by Ron MacLean
Each year for five years, I attended Brad Richards’ golf event in Prince Edward Island and then scooted over to the Dan Snyder Memorial Golf Tournament. The Snyders used the proceeds to build a new rink in Elmira, and the rest went to a charity, 37 Rising Stars. The Snyders decided on restorative justice, not vengeance.
One year, I had about three hours’ sleep over the four days in PEI and almost missed my flight. Thankfully, my buddies at the Summerside Police Department got me to the airport. I slept on the flight, drove to Oakville to get my clubs and change, drove to Mississauga to pick up auction items from Don Cherry for the Snyder event, then drove two hours to Elmira. We played the event, then I emceed the dinner. Between golf and dinner, I went to Tim Hortons to get a rescue coffee. I was so dog-tired that I recall thinking, “Please don’t let an emergency arise today. I don’t think I’d be able to handle it.”
In John Manasso’s book A Season of Loss, a Lifetime of Forgiveness: The Dan Snyder and Dany Heatley Story, he wrote about how I showed up at the Snyders’ a week before Christmas 2003 to present to them with a Gemini Award (which is kind of like the Canadian Emmy Award) I’d picked up for Best Sports Broadcaster. I knew the visit to Elmira to give them the Gemini wouldn’t bring Dan back, but Dan would have won many more trophies, and it was something I could give them. It was easy to find them—everyone in town knew their address. LuAnn was on the phone when I knocked at their door. They welcomed me in and we chatted awhile. Graham was clearly devastated. He missed his boy and the action at Dan’s games. We talked music a bit. The Snyders love rock. Dan’s brother, Jake, is a huge fan of the Tragically Hip and Pearl Jam. To this day, I keep Dan’s photo on my Hockey Closet wall. Dan Snyder—number 37.
Hockey is such a brotherhood. That message was never delivered more poignantly than on February 5, when we talked to Ottawa Senators assistant coach Luke Richardson, his wife, Stephanie, and their daughter Morgan. They were honouring Luke and Stephanie’s daughter Daron, whose battle with mental illness ended in suicide. It had happened just five months earlier.
February 8 would have been Daron’s fifteenth birthday. On that date, throughout Ottawa’s schools and hockey rinks, Daron’s class and teammates, friends and supporters wore purple, Daron’s favourite colour, to promote awareness of the Richardsons’ new foundation and initiative Do It for Daron. The idea is to encourage talk about the subject, get rid of the stigma and find solutions.
On the second day after Daron succumbed to her illness, Luke came home and Stephanie said, “You better brace yourself.” The family room was jammed with NHL players, both active and alumni.
Paul Coffey had “his chair.” Billy Ranford was literally moving in. Garry Galley was designing arrangements as though practising a breakout. One-time Peterborough Petes defence partner Mike Dagenais took over the phones.
For a long time after Daron died, Luke wouldn’t answer the phone right away, just because he knew there were times he could not speak. He’d play back the message and feel the hug. One frantic afternoon, while running around, he looked at the call display and saw an area code he knew but a number he didn’t recognize. He was going to let the phone take the message, but then for some odd reason he picked up.
This was the first call he’d taken from anyone outside of Stephanie, Morgan or extended family. The call came from a man who had meant the world to him. A guy who had been his first defence partner when Luke broke into the NHL with Toronto. A guy who took him under his wing. The same guy who got behind the wheel of a car when his friend Keith Magnuson was in no shape to drive, even though he’d had a few too many himself. It was a poor decision, and it resulted in Magnuson’s death.
The call came from prison. It was Rob Ramage.
32
METROSEXUALS
I know Grapes is going to read this and say, “Of course you mentioned Brad Richards. He’s your boyfriend.” One of our producers, Kathy Broderick, keeps telling us, “Guys, you can’t call Brad Ron’s boyfriend. It doesn’t sound good.” Well, I do know Brad, and I like him. I also think he’s a helluva hockey player. He won the Conn Smythe and Lady Byng trophies, as well as a Stanley Cup, with Tampa Bay in 2004. A 2008 trade sent him to the Dallas Stars, where he was an offensive force. He became a highly sought-after free agent in the summer of 2011 and signed a big contract with the Rangers. He’s a cool guy. To me, he’s hockey’s answer to Steve McQueen.
