The Day I (Almost) Killed Two Gretzkys Read online

  It was a strange, wonderful scene. There were clusters of people, every hundred feet or so. It looked like a Busker Festival—Must be a guy swallowing fire in the middle of that crowd! Is there a clown juggling chainsaws over there? Nope. They were all watching the same thing. Thousands, all stopped dead in their tracks, as Kim Yu-Na nailed jump after jump.

  Of course, this happened for every hockey game, too.

  When Canada beat Russia in the quarters, playing the best single period we'll ever see any team play, I walked back from the rink, just to soak it all in (when you spent most of the Olympics in a TV studio, you get outside whenever you can).

  I strolled past a guy wearing nothing above his waist except a large red “D” painted on his sizable belly (my best guess is that he'd been separated from his five friends wearing the C, A, N, A and A). He stopped, bear-hugged me, and said, teary-eyed, “This is the greatest night of my life!”

  I was tempted to come back with, “I hope you don't have a wife and kids,” but I didn't want to mess with his moment.

  When Crosby scored to end the Olympics four days later, I instantly thought of my man D. He had a pretty good week.

  Didn't we all.

  Just before the overtime of that gold-medal game, a friend texted me from the Vancouver airport. He had just heard this announcement from a frustrated attendant: “This is once again the last call for flight 241. We are missing 49 passengers!”

  Uhh, I don't think they're coming.

  I'm in the hyperbole business. It's what we do in TV. We're always in a rush to proclaim something “The best game ever!” “The most dramatic ending of all time!” “A once-in-a-lifetime moment!”

  But there is nothing I can say to oversell what happened on the streets of Vancouver for those two weeks. It was. . . magic.

  I was aimlessly cruising YouTube the other day, and started watching videos of people celebrating Crosby's goal, and other Olympic moments, all across the country.

  That was the first time it really kicked in: what we witnessed in Vancouver was also happening in Toronto, Tofino, and Truro.

  I keep wanting to tell people: “Man, you should have been there. You should have felt it!”

  Now I get it. You did.

  • • •

  Postscript: Sylvie wasn't working when I came back to see her two days after she'd bailed me out. I left a 20 and a CTV Olympic hat in a bag for her.

  The people of Vancouver made these Games. Every volunteer, every police officer, every waiter and waitress. . . they could not have been better ambassadors.

  I walked out of the International Broadcast Center with a German writer one day late in the Games. He was overwhelmed by how he'd been treated, “Do you Canadians ever have a bad day?”, he asked.

  Not many, especially in February, 2010.

  Chapter 6

  Paulina and Me

  February 2003

  She was my first true love. Dad actually bought her for me when I was 16. (Editor: What kind of sick freak of a father does this guy have?)

  She was older, sure, but we made it work. We'd spend countless hours together up in my room. (Editor: What is this, American Pie 3? Hey, Stifler! Your Mom's at it again!)

  We'd just stare into each other's eyes. And then, after a few weeks, I'd put her down in the basement and wait until next year when we'd fall in love all over again. (Editor: OK, wacko, who are you, Buffalo Bill? Call Agent Starling!)

  Paulina Porizkova and I were destined to be together forever. (Editor: Oh, I see. This is Fantasy Penthouse Forum.)

  She took me to beaches around the world, always wearing that seductive smile (and a lace-and-lycra bikini from Calvin Klein – $72).

  But then I found the letters. It seems others were loving her, too. Gary in Milwaukee. Bob in Akron. Phil in Boulder. On and on it went. Each professing their undying love for my girl.

  Bastards.

  So it ended. She married that guy from The Cars (for all you kids, that was my generation's Kate Hudson and the guy from the Black Crows—it still makes no sense at all). And I moved on.

  To Elle. And Kathy. And Heidi. And Elsa. And Yamila.

  • • •

  It's been 20 years since I got my first Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue in the mail. Still have it. Cheryl Tiegs is on the cover, white frilly suit drenched beneath a Jamaican waterfall. That day, as other teenage boys dreamt of becoming hockey and football players, I dreamt of becoming a Jamaican waterfall.

