The Day I (Almost) Killed Two Gretzkys

by James Duthie

  An offensive dynamo who scored 12 goals in one seven-game span this season, amazing considering he always preferred being a playmaker.

  A natural athlete who was also a whiz at soccer, football, track and pretty much everything he tried.

  An always-smiling charmer who, even when he tried to boast, couldn't help but turn it into a joke.

  “I'm the best athlete in my school,” he once said. “Then again, my school is really small.”

  A kid who lived and breathed hockey from the second he woke 'til the moment he hit the pillow, exhausted after playing hours a day.

  But here's the rub. This hockey player I'd love to see play again. . . I never saw him play.

  Everything I know about him comes from the stories I've been told over the past week by teammates, coaches, friends and family.

  His name was Nicholas Lambden. Two Sundays ago, he was doing something every one of us who has played outdoor pick-up hockey has done hundreds of times: digging for a puck in the snow. A shot from a nearby game struck him in the head. It was a freak, million-to-one accident.

  And it killed him.

  Nick was 10 years old—10 years old.

  Last Friday, the Guelph Atom AA Junior Storm should have been excitedly preparing for the next round of their playoffs. Instead, they were walking up the aisle of a church, past the coffin with their teammate's No. 12 sweater draped over it, laying their sticks next to Nick's. Later, they'd talk about how happy he'd been after scoring the tying goal late in what would be a thrilling OT win that past Saturday. His last game.

  Nick loved hockey. Loved the Leafs. Worshipped Mats Sundin, Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin. He dreamed of being just like them, of someday being talked about on TSN. Consider it done, Wheels.

  I thank all of his friends for sharing their memories this week. But each new gut-wrenching phone call, each heart-breaking e-mail that pops up in the inbox makes me wish I could have met Nick, and watched him play the game he loved so much.

  And makes me curse the fact I never will.

  • • •

  Postscript: The story about Nick's death was a tiny blurb in my Monday morning paper. Our country is huge, but we like to think our hockey community is small and tight. So I 411ed the family's name and called, feeling Nick deserved more than a one-paragraph wire story. This column provoked an outpouring of sympathy and grief from hockey fans across the country. The following column ran exactly two years later.

  Chapter 35

  Remembering Wheels, Part 2

  February 2009

  The late afternoon was sunny, and crisp, and begging for shinny.

  This is our first winter in a new town, and my nine-year-old boy had been asking me for weeks to find him an outdoor rink. I hadn't, and for that, like Denis Lemieux, I feel shame. Between the boy's rep hockey, his two sisters' dance classes, swimming lessons, Mom's yoga and Dad spending all his nights asking other men in makeup if Lecavalier should be traded, there never seems to be time to find a patch of ice. And just. . . play.

  But last Monday after school, all the Daytimers were magically clear. So when the kid next door came calling, stick and skates in hand, saying there was a dandy, full-size rink at a school just a few blocks away, we were in toques and longjohns at Usain Bolt-speed.

  My boy asked if he should bring his helmet, and I gave him that annoying, fatherly, “What do you think?” stare. He didn't argue.

  Until we got to the rink.

  I was dumbfounded. There must have been 20 kids on the ice, playing two separate games. The youngest was probably eight or nine, the oldest well into his teens. And not a single one was wearing a helmet.

  “See, Dad, why can't I just wear my hat?”

  I'm not sure I even answered. All I could think about was Wheels.

  Nicholas “Wheels” Lambden was a 10-year-old dynamo of a hockey player from Guelph, Ontario. He had blond hair and a wide grin that belonged in a milk commercial. The nickname, of course, came from his speed. No matter what the sport, the boy could fly.

  Two winters ago, Nick was playing shinny on a rink in a park near his house. He was digging a puck out of a snowbank when a shot from a nearby game struck him in the head, and killed him.

  “You have a heartbeat, so you keep living, but I miss him every moment,” says Andrew Lambden, Nick's father, as the family approaches the two-year anniversary of Nick's death. “I see him, hear him, touch him in my imagination. The sadness is completely overwhelming.”

