And yet, apparently it is…in our contracts. Well, let’s be clear on the term contract. We don’t get a penny in exchange for our talents and services as hockey players. We even have to pay 25 cents for every game. But it was on the Little Toronto Hockey League registration form, written in tiny characters: an “invitation,” more like a command, to go through…a medical exam during the year.
“The league wants to make sure kids don’t suffer heart attacks in the middle of a game,” Coach Grossi explained during a phone call on Friday night.
The medical exam is scheduled for Saturday morning at the hospital. All the players, without exception, must go through it or they’ll be asked to leave the team. Once the exam is done, a doctor will issue a certificate of good health. No certificate, no hockey.
Not knowing what might be in store for me, my parents accompany me to the hospital. At around eight o’clock, dozens of young people are already waiting in a large room. Schedules had been drawn up. From 8:30 to 9:30 a.m., players in our category—eleven and younger—will go through a series of tests to evaluate their physical condition.
The chairman of the league, Earl Graham, is directing traffic. After handing us a form to be filled by a doctor or a nurse, he divides us into groups according to alphabetical order. H for Hoffman, group 2, which also includes two other Tee Pees: Scotty Hynek—oh great!—and the captain, Jim Halliday.
I also recognize Hodge from the Toronto Marlboros in this group. The Marlies are easy to spot; they’re wearing their team jerseys. Hodge looks terrified and is holding his mother’s hand.
My brothers have to go through this too, but later in the afternoon.
“Mom, what are they going to do to us?” I’m worried. My mother glances at my form.
“A complete medical exam…” she reads, emphasizing the word “complete.” She rolls her eyes and whispers a few words in my father’s ear.
“I have a few people to talk to, Ab,” she explains before leaving.
My group is called to another room to begin the tests. I leave my jacket with my father. I’m trying not to worry too much. Standing in line next to me, Scotty is even more nervous than usual.
“This medical exam thing is totally unfair!” He holds out the form and shakes it, “I don’t need a test to tell me whether I’m healthy or not. I know! Why don’t I sign the form myself and get out of here!”
“You’re going to sign it in cursive or print it?”
A man in a white lab coat, with a stethoscope around his neck, tells us to get undressed.
“It doesn’t matter,” continues Scotty, pushing the glasses up his nose. “A doctor’s signature is always just a scribble.”
I don’t listen to him. After a minute, the man’s instruction finally hits Scotty. “What?” he asks, frightened. “We have to be naked?”
He dashes for the exit. “No hockey game is worth me showing my butt to everyone!”
I feel like following him. Except I really like playing hockey!
Jim Halliday, who is…in his underwear, catches up with Scotty. I look away. It’s suddenly very hot in the room. “Nobody will be naked, Scotty,” promises Halliday. “We keep our underwear on.”
No player is more relieved to hear that than me. Not even Scotty, who is now getting undressed. Hodge objects: he wants to keep his Marlboros jersey on. His request is denied.
I try to be discreet so nobody will notice me. I’m the only girl in a roomful of boys wearing nothing but undershirts and underpants. I’m holding my clothes in front of me at waist level, like a screen; my pants are folded in half and fall down to my knees. I can’t let my…difference show.
I have to stay calm. Easier said than done—my heart is pounding. Someone behind me pushes me in the back. I spin around and grab him by the collar of his shirt.
“Keep your distance!”
Scotty pulls my arm. “Come, Hoffman! I don’t want to suffer alone.”
We walk down a cold hallway. There are no windows to the outside, only rooms with open doors. Curious as a cat, I peer into one of the rooms. I see a boy in a wheelchair. He’s only slightly older than me. When he sees me, his face lights up and he waves. I smile and wave back. Suddenly, having to go through a medical exam doesn’t seem like such a big deal. There are worse things in life.
“I hope they won’t keep us for the night,” whispers Scotty. “I didn’t bring my blankie or my teddy bear.”