  “Sizzling Cheryl Tiegs Beats the Heat,” reads the caption. Not that anyone ever reads the caption.

  Cheryl and I flirted, but I got serious only with Paulina. She graced the cover in 1984 (“Here Comes the Sun. . . Paulina Is in the Pink in Aruba”. . . a must-read) and 1985 (“Shaping Up Down Under. . . Paulina at Australia's Shark Bay”. . . a classic literary piece). I was smitten.

  Forget December 25th; for a teenage boy, Christmas always came in late February.

  An issue of Playboy, you had to sneak a peak at when the clerk at the Mac's Milk wasn't looking, but the SI Swimsuit Issue was acceptable reading material in our house. The only catch was getting to the mailbox before Dad. Or you might not get to read it until mid-April.

  Sometimes you never got it. I would estimate that in the two decades I've subscribed to SI, I have not received the Swimsuit Issue roughly half the time. Since, to my best recollection, no other regular issue has ever been lost, I can only conclude that Posties dig Paulina, too. It's a wonder the Victoria's Secret Catalogue makes it through the system.

  I dug through the dusty old boxes of SIs in my basement and found nine Swimsuit Issues, ranging from Waterfall Cheryl in '83 to “Yamila Sizzles in Mexico” in '02. Funny how they're in much worse condition than the regular issues, all torn and dog-eared.

  Lately, every magazine seems to be on the swimsuit edition kick. National Geographic even has one. What's next? TIME – The Swimsuit Edition: The Women of Saddam?

  I'll always be faithful to SI. Even if Paulina wasn't faithful to me.

  This year's issue is due to arrive any day. If it gets by the Posties.

  • • •

  Postscript: Last year, my Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue went missing again. I was cursing the Posties, when my wife informed me that my son had picked up the mail a couple of days that week. I found it under his bed. I've never been more proud of him.

  Chapter 7

  The Day I (Almost) Killed two Gretzkys

  June 2008

  The first Gretzky I nearly killed was Wayne. Followed shortly thereafter by Walter.

  That would have been some legacy: “Hey, it's the guy who took out Canada's greatest sports hero and its most beloved father in the same round of golf!”

  I did it within two holes, too. I'm streaky that way.

  The Great One was playing ahead of us in a practice round before his inaugural Wayne Gretzky Classic in Blue Mountain, north of Toronto. I figured it was safe to hit, with his group walking off the green on a par five, and me 230 yards back in the fairway. For I am to golf what Ray Emery is to punctuality. But just as a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while, hackers occasionally connect, and suddenly my ball was flying right at 99 (in my panicked mind, it was specifically on a beeline for the left frontal lobe of his brain, likely meaning instant death). I'm not sure how long the ball was in the air, probably about five seconds (which is 4.9 seconds longer than the majority of my three-wood worm-burners), but it felt more like five months. I believe this was the precise order of my brain transmissions:

  1. “Sweet. . . I crushed that!”

  2. “Huh, that's sorta heading towards that guy in the red shirt.”

  3. “Wait, that guy in the red shirt is Gretz!”

  4. “Oh crap, now it's going right at him.”

  5. “Well, I certainly enjoyed my career while it lasted.”

  6. “How fast can I get to Mexico?”

  In what remains, without question, the greatest break of my life (and a predictable br
eak in my golfing life), the ball hit just under the lip of the greenside bunker (and buried, of course), two feet short of The Great One. Since I didn't yell “fore,” as fear had made me temporarily catatonic, Gretzky didn't see it coming. He must have heard the “Pfffff!” of ball meeting sand, as he stopped, and looked back briefly, likely screwing my next year's invitation.

  For the record, I took two shots to get out of the sand, three-putted, and made seven. Happiest double ever. Sure beats prison, or being stoned to death by a nation of grieving hockey fans.

  Walter's near-DBD (Death-by-Duthie) experience came one hole later. This particular manslaughter, I probably would have been acquitted of, because Walter almost gets killed on every hole.

  You see, Walter wanders. He is the single nicest man on the planet, so he crosses tee-boxes and fairways constantly to talk to, sing to, dance with and sign autographs for, every single fan and volunteer on the course. He also likes looking for golf balls, which means if you are preparing to tee-off across a ravine, Walter is probably already in it, with a pocketful of Nikes and Titleists.

