The Day I (Almost) Killed Two Gretzkys

by James Duthie

  (I didn't actually ask that. It was more of an editorial comment.)

  Wow. Very revealing. Unfortunately, that's it. The NHLPA survey is only four questions long. (Hockey players have short attention spans. Any more than four questions would require a protein shake and a rubdown.) To get a more detailed look at players' attitudes and beliefs, we added some bonus questions. . .

  Which idea do you support to increase scoring in the NHL?

  Bigger nets: 23%

  Smaller goalie equipment: 26%

  Drugging and kidnapping Roberto Luongo: 51%

  Who or what is to blame for the current financial woes of many NHL teams?

  Gary Bettman: 37%

  The US economic crisis: 49%

  Jason Spezza: 14% (Hey, he gets blamed for everything in Ottawa. Might as well call him out on this one, too!)

  What is your biggest concern about playing in non-traditional hockey markets?

  Less revenues means lower salary cap: 19%

  Endorsement opportunities reduced: 15%

  Hot girls in Nashville bars have no idea who I am: 66%

  Would you approve of a shorter 72-game schedule?

  Yes: 14%

  No: 13%

  Can we still get paid for 82?: 73%

  Have you, at any point in your NHL career, dated Elisha Cuthbert?

  Yes: 32%

  No: 7 %

  Hope to: 61%

  • • •

  Postscript: I thought the survey was a great idea (especially my questions). But it didn't help Paul Kelly. He was fired by the NHLPA in a very controversial move at the end of August 2009. Healy resigned a few days later.

  Chapter 67

  Total (Lack of) Recall

  December 2003

  This is the time of the year to reflect on the events of the past year in sport. Or so my newspaper tells me. So here goes.

  Umm.

  Ahhhh.

  Hmm.

  I got nothin'.

  Wait! Mike Weir. The Masters! I remember that! And Jesse Palmer got a start for the Giants! Of course, that was an hour ago. The rest is pretty much a blur.

  Truth is, I've become Guy Pearce in Memento. I'm Matt Damon in The Bourne Identity. I'm Dory the Fish in Finding Nemo. Sports moments happen. Sports moments are forgotten. Usually instantaneously.

  When my Sports Illustrated arrived this week with Tim Duncan and David Robinson on the cover, hailed as Sportsmen of The Year, my immediate reaction was, “What did they do?” Followed shortly thereafter by, “Oh yeah, they won. . . I think.”

  You see, I have not a single recollection of the NBA Final. I think they might have played the Nets because the Nets always win the East and then play bug-meets-windshield in the Final, but the rest is blank. Nothing but colour bars on the plasma screen in my brain. In fact, I don't remember any moment from any NBA Final since Michael beat the Jazz.

  And I watched them all.

  It's hardly just hoops. My entire sports memory is fading faster than the Dolphins.

  There was a time when I could take you batter by batter through the '92 World Series. Now, I remember about as much of the '90s as Robert Downey Jr.

  My theory is when you hit a certain age. . . say 30. . . your brain is full. And from that day on, every time you save a new memory, another falls out the opposite ear, never to be retrieved.

  When my beautiful baby daughter was born this summer, I believe I lost the entire second half of the '81 Superbowl. My son just skated for the first time. It was magical. There goes Leonard vs. Duran (1 and 2).

  I suppose, in theory, it could work the other way, too. If Canada wins gold at the World Juniors this year, maybe I'll forget making out with Alison White behind the portable after Grade 8 grad.

  With apologies to Marc-Andre Fleury and the gang, that would be a shame.

  Alison aside, I've also become useless when it comes to recalling dates. My buddy Rod Smith (TSN SportsCenter anchor, not Denver Bronco receiver. . . although I'm extremely tight with both) is an encyclopedia. Ask him about the 1976 AFC Divisional Semi-Final, and he'll give you the stats, starting lineups and who sang the anthem.

  I'm having trouble remembering what AFC stands for.

  And it's getting worse. The other night as I got home from work, my neighbour asked me who won the game we aired that night. About 10 seconds of awkward silence followed, as I scanned my shrinking brain searching not only for the score, but for the two teams involved in the telecast I'd completed a half-hour earlier.