Coach Grossi is standing by one door. He lets us into a large room in groups of four. His face is red. Tightly squeezed into a three-piece suit, he’s breathing with difficulty.
“And the doctors are worried about us?” remarks Scotty. “They should take a look at the adults.”
I enter the room with Jim Halliday, Scotty, and another player I don’t know. Boys—about ten at a time—are doing different tests. It’s a sort of circuit that starts on the left, stretches along the wall, and continues all the way to the exit. Scotty is directly in front of me. He offers me his place—a suspicious offer that I politely decline.
“What, Hoffman, are you scared?” he says.
With a quick glance, I take in what’s going on. Nothing too complicated, it seems. Only one test has me perplexed. The boys disappear behind a curtain; after I hear them cough, they reappear with a strange look on their faces—a mix of happiness because it’s over, and embarrassment for reasons I don’t understand.
Next to me, a boy hastily gets dressed. He shows everyone his certificate of good health. “I got it! I got it!”
“I’ll give you two dollars for it,” pleads Scotty.
Too late. A plump nurse instructs him to follow her. At the same time, she indicates that I must leave my clothes on a chair. I don’t like that at all. I feel even more vulnerable than when I play hockey without a jock.
“Next!” calls the nurse.
It’s my turn. I hand her my form, which she quickly reads. “Your name is Ab Hoffman, is that it, my boy?”
“Yes, Sir,” I say before realizing my mistake—must be the deep voice and the budding moustache—and correcting it: “Yes, Ma’am…”
“We’re off to a good start,” she grumbles. “I don’t look like a man anymore than you look like a girl.”
Without ceremony, she makes me stand in front of a wall with a height chart. She writes down my height: four feet three inches. Then she tells me to step on a scale. She manipulates the weights until the rod is perfectly balanced.
“You weigh 67 pounds, my boy…”
She shows me where to go next. I join Scotty, who is sitting on a chair, waiting. “I’m three pounds heavier than you, Hoffman,” he gloats.
“It’s because of your glasses!”
Our stops at the next stations go reasonably well. No big deal. People examine our throats and ears, listen to our hearts—mine is beating more regularly now—and lungs, check the reflexes at our elbows and knees. But when we get to the eye test, the situation becomes more complicated…for Scotty.
He comes up with an excuse to let me go first. I read the letters on the eye chart hanging a few feet away from me, from the biggest to the smallest, with both eyes first, then with only the right eye, and finally with only the left eye.
Between my reading sessions, I observe Scotty. He seems terribly anxious; he keeps wiping his hands on his thighs. When his turn comes, he sits on the stool.
“Both eyes,” instructs the attendant in a dull voice.
Scotty reads very slowly, which irritates the adult.
“Can you pick up the pace? We don’t have all day.”
It sounds like he’s reciting a multiplication table, as if he wanted to learn it by heart. Then he covers his right eye with his hand and repeats the exercise, with identical results. But when comes time to cover his left eye, he goes into overdrive. “E-F-P-L-P-E-D-P-E-Z-F-D-E-D-F-C-Z-P-D-E-F-P-O-T-E-C.”
Surprised, the attendant asks him to read again but more slowly. This upsets Scotty. “What do you want? Am I too fast or not fast enough?” he complains with reason. “I passed the test, right, Hoffman?”
He read so fast that I must have missed some letters, but all in all, he can see just fine.
The boys next to us are growing impatient. There aren’t enough chairs for them. This station is experiencing a backlog.
Without waiting for instructions, Scotty covers his…right eye and reads the chart again with disconcerting ease. He’s cheating but the attendant doesn’t notice.
The boys clap, as if trying to chase him from the stool.
“All right,” grumbles the attendant, handing Scotty his form.
Scotty catches up with me at the last station. Ignoring all good manners, he makes me change seats. In doing so, he goes back to his original position, the one he had when we first arrived. Two boys are waiting next to the closed curtain. It’s strange because all of the other tests are happening out in the open.