But the great story about Brad is how we met. In 2005, during the lockout, CBC Sports producer Mike Dodson and I worked on Movie Night in Canada. Every Saturday night, the CBC ran three movies back to back. We’d go to a small place in Canada, some hockey place like the Red Deer Arena, and do on-the-street interviews with the kids, then throw to the movie. I would say things like, “Here’s Dustin, who plays for the Foothills Junior Pee Wees, and you love movies?”
“Yes.”
“What’s your favourite movie?”
“Big Daddy, with Adam Sandler.”
“This is Warren from the Prince George Cougars. What’s your favourite movie, Warren?” “The Waterboy, starring Adam Sandler.” “Great. And you are?” “Jeffrey.”
“Jeffrey, from the Niagara Junior Purple Eagles. What’s your favourite movie?” “Happy Gilmore, starring …”
“Adam Sandler. I know.” We’d tape these goofy things and go all across the country doing it.
In March 2005, I was in Charlottetown to do a shoot at the University of Prince Edward Island, and we invited two NHLers who lived on the island to join us on Movie Night. They were Grant Marshall and Brad Richards, who both played for Stanley Cup champions. Grant played for New Jersey, Brad played for Tampa Bay. They were to do a quick thirty-to-ninety-second interview. When we were done, Brad asked me, “Where are you going tonight, Ron?”
I said, “I’m going to the Merchantman Pub across from the Delta Hotel.”
“That closes at 11. After you get out of there, you might want to meet us at the St. James’ Gate.”
It sounded good, and so Mike Dodson and I walked into this bistro, and there were these good-looking metrosexuals, all dressed in black. The bartender, Brody, drew in the girls. He is to the St James’ what Grapes is to Coach’s Corner. Brody’s most attractive quality is that he’s unaware of his good looks. Then there was Brad Richards, decked out in Hugo Boss, looking as if he’d stepped off the cover of GQ. His buddy Trevor Birt, a police constable in Summerside, was there too. Trevor turned out to be quiet but deep, the Clint Eastwood of the group. Cory Doucette, the owner of the bar, was Humphrey Bogart sitting in Rick’s Café.
They looked like they’d been dropped in from a scene in New York. I thought, “Nothing about this fits with what I imagined PEI would be.” I was sure we’d be walking into a peanut-shells-on-the-floor, lumberjack-shirt, round-Arborite-tables place.
The St. James’ Gate was a snazzy spot, but it was dead. There wasn’t a soul in there at 10 o’clock except us. But by midnight, it was like Cirque du Soleil. The bar was packed. That’s a very Maritime thing. They drink at home, and then they come out to party. It turned out to be a really fun evening. We shut the place down at about 3 a.m.
The next day, I was scheduled to go to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital for a visit with the spinal cord injury patients. I was honorary chair of the Canadian Paraplegic Association. Bob Egan, Blue Rodeo’s steel guitar player, was involved with the association too. He is a fascinating guy. I had met him at the farm of Jim Cuddy, the lead singer of Blue Rodeo, who hosts an annual Labour Day party near Alliston. Everybody pitches tents and overnights it. The event starts out with games, like swimming and softball and horseshoes. Then there is a nighttime barbecue. Later, the musicians pull out their guitars around the firepit. A couple of years ago, I qualified for a very exclusive club called the Firewalkers. Membership requires that you accidentally fall into the pit.
After the night at the St. James’ Gate with Brad and the boys, I was feeling a little groggy. Brad caught up with me at the hospital visit. He invited
me out to the Sportsman’s, another bar he liked. When Brad and I sit and talk, I usually drink too much and he doesn’t. The Sportsman’s was owned by a guy named Gary Kennedy. Gary’s father, Forbes, played for Boston, Detroit, Edmonton, the Leafs and Philly. He was a real scrappy, gritty guy. He played for Dick Irvin Sr., but he’s most famous for playing for the Leafs in the 1969 game where Pat Quinn elbowed Bobby Orr and knocked him out. There were millions of fights in those days, and Forbes Kennedy from PEI was right in the middle of a bunch of them.