  “You did the Rangers-Habs game, didn't you?” he finally offered, with a partly puzzled, partly sympathetic, partly “What's the matter with you, freak?” look.

  “Yeah. . . That's right! Uhhh. . . The Habs won! I think.”

  I would love to attribute all this to the fact I have a new baby, plus two other tykes who apparently believe they are nocturnal, and thus most days look and feel like I spent the last six months with Saddam in his spider-hole.

  But it's more than that.

  Maybe I've lost some of my passion. Maybe because of all the money and egos, sports just isn't what it used to be for any of us. Or maybe I'm about as bright as a Hilton sister.

  Anyway, if, by chance, I somehow impress you in a future column by pulling out some obscure reference to a past sporting event, you'll know what part of my memory it came from.

  Google.

  • • •

  Postscript: This column is the EXACT reason I wrote this book. So when future emailers ask me some obscure question about a column I wrote in 2006, I can grab the book and look it up, instead of giving my usual response of the last few years: “You sure I wrote that?”

  Chapter 68

  Aaron Freaking Ward

  February 2009

  There is no better story in the NHL this year than the Boston Bruins. Wait, check that. There are no better storIES in the NHL this year. For the Bruins are not a novel, but a collection of feel-good shorts.

  There is Marc Savard, the former most-forgotten superstar in hockey, finally getting his due. There is Phil Kessel, who fought cancer, and doubters, and beat them both. How about Big Z, who has put it all together and seems poised to steal the Lidstrom. . . err. . . Norris Trophy. Or Michael Ryder, from Montreal bust to Boston steal. There's new Boston folk hero Milan Lucic, or perhaps you prefer David Krejci, the “Where the heck did he come from?” kid. And don't forget Tim Thomas, whose life story is a Disney movie-in-waiting.

  And somewhere near the back of the book, around page 290, there is Ottawa boy Aaron Ward.

  Not a very sexy yarn, is it? He rarely makes the SportsCenter highlights. You'd never pick him in your pool. C'mon, with all those other Bruin tales, why would you care about a defenceman who doesn't do anything remotely spectacular on the ice?

  But you have reasons. For one, he went to the same public school as you, and your Mom, a teacher, told you he was a “very interesting, boisterous boy.” This amuses you, but it's still not enough. No, you talk to Aaron Ward because unlike most of the players in this league, Ward actually TALKS. And he does so without spewing a single cliché or ducking a question, which is a rather religious experience in this column business.

  And when a player has three Stanley Cup rings, has been to five finals, was almost destroyed by Scotty Bowman, and once nearly scrapped with teammate Jaromir Jagr on the bench, there is plenty to talk about.

  The basics: Ward grew up in Ottawa's east-end (Manor Park and Blackburn Hamlet). He played for the Gloucester Rangers and Nepean Raiders, but when he was cut from his AA team at 14, the NHL dream wasn't looking so good.

  “I was thinking about quitting, but a coach named Taran Singleton (now video coach with the New Jersey Devils) talked me out of it,” Ward says.

  It wouldn't be the first time he'd consider quitting. He thought about it, oh, just about every second with the Detroit Red Wings, where he broke into the NHL. A certain legend named Scotty Bowman decided Ward would be his whipping boy. And, man, could Scotty whip. In
fact, for years Ward thought his middle name was “freaking” (or a cousin of that word), because all he ever heard was “Aaron Freaking Ward.”

  “Scotty was very effective because he would strike fear in the hearts of his players by using some guys as examples. Most of the time, I was that example,” Ward says. The Scotty stories are plentiful, and sadly, unrepeatable in a newspaper. Except for the odd one.

  “One night in Chicago, I blocked a shot with my mouth and from the lip to the nose, I was gushing blood everywhere. As I headed to the dressing room, Scotty yelled, ‘If you're not back in five, you don't play another shift.’ Our doctor was about 80, so I knew there wasn't a chance that the stitches were going in that fast!”

  Another night in Colorado, Forsberg and Sakic stepped on the ice, and Detroit assistant coach Dave Lewis sent Ward and his partner out.