A slight cough is heard behind the curtain. “Everything is in order,” says a man. The two boys exchange an embarrassed look.
“When you have to cough, you have to cough,” says the next boy in line. The curtain parts on a kid all too happy to get out of there; he’s earned his certificate of good health.
“Good-bye, son!” says the attendant—a mountain of a man—while wrapping a huge arm around the next boy’s shoulders. If he’s not careful, he might break him in two! He leads the boy inside the station and closes the curtain.
“What team do you play for?”
The answer is lost in the questions that Scotty fires to his immediate neighbor. “Cough? Why cough? I don’t have a cold!”
The boy is short of breath, an obvious sign of anxiety. “The doctor makes us cough to make sure we have two…” He swallows with difficulty. “Telling him is not enough. He has to check for himself…with his hand.”
“Two? Two what?” asks Scotty.
Had he said that the Earth was flat, the boy wouldn’t have been more stunned.
“Well…two…you know…” He discreetly points to his lower abdomen.
“Two…”
Oh, no!! I finally get it. The difference…I’m toast! Coughing my lungs out won’t save me! Impossible for me to escape. If I run away, no matter for what reason, I won’t get my certificate.
Another cough…
The curtain parts.
“Next! What team do you play for?”
The only ones left are Scotty and I, sitting on chairs, and three boys standing in line. Scotty feels his arms, his legs, his eyes, his ears, his shoulders…“Two…I have two of everything! Why do I have to be examined behind a curtain?”
He still doesn’t get it. Exasperated, I say: “Under your jock!”
Instinctively, he goes to hit the protective shell. His fist stops in mid-air. “Two,” he repeats, incredulous.
Light coughing is heard beyond the curtains. Scotty starts to shake. What if I run away now? But where? To the bathroom? The boys’ or the girls’? If I don’t get my certificate, there’s no point. A volunteer standing by the door is collecting the forms. He makes sure all the tests have been done, otherwise he sends the player back to the appropriate station. I would have to give up my hockey season. But if my secret is discovered, the outcome will be the same anyway.
I feel my eyes well up with tears. Tears of anger. It’s so unfair! To be a girl in a world of boys is not a disease. I’m in very good shape. And no doctor can tell me otherwise!
Whatever will be, will be, I guess. Doctors are intelligent. They should be able to understand my situation.
Strangely, Scotty seems calmer. “It’s just something unpleasant to get through,” he says to convince himself. “I have to handle this like a man, not like a girl.”
“Next!” calls the doctor as he opens the…
“Aaaaaaah! It’s his turn! It’s Hoffman’s turn!” shouts Scotty, in a panic.
I’m so taken by surprise that I can’t come up with a reply. I can hardly breathe when the doctor wraps his arm around my shoulders.
“What team do you play for?”
In the small area behind the curtains, the only furniture is a chair and a stretcher. “Lie on your back, Ab,” he instructs me while glancing at my form.
I choose to remain standing. I have to explain everything, reveal everything. And quickly, so the boys waiting for their turn won’t become suspicious. I’m convinced that Scotty is hanging around to see my reaction to the exam.
“Doctor, I…I have something to tell you…”
“Oh?” says the doctor. “Something I haven’t heard yet today?”
“Yes…I…”
A voice—a woman’s voice—comes from the other side of the curtain.
“Doctor McMillan?”
“Yes?”
He opens the curtain. A lady with an engaging smile hands him a file. “Your patient, Mr. Oxford, is acting up again. If you wouldn’t mind taking care of him.”
Doctor McMillan sighs.
“And the boys’ tests?” he says, as if he were looking for an excuse to avoid Mr. Oxford.
“I’ll take care of them until you come back.”
It takes me a few seconds to realize my luck.
“Should I finish with this one first?” suggests the doctor, talking about me.
Absolutely not!
The lady’s smile disappears. “YOUR patient threw his food tray in the nurse’s face,” she replies.