  Canada's First Father was playing in our foursome, though it was sometimes hard to tell. The phrase “Where's Walter?” was uttered roughly 436 times in a five-hour round, roughly equalling the number of strokes taken by our group (my way of taking a shot at Gino Reda, without mentioning him. Oh wait. Oops.)

  I was midway through a downswing when Walter's head popped above the tall grass about 20 yards in front of me, like a fox in a meadow. I made a Tiger-like mid-swing stop (the first and only time “Tiger-like” will ever be used as an adjective to describe my game, by the way), and Walter, thankfully, lived to sing and dance another day.

  In reality, he would have been in much graver danger if he were in the woods 50 yards to the left of the fairway. Straight ahead is pretty safe territory when I'm swinging.

  Just ask Fran Quinn or Brian Smock, the two amiable tour pros who were in my group (along with former NHLer Todd Harvey, one of the great characters in the game) for the first two rounds of the tournament. Quinn and Smock deserve PGA Tour Cards just for getting through 36 without breaking into giggles watching my bunker shots.

  That's right, 36. This is no one-day corporate scramble, where you ride around on carts drinking Peach Schnapps. This is the real deal, a Nationwide (one step below the PGA) Tour Event. This is Canada's version of the Pebble Beach Pro-Am, except instead of Bill Murray and Ray Romano, you have Alan Thicke and the dude from Glass Tiger (God love our country!).

  I really have no business being here. I'm guessing I was called only after Anne Murray, Ben Mulroney and the entire cast of Degrassi cancelled.

  But it's some fun. There aren't many places you can have a beer with Brett Hull, Damon Allen and Charles Barkley (his presence guarantees you will never have the ugliest swing in the tournament).

  It's like an episode of The Sports Surreal Life. Where else would you find your daughter playing tag with John Elway by the elevator? Or where your eight-year-old son can come running into your hotel room yelling: “Dad, today I saw Wayne Gretzky. . . and two frogs!”

  I'm not sure which he thought was cooler. Give him a couple more years and he'll figure it out. For The Great One is amazing to watch at an event like this. He hosts the same way he played: brilliantly. He makes every sponsor, every golfer, every fan feel like he's having them over to his place for a barbecue. He must have signed 10,000 autographs here this week, including multiples for the professional “seekers” who stalk him everywhere he goes. They likely had their signed jerseys on eBay within an hour. But when Wayne's the host, he won't say no to anyone.

  Good thing I didn't kill him. Or any other member of the gallery who put his life at risk by standing somewhere between me and the hole, no matter how obscure the angle. That was really my only goal for the tournament.

  I missed the cut in the Pro-Am. Tough break for me. Good break for all members of the Gretzky family (Janet, Paulina and Ty were also playing) who may have gotten in my way.

  • • •

  Postscript: Somehow, Wayne did invite me back to his tournament the next year. It probably helped that when I saw him at the party the night after I almost murdered him, I said: “Sorry about Gino almost hitting you on that one hole. I told him not to hit yet. . . but that guy just doesn't listen.”

  Chapter 8

  Hell (Goalie) Week

  March 2005

  There are a few things all hockey parents desire for their kids:

  1. That they have fun.

  2. That they learn about character and teamwork.

  3. That they go in the first round, get max entry-level money and buy their folks a retirement cottage in Muskoka. (Relax, silly, you know I'm kidding. The Hamptons would be fine, too.)

  And most important of all. . .

  4. That they don't want to play goalie.

  The most painful part of my brief two-season career as a hockey parent has been, without question, Goalie Week.

  For the non-puckheads out there, house league teams in the younger age groups usually rotate the goalie each game, so every kid on the team gets a crack. I believe the LA Kings did the same thing this year.

  Some kids love it and beg for the blocker and trapper for their birthday. Others will wish they had signed up for that crafts class at the library where you make caterpillars out of egg cartons.

  Like my boy. This is his second year of hockey. He likes it, but still spends half his shifts trying to get the puck, and the other half counting the fluorescent lights on the ceiling. You know, kind of like Alexei Yashin.