  “Scotty came running down the bench, yelling ‘Jesus, Dave, are you trying to make us lose the game!?!’ I was halfway across the ice, but I could hear it so clearly, I decided to save my career so I did a 180 and went back to the bench.”

  Ward would leave Detroit with two rings. . . and zero fear.

  “It was a nightmare, and he never relented the whole time I was there. But in retrospect, it was the best thing for me. When I left, I knew no matter what any coach ever did or said to me, it would be child's play in comparison. It made me much tougher.”

  And better. From being a sixth or seventh D-man in Detroit, Ward went to Carolina, where he was on the top pairing for the Canes title run in 2005–06. Stanley was starting to follow Aaron Ward around.

  The only place it lost his trail was New York, where he signed as a free agent in 2006. Ward's pet peeve is me-first players, and he's not good at hiding his disdain. He grew increasingly frustrated with Jaromir Jagr, and one night in Tampa, lost it on the bench, questioning Jagr's work ethic and leadership. Right or wrong, you don't often win dressing room fights with superstars. Ward was traded to Boston at the deadline.

  “The first two or three months here, we weren't very good,” he says of his first season as a Bruin. “In fact, there was nothing redeeming about our team. But that started to change last year. I think Claude [coach, Julien] gave us a system, beat it into us over and over again, so that now we know if we do it right, there's no chance we'll fail.”

  And so here we go again. The kid who got cut from AA, the kid who Scotty almost left curled up in the corner of the room in the fetal position, now has a legitimate chance to become only the fourth player in the expansion era to win Stanley Cups with three different teams.

  Aaron freaking Ward.

  • • •

  Postscript: Ward's Bruins were upset by Carolina in the second round of the playoffs that season. He became a central figure in the series after being sucker-punched by the Hurricanes' Scott Walker, and then ripping Walker and the Canes in a media scrum the next day. Ward, who lives in Raleigh in the off-season, instantly became the most hated man in Carolina. He received death threats, and police stood guard outside his home. Sure enough, he was traded back to Carolina in the summer of 2009 (all is forgotten quickly in pro hockey). Ward was traded again, to Anaheim, at the 2010 trade deadline. He retired after that season, and began a career in broadcasting. Good call.

  Chapter 69

  Bah Humpuck!

  October 2005

  We are a nation of complainers.

  We complain about the weather. “It's too cold!” “It's too hot!” (My otherwise perfect wife—always suck up before you mock—has a window of .6 degrees Celsius where she is content: 23.5 to 24.1. If it hits 24.2, she starts fanning herself and yells at me for not having a pool. If it dips to 23.4, she runs screaming for a sweater.)

  We complain about our jobs. (Like last week, when the makeup artist powdered my forehead a little too firmly and I had to scream at her and make her cry. I bruise very easily.)

  We complain about our family. (Thanksgiving was a prime example. It was the same old song and dance at my folks' place: “Mom, why can't Dad be here?” “We've been through this, James. He's in prison.”)

  But more than anything, we complain about hockey.

  During the lockout, roughly 98 per cent of the emails I received were about how to fix the game. (The other 2 percent were autograph seekers, wanting to know if I could get to Gino Reda. I can't, by the way. He signs only at shows.) Newspaper columnists have made careers out of “What's wrong with hockey” rants.

  But now what? What can we possibly whine about, when the game looks as good as it's ever been?

  Oh, we'll find something. We always do. It's just who we are. So here's a pre-emptive strike. The first “What's Wrong With Hockey” column of the post-lockout NHL era.

  1. TOO MANY GOALS: 5-4? 7-6? 8-3? This bites. In the good ol' pre-lockout days, you never feared missing a goal when you abandoned your recliner midway through the game to, you know. . . make a sandwich. . . put the kids to bed. . . build a deck. Now? You can't take a pee-break without missing three lead changes.