  I had thought of Nick often over the past two years. I still have the black armband one of his teammates handed me after I came to watch them play a few weeks later. And I remember the unspeakable heartbreak in his Mom Susan's voice when I spoke with her the night after his passing. Between the tears, she asked me for one thing: to tell all parents to make sure their kids wear helmets whenever they play hockey.

  That wish became part of the Lambden's focus in keeping Nick's memory alive. They created a foundation in his honor, and have pushed for laws to make helmets mandatory on outdoor rinks. Nick's foundation donated 18-inch-high nets, to help keep shots low, and the City of Guelph legislated that they be the only kind used on the ice in their parks. But mandatory helmets have been a trickier issue in this country.

  “It's unbelievable that many kids still aren't wearing them,” says Andrew Lambden. “My greatest fear is that it will happen to someone else. To think that it is preventable and yet we're doing very little about it is troubling. No one would ever allow their kids to play without a helmet indoors, and yet outdoors we seem to say ‘It's Canada, it's our national pastime, there is ice everywhere, and we can't control it.’”

  “I know why Nick didn't have his on that day,” says Susan Lambden. “It was freezing out, just like today, and he wanted his hat on to keep his ears warm. With Nick's foundation, we've been working on finding liners that work under helmets to keep you warm. That would help. But no matter what, kids just have to put the helmets on. I just wish everyone could understand that. . . everything can change in a split second.”

  We all loved the feeling of skating without the burden of that cumbersome lid. Growing up, we played shinny every night in the backyard of my friend Sylvain's house in Blackburn Hamlet. I don't think we ever wore helmets. Then again, we never wore them riding bikes either.

  Do we overprotect our kids today? Absolutely. But it beats the hell out of the alternative. Ask the Lambdens. Even a million-to-one chance is too big a risk.

  I didn't say anything to the other kids at the rink that afternoon. Didn't want to be the preachy stranger. I just sat my boy down on the snowbank, and reminded him of Nick's story. “I'm almost as old as he was,” was his only response.

  He quietly slipped on the helmet, and asked me to do up the snaps. Then he skated off into the fading afternoon light, with puck and stick, and infinite possibilities.

  • • •

  Postscript: I still receive e-mails from some of Nick's teammates and their parents, saying how much he is missed. Nick's foundation continues to work with various organizations, with the goal of providing opportunities for kids to play sports, in a safe environment. The foundation is currently fundraising to help build a new outdoor rink in front of the new city hall in Guelph.

  Chapter 36

  Hockey's First Youtube Legend

  May 2008

  I believe I'm one of the few humans ever to have a documented meeting with Horn Chen, the Snuffleupagus of sports ownership. No one believed the reclusive former Ottawa Rough Riders proprietor existed until that day, when he made a brief cameo at a fan rally. I pinched him on live TV to prove he wasn't made of wax or computer-generated. It was exciting stuff. I felt like I'd captured a Bigfoot.

  I thought of Chen this week while trying to chase down Fabian Brunnstrom, hockey's yeti. . . Loch Ness Monster. . . live alien. . . take your pick. For the better part of five months, the hockey world has been buzzing about this undrafted late-bloomer, whom no one but a few scouts and Swedish pu
ck bunnies have seen play.

  The mysterious Brunnstrom never answered his cell phone when I tried to reach him this week, though I get so confused with Europe's continental area code, country code, city code. . . Morse code. . . thing. It's quite possible I was dialing a Thai massage parlor in Belgium. Again.

  “I didn't just make him up,” says Brunnstrom's agent, JP Barry, laughing. “He is real. He is a very skilled player with a lot of speed.”

  The only footage out there of Brunnstrom in action is a grainy YouTube video, which has become his own Zapruder film. Here comes the wrist shot. Down and to the left. Down and to the left. It's impressive, though it took me three viewings to figure out which one was Brunnstrom.

  The lack of video evidence on this 22-year-old Swedish Elite Leaguer has only added to the mystery and hype. Nowadays, we are used to knowing everything about our future hockey stars by the time they're shaving. John Tavares highlights started appearing on SportsCenter when he was 14. The World Juniors make most top prospects household names years before they don an NHL sweater. So the potential of an instant, out-of-nowhere, American Idol-ish star has fans in a frenzy. Brunnstrom is the most Googled Swede since Tiger's wife, and he's inspired endless chatter on NHL thread-sites.

