the pleasurable buried-alive experience.)

  I'd heard the wait was several months' long. I wish. It only took six weeks before I was outside the death chamber at a Toronto hospital, being prepped by some guy named Ken, the MRI Grim Reaper.

  “Ever work with metal. . . welding, etc?” Ken asks. Yes, I was a welder, Ken, but my real passion was dancing. “He's a maniac! Maniac. . . On the floor. . .and he's dancing like he's never danced before. . .” Sorry. Flashdance moment.

  “No, Ken, I've never been a welder. . . But why does it matter?”

  “Because if small particles of metal are in your body, they may be affected by the magnets and. . .”

  And what, Ken? Suck my body into the vortex of the machine, killing me instantly? What if I swallowed a freakin' nickel when I was two, Ken? When you're scraping my innards off the cylinder after the magnets suck it out of my body, are you going to say, “Poor guy, should have told us about the nickel!?!”