The Sportsman’s is adorned with hockey memorabilia. I just loved it. It was my kind of bar, like The Vat in Red Deer. Just think of your favourite dark, dirty, dusty, dank bar—that’s what I like. Gary was great. They got him out of bed and he came down and met me. We all hit it off.
I found out that Brad’s buddy Trevor goes by the nickname House Cat, because he comes over to your house and never leaves. House Cat is a real thoughtful guy. He sent me a book by Jeanette Walls called The Glass Castle, knowing I would like it. It’s about a drifter who is homeless and raising three kids. Each Christmas, the drifter would take his kids out and show them the night sky, then ask them to pick a star. That would be their gift. It’s a hell of a story.
I hate to say it, because it is kind of embarrassing to talk about these deep conversations when you are stone-cold sober, but when House Cat and I go for one, we talk about love versus respect and which is more important. I always side with love and he argues for respect. Most guys do. But over the years we have come to conclude they are one and the same. Gary’s brother, Mike Kennedy, and Trevor and I have become a tight circle of friends.
That same night, Gary made us a drink called a Scary Gary that’s not on the menu. It’s his own concoction of nine different liqueurs—it’s tropical and milky and tastes sort of coconutty. Galliano is the predominant flavour, and there’s Bailey’s in it too. Unfortunately, it smells exactly like the soap at the Delta Hotel. I found that out the next morning while in the shower. I unwrapped a bar and it took me right back to my second Scary Gary. I haven’t had one since.
In the summer of 2010, Brad was in Oakville for a visit with his Dallas Stars teammate James Neal. I’m pretty good friends with James as well. There was a little partying, and by the end of the night, everybody came back to our house. Cari and I live on the edge of some woods. So I threw some logs in the firepit, and Neal was pulling branches off trees to feed it. We started barbecuing steaks around 4 a.m. It was a fun night, just bedlam.
The next morning, Brad, James and I squeezed into my little Mustang and drove up to Georgetown, Ontario, for a visit with Brad’s cousin Dave. Around 2 p.m. I was chasing Dave’s son, Nolan, a cute little guy, around the pool, pretending to be a barracuda. Brad threw Nolan into the pool and I dove in to grab his toes, but I didn’t judge the depth properly and my forehead hit the grate at the bottom. I surfaced, and because it was a scalp cut, the blood was just pouring down my face. I said, “I hit my head.” And Brad, who has a really dry sense of humour, said, “Yeah, Ron, I think you might need two stitches.”
I grabbed a towel and went into the house to look in the mirror, and it looked like somebody had taken an axe and driven it into my head. It had swollen up immediately, and there was a crater the size of a Premium cracker. I thought, “That’s it. My career is over for sure.” We packed ice on it and headed for the emergency room. The doctor did an unbelievable job of stitching me up. The scar is barely discernable. He did an especially remarkable job for a small town like Georgetown.
Later on, I drove back up to the hospital and gave that doctor one of my Gemini Awards. I thought it would make a good gift because the statue has two faces: one represents a person in front of the camera, and the other, a person behind the camera. The doctor was playing the role behind the camera, fixing the face in front. First, I waited a week to see if he’d done a good job.
I give my Geminis out to people I admire, including Dany Heatley’s parents, Graham and LuAnn Snyder and Grapes. Donny Meehan’s got two, because I’d forgotten I’d given him the first one. I shipped one to the Chilliwack Bruins to give to cousins Casey Guliker and Derek Baars. Derek was born blind. The boys were regulars at Chilliwack Chiefs games, a Tier II Junior A team that played in Chilliwack before the Bruins of the Western Hockey League came to town. They’d sit in the stands and Casey would spend the entire game doing a private play-by-play for Derek. Dad has the one I won in 2008, after Mom died, and Todd Swanson, my best friend from Red Deer, has one.
I gave away my ninth Gemini, from the 2007 ceremony in Regina, to J.P. Ellson. He’s the guy who brought the Rolling Stones to Saskatchewan, for the first time ever, in the fall of 2006. In 2007, he brought the Geminis, the Juno Awards, the Canadian Country Music Awards and the Western Canadian Music Awards to the province.
He happened to be at the Geminis that night. Cari was with me. She was raving about what he had done for Saskatchewan’s music scene. So when I won the Gemini, I just handed it to him on the spot.