  “OMG did you see that move on the video! Nucks plz sign him!”—naslundfan.

  “I'm praying for the Leafs to sign him. Sundin-Steen-Brunnstrom would be sick!”—snipecheeseallday.

  “Give him 10 mill now and the Cup is ours, baby!”—hockeytown4ever.

  So their expectation level for the kid is somewhere between Zetterberg and Jesus. Yes, folks, we have our first Internet-created hockey legend.

  It's all Daniel Alfredsson's fault, really. The fact the Senators superstar also happened to be a late-bloomer from Sweden is enough for the bloghogs to proclaim Brunnstrom “The Next Alfie.” That's what nine goals and 28 assists in 54 games in the Swedish Elite League gets you these days.

  Fabian Fever hit new heights this week when he arrived in North America for a mini-tour of the teams he wants to play for. As many as 20 clubs have inquired about signing Brunnstrom, including Ottawa, though their interest has apparently waned. Vancouver almost had him signed until the Dave Nonis firing. Fabian's Fab Four shortlist now includes Dallas, Detroit, Montreal and Toronto (with Anaheim reportedly trying to make a late push).

  You should have heard the chaos in our control room when they learned he was at the game in Dallas on Wednesday. Our cameras scoured the building, searching for the first (North American Exclusive!) Brunnstrom close-up. When they thought they'd found him, we had to do split-screen with his Internet photos, to make sure it was really him.

  He was accompanied by a gorgeous blonde, which instantly made me wonder if the Stars were going that “extra mile” to sign him. Turns out it was his girlfriend, Sandy Rantzow, who happens to be a European women's karate champion. Let's hope it works out, because that could be a painful breakup.

  The next night in Detroit, TSN's Ryan Rishaug landed the first Brunnstrom one-on-one (somewhere, Oprah is seething). When Ryan asked what type of game Brunnstrom will bring to the NHL, he replied: “I don't know if I'm ready for the NHL.”

  Oops. Clearly he wasn't behind the hype machine. He may want to enrol in the Sean Avery School of Self-Promotion.

  “I think I'm an offensive-type player and I try to skate a lot,” Brunnstrom added, likely realizing his first statement may have cost him a beach house and a Benz. He actually came across as a nice, nervous kid, somewhat overwhelmed by all the attention.

  By all accounts, Brunnstrom is a good NHL prospect. Just how good is where the discussion gets gray. I suppose it's possible he could be the next Daniel Alfredsson. Or he may be the next Magnus Arvedson. Or he may be the most hyped AHLer in history. No one knows for sure.

  It is rather odd that such a dynamic player is eating cheese nachos at NHL playoff games instead of playing for Sweden at the World Hockey Championship, though Swedish hockey politics might have something to do with that. (Word is they aren't fond of Fab-Mania. They prefer the more traditional pay-your-dues path to fame.)

  For now, Brunnstrom remains a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma (apologies to Winston Churchill and Joe Pesci). With his trip to Montreal completed, he'll likely decide sometime soon where he wants to play.

  Parade details to follow shortly thereafter.

  • • •

  Postscript: Brunnstrom would eventually sign a two-year contract with the Dallas Stars, for almost $2.5 million a season. He scored a hat trick in his NHL debut on Oct. 14, 2009, but faded after that. He was traded to Toronto in early 2011, and spent the rest of the season in the minors. The Internet has since become a popular place for prospects to show off their skills, though it hasn't replaced actual scouting. Yet. “And with the 21st pick of the 2014 NHL Draft, Vancouver selects: that dude from Finland who did the cool backhand flip move on YouTube.”

  Chapter 37

  Career Options

  November 2003

  The Boy turned four today. So I figured it was about time to talk about the birds and the bees. Meaning the Eagles and the Bruins. (Plus all the other relevant sporting information a child should know.)