The doctor grabs the file from her and exits. I don’t know why but the attitude of this woman doctor makes me want to trust her. She closes the curtains, frowns and looks at my form.
In a pretend authoritative tone, she orders: “Cough, Ab Hoffman!”
Do I need to say that I’m still standing next to her and that she has her arms crossed over her chest?
I happily obey.
She waits a few seconds, her eyes smiling, and declares: “Two! Yes, perfect!”
The doctor, whose name I don’t know, hands me my completed form. She leans toward me and whispers: “I wish you a fabulous season, Abby Hoffman! I’m Dr. Thériault, a friend of your mother…Dorothy is my daughter’s kindergarten teacher.”
I’m overcome with relief! I finally have my certificate of good health, signed by Dr. Thériault.
Before leaving, I try to get my act together. After all, I can’t look like I just won the Stanley Cup! That’s not the kind of reaction this type of test is supposed to trigger. I try not to smile. The doctor winks at me, and then puts on a stern expression. She opens the curtain.
“Next!” she says to Scotty. The presence of a woman doctor for this final exam frightens the boys. Scotty rebels:
“No! I want the real doctor!”
Despite the insult, Dr. Thériault doesn’t lose her cool.
“Come on, I’ve tamed wilder beasts than you.”
“Tamed?” Scotty squeaks.
“If you don’t come right away,” threatens Dr. Thériault, “I won’t sign your form and your hockey season will be over.”
“Scotty! Do this…like a man!” I say to encourage him.
Like a prisoner sentenced to death, Scotty goes behind the curtain.
“You want to know which team I play for?” whines Scotty.
“No,” says the doctor as she closes the curtain. “Cough!”
“Atchoo!” Scotty replies.
“Oh! You have a cold,” diagnoses Dr. Thériault. “I just happen to have suppositories for that…”
“Aaaaaaah!”
Chapter 11
Some games in my season will go down in history, at least in my little history, but not necessarily for the right reasons.
If only I could have scored my first goal in a
one-goal win against the hateful Toronto Marlboros on this Saturday, February 11th—my birthday—it would have been perfect.
In my dreams!
The harsh reality is that the Marlies did us no favors. A setback, 4-1. Our only goal was scored by center Russell Turnbull.
It was a difficult game. The Toronto forwards kept getting through our defense. I found myself out of position more than once. But thanks to our goalie, we didn’t have to suffer a more humiliating loss.With only a few minutes left to play, I tried to block a wrist shot from a Marlboros player. The puck hit my left ankle. I let out a yelp and collapsed on the ice. Two teammates had to help me to the bench.
Once in the locker room, my mother showed up. “I don’t think it’s broken, but we should go to the hospital to make sure.”
She helped me take off my other skate and we left for the hospital. My mother was right; my ankle wasn’t broken. But to give myself a chance to fully recover, I had to use crutches for a while.
So that’s my little story.
In the context of hockey, walking on crutches is quite a badge of honor. It’s a little like getting a war injury, but one that doesn’t prevent you from going back to the front. At school, it’s an entirely different story.
How will I explain what happened to my classmates? I don’t want to walk without my crutches; I need to be fully recovered before the weekend so I won’t miss a game. I confess that I consider telling a white lie: I sprained my ankle by slipping on a sheet of ice. This kind of accident happens all the time, especially to older people.
When I arrive at school, in a car no less, I make a huge splash. If Scotty had been around, he would have peed his pants.
Susie Read rushes toward me. “Hey, Abby. What happened to you?”
I quickly tell her the truth before a mob of curious onlookers surrounds us.
“Abby was hit by a puck,” says Susie. So much for slipping on a sheet of ice. Her explanation is met with surprise and disbelief.
“What? You play hockey, Abby Hoffman?” says a boy, with contempt.
“Girls don’t play hockey,” adds another one in the same tone.
Abby's Fabulous Season Page 7