The only Gemini I have at the house is the original, from ‘92. They are nice to have, but I always feel kind of undeserving.
In 2000, I was asked to be the Calgary Stampede parade marshal. I’d been on parade floats before and never understood why. Once, in Red Deer, I saw Brian Sutter in the crowd and I thought, “What the heck am I doing on the float when a guy like that is in the crowd?” Former Stampede marshals include Bing Crosby, Wilf Carter, Bob Hope, Pierre Elliott Trudeau and Rick Hansen.
I was riding along at the Stampede, feeling a little like an imposter. Everybody was hollering, “Where’s Don? Where’s your buddy?” And Stampede president Rob Matthews kept telling me about the actor Sam Elliott, who’d been parade marshal in 1998. He said, “Ron, you wouldn’t believe it! Women were coming out of the crowd like crazy. They were swooning and bringing him roses. It was nonstop!”
I looked into the crowd. There were definitely no women holding out roses. Suddenly, out of the blue, a football colleague from high school named Colin Sheedy, who had gone on to play for the Calgary Dinos, made his way through, holding a tray loaded down with Styrofoam cups filled with Bailey’s and coffee. Sam Elliott attracted the girls, but I had booze and good buddies.
Considering all the players I have met over the years, I don’t hang out with many of them. But every once in a while I make friends with one of them. I was hired for events in Buffalo. Sabres consultant Joe Crozier and I would interview guests on the JumboTron during intermissions. It was a lot of fun. Grapes came along with me on November 7, 1997. When I mentioned that the Sabres were really getting their game together, he said, “Well, of course they’re getting their game together. Hasek’s stopping pucks finally. He was horseshit in the first months.” There was a big backlash because Grapes was on the JumboTron at the time, so all the kids heard it. The Associated Press interviewed a kids’ coach who was in the crowd who said Don “overstepped his boundaries,” and the story gained wider coverage.
The Buffalo News reported that Don refused to apologize, saying, “I have no regrets. I never apologize. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal.” He told the News’ reporter, the late Jim Kelley, “We have murder, rapes and killings in Buffalo and the headlines jump all over me because I said ‘horseshit’?” Don called the Associated Press reporter a jerk and said, “They don’t write that I stayed behind in Buffalo, signing autographs. They don’t write that earlier in the day I was at Toronto’s Sunnybrook Hospital, visiting sick kids.” Personally, I thought the whole thing was just silly.
We used to go to a restaurant in Buffalo called Mother’s. I would chat with Danny Gare, Brad May, Rob Ray—whoever was there. One time, I met Darryl Shannon, a big defenceman for the Sabres. Darryl’s a nice guy, quiet and really bright. We sat up until the wee hours of the morning, drinking wine and talking. Finally, as he got up to leave, he said, “One thing you should know—I’m pretty well connected with the Compuware Group, Peter Karmanos’s family, because I played for the Windsor Sp
itfires. If you’re looking for a good investment, I recommend Compuware.” I chuckled at that, because money is a foreign language to me.
The next day, I phoned to thank him for the good conversation, but he wasn’t there, so I left a message. “By the way, I took your advice and invested in Tupperware.” I knew that when he heard it, his heart would stop for a minute as he second-guessed himself. “Did I say Tupperware? Or did MacLean just screw up because he was drinking?”
One time, my high school friend Marty Vellner asked me if I would be interested in investing in a grapefruit farm in Argentina. I know—it sounds like a joke, right? But Marty’s friend seemed to be well educated on the whole agricultural industry. He said Coca-Cola was running short of the grapefruits they needed to produce Fanta. Apparently, you start with lemon trees and eventually graft them into becoming grapefruit trees. I’m still a little unclear as to why.
I handed Marty $35,000 to invest in land and trees. Cari kind of rolled her eyes, but she was okay with it. There were immediate cash calls. The weather system in the Pacific, El Niño, was wreaking havoc with winter in North America. They said it caused a drought in South America that wiped out our lemon trees. When the second $5,000 cash call came within six months, I opted out. We all discovered that we didn’t even own this land that we’d “bought.” Marty can always outlast the cash calls, and then he becomes the tycoon. He and his family are very business-savvy. I smile every time Marty gets to talking finance. It’s captivating, but where I’m concerned, it goes in one ear and out the other.