  You see, he hit me with that, “Dad, when I grow up, I want to be a. . .” line.

  But before he could finish, I thought I'd offer up a few helpful suggestions.

  He is only four after all. A child needs guidance.

  “You could grow up to be a hockey player,” I began. “You could make millions of dollars, and date Anna Kournikova. Though she would be a bit of a cougar by then.”

  “I saw a cougar at the zoo, Daddy!”

  “Oh, trust me, they're everywhere, kid. Anyway, let's see. . . draft year 2017. . . Yup, the lockout should be just about over by then.”

  “What's a lockout, Daddy? Isn't that what Mom did to you last week when you went out with the boys, got home three hours late and tripped over the dog?”

  “Uh. . . something like that. OK, how about a basketball player? You could have a Hummer and a shoe deal before you finish high school! But to be an NBA player, son, you have to have a good vertical. And a great lawyer.”

  “Dad, what's a verti. . .”

  “Don't worry about it, buddy. Truth is, I'm barely 5-foot-10. Your Mom is 5-foot-3 in pumps. And neither one of us has much of a crossover, so the Lakers are probably out of the question. The Clippers, on the other hand. . .”

  He was getting fidgety. I hadn't struck a chord yet.

  “Maybe you should be a pro golfer. No height required there! You could wear funky slacks and date Swedish nannies!”

  “Awesome! Can I make the little ball go sideways and hit the lady next to us like you did at the driving range?”

  “Look, kid, I told you. Range balls are inconsistent. And you know I don't like hitting off mats, so back off. Wait! I got it! How about football! You could get a full scholarship to a Top 20 Program, get $1,000 a week allowance from some sleazy booster, and get drafted first overall by Buffa. . . Oh God, No! No! Please don't ever play football, son! I couldn't put you through that Hell. Why don't you focus on baseball?”

  “But, Dad, I can't catch.”

  “You don't need to, son. That's why they have the DH! We'll get you A-Rod money! You can be just like all the sluggers today, buying all sorts of fancy cars, bling and designer. . . uh. . . steroids. OK, maybe that's not such a great idea either.”

  He looked discouraged.

  “Hey, maybe you could be an agent, son. Earn 5 per cent of everything your clients make without ever taking a hit!”

  “Would I still make a lot of money being one of those, Daddy?”

  “As long as Glen Sather is still around.”

  He still didn't look sold.

  “Why don't you become a broadcaster, buddy. Just like Daddy! Broadcasters are the true heroes of sport. They dedicate their lives to bringing the public the games they love, and the information they need. It takes courage, s
trength and integrity. Now that would be a noble profession for you.”

  “A sportscaster! Neat! Do I get a powder puff like you, Daddy? Remember when you cried when you couldn't find yours?”

  “I told you that never leaves this house.”

  Right about then, I figured I should control my inner-psychosportsdad, and try to do the right thing.

  “The truth is, son, you can be whatever you want to be when you grow up, even. . .”

  (Swallowing hard.)

  “. . . if it isn't in sports. Money, women, bling. . . those things aren't important. I'll love you and support you no matter what career path you choose.”

  I put my arm around him, and we sat quietly for a while. Pure Hallmark.

  “So, buddy, what do you want to be when you grow up?”

  He thought about it long and hard.

  “I'm not sure, yet. Either a Transformer or a dinosaur.”

  (Sigh.)

  • • •

  Postscript: He's 11 now, and still contemplating all career options, though I believe he's realized dinosaur is a long shot. And just to be clear, that story about the powder puff: I didn't really cry, OK? I welled up a bit, but there were no tears.

  Chapter 38

  Just (Don't) do It!

  June 2002

  Apologies, Nike. We've had to alter your slogan for the upcoming World Cup of Soccer.

  Seems Italian manager Giovanni Trapattoni has banned his players from, umm. . . geez. . . golly, how do I. . . you know. . . the world's most popular coed sport (here's a hint: it ain't badminton).

  “To achieve certain results, you have to set some rules for yourselves,” says Trapattoni.

  So the only lovin' his players will get is from cheering fans (and each other in the post-goal celebrations, where they often reach third base).