  But when I told him it was his Goalie Week, he looked like he'd just found out Scooby-Doo had been killed off in the season finale (probably got into Shaggy's stash and OD'd).

  The kid was stressed. You see, his inaugural Goalie Week last year didn't go so well.

  First, he could barely move in the equipment. Strapping pads to a 3-foot-7, 48-pound frame is like putting steel-toed boots on a pigeon. When he went down, there was no getting up. Some goalies play the butterfly. My boy played the possum. Plus, he didn't exactly have Pronger and Niedermayer in front of him. His team's Goals Against Average was 1.83. Oops, sorry, misplaced the decimal. I meant 18.3. They did lead the league in one category. Snow angels.

  I think it ended 21–6 for the Red Team over our Blue Team (the Red team really loaded up at the trade deadline). My boy's save percentage was roughly .247, which I believe puts him just ahead of Jose Theodore.

  There were a few moments of greatness. The possum technique can be effective on five-year-olds who can't raise the puck. And most Edmonton Oilers.

  For months after that game, he had war-vet-type flashbacks, waking up in the night screaming: “Help!! Black rubber coming from all directions! Make it stop! Mommmmyyyyy!!!!”

  So when his number came up this year, he immediately started sobbing and shaking violently. OK, that was me. But he wasn't happy either.

  Now, if this was one of those heartwarming ABC After School Specials, my boy would overcome his fears, make the game-saving stop in the final second, proudly declare that he now wants to be a goalie, and teach us all a valuable lesson about perseverance.

  Ah. . . sorry. This time they lost 17-12, and as he walked past me coming off the ice, he made one of the most poignant, determined statements I'd ever heard him utter.

  “Never again.”

  Is it wrong for me to say I hope he's right?

  I now have the greatest admiration (or pity. . . it's a fine line) for parents of full-time goalies. And I thank the Lord (Stanley) above it will never be me. Goalies have the most pressure, and usually get the least exercise. And when they do succeed, they get jumped on by 15 other kids, and end up with a broken collarbone.

  Plus, the equipment bag is roughly the size of the Grinch's sack after he cleans out Whoville. Seriously, this should be an event in the World's Strongest Man. Forget pulling the truck, boys, try getting from the parking lot to the dressing room with that suck
er over your shoulder.

  Goalie Week, I have concluded, is the hockey parent's equivalent of hazing. Trust me, when it's over, you feel like you've been shaved, tarred, feathered and taped to the net naked.

  The other day, I bought him some hockey cards and he somehow got Brodeur and Luongo in the same pack with a bunch of no-name forwards. Pretty cool.

  He kept the forwards. And gave the goalie cards to his little sister.

  • • •

  Postscript: My son is 11 now, and a forward on his Peewee rep team. He never played goalie again. Childhood scars are eternal. (And for that, I am truly grateful.)

  Chapter 9

  You Wanna Piece of Me!?!

  April 2001

  Time to indulge in a male fantasy. Sorry, this one does not involve Jennifer Lopez and a jar of Skippy.

  It's another kind. One of those inane, sophomoric trains of thought that makes us proud to be male.

  Warning: this is strictly for the high-testosterone crowd. That, of course, includes most men and the Chinese women's swim team.

  From the gender that brought you “So, How Much Ya Bench?” we proudly present “So, Who Could Ya Take?”

  It's simple really. Just like us. Name an athlete you think you could pummel. Our inspiration is Philadelphia's new hero Chris Falcone, the Cheesesteak who tried to go at it with Tie Domi in the penalty box. In Philly, that's Purple Heart material. He'll likely get a statue right next to Rocky's.

  Sure he's a cement-head (he actually is a concrete worker, and I've heard it does tend to get in your ear), but he does have guts (even though on that night I suspect they were heavily coated with Bud). And maybe in this age when the relationship between Pro Jock and Joe Fan is more bitter than sweet, that Philly Fanatic was just acting out a new kind of fantasy. We used to dream about going one on one with Curtis Joseph. The WWF Generation dreams about going one on one with Matthew Barnaby. In a cage match.