  2. TOO MANY COMEBACKS: Used to be when your team led 2-1 after two periods, you could go to bed early, completely confident in victory. Heck, even the freakin' Capitals were, like, 23-1 when leading after two. And a two-goal lead? Man, a two-goal lead after one and you could flick over and watch the cougars. (No, not Animal Planet, you idiots. Desperate Housewives.) Now. . . 3-1, 5-2. . . Nothing's safe. The Kings blew a 4-0 lead on opening night. 4-0?!? In the old NHL, with a 4-0 lead, guys would be sipping martinis and getting their legs waxed on the bench. Now, you actually have to stick around. . . and watch the whole thing! That's way too time-consuming.

  3. TOO MUCH EXCITEMENT: Remember when you could watch a game while also: paying your bills, writing your thesis, making hot passionate monkey lo. . . I mean. . . uhh. . . cookies. Now, the games demand your full attention. It's a multi-tasking nightmare.

  4. TOO MUCH POTTY MOUTH AND SPITTING: Actually, that really hasn't changed. My Nana just wanted me to put that in.

  In summary, these new rules suck. I long for the glory clutch and grab days of the past. For goalies who looked like Jabba the Hutt. For those 1-1 Minnesota-Carolina classics. Now, that was my NHL.

  Anyway, gotta go. I'm watching Toronto-Ottawa, and the Leafs just scored three in the third to take the lead, only to see the Sens score two to retake the lead, only to have the Leafs tie it and send it to overtime, where both teams missed glorious chances, leading to a shootout featuring some of the most dynamic players in the league.

  Damn game.

  • • •

  Postscript: It's now been six years since the new NHL rules were implemented, and the game is faster and more exciting than it has ever been. But we still complain, we still tinker. And we always will. Because it is hockey, and we are Canadian, and that is just what we do.

  Chapter 70

  Getting a Bad Rep

  November 2007

  As you read this, I'm probably in a rink.

  Doesn't matter when you are reading it: in your jammies Saturday morning, over lunch, before dinner. I'm probably in a rink. Heck, I'm writing this in a rink. I'm at Thursday hockey practice (which follows Tuesday speed skating, Wednesday game, and precedes a Friday, Saturday, Sunday tournament).

  For this year, I have joined the cult known as “Rep Hockey Parent.” Do not fear me. I mean you no harm.

  After two years of house league, my seven-year-old boy is playing his first year of minor novice rep. He's having a ball. So, I'm thrilled for him. And terrified for me.

  I love hockey, but this is nuts.

  House league was Club Med compared to this. One little weeknight practice, one relaxed Saturday morning game and the rest of the weekend was all ours. We'd go to movies, take the kids to the park, do yardwork. OK, I never did yardwork.

  Now? My weekends are like an episode of The Amazing Race.

  “To complete this task, you must get your son to the rink by 8:00, your girls to gymnastics by 9:30, grab the Timbit that will be you
r only meal of the day, get the groceries, pick up all three kids, drop the girls at learn-to-skate and get your boy to his second game by noon. The last parent to arrive will be eliminated.”

  My wife and I have to book our dates six months in advance now. We're going to a movie in March. Might even go for a drink after. We're crazy like that.

  And apparently, we're getting off easy! Our coach is relaxed and. . . sane. He never says boo if we have to miss a practice.

  The next-door neighbour's boy is a 10-year-old AA player. He's on the ice five or six times a week and has nine tournaments before Christmas. All mandatory. Nine!?! That's nine Fridays off school. Nine entire weekends gone. . . Poooofff! Like some David Blaine trick.

  And you parents with two or three kids in rep? I have no comprehension of how you do it. Can you freeze time like that guy on Heroes? Have you mastered teleportation? Did you clone yourselves?

  Look, I enjoy going to the rink as much as anyone. There is nothing like watching your kid finally turn his patented “flick” into an actual wrist shot (I think there are a couple of Leafs who still haven't done that).

  But I'm already wondering how much is too much. So, I called a couple of other dads I know to ask their opinion.

  “Two to three times a week on the ice is plenty,” says Martin, a father of two young boys.

  “And never ever more than four a week, even in rep,” adds Marty, who has two girls. “Let them do other things.”

  Oh, by the way. The last names of those two dads? St. Louis and Turco.

  Yup. Two of the best players in the NHL never played as much kids' hockey as our little ones do today. In fact, almost every player I talk to says the same thing. Our kids are on the ice waaaay too often.