Pee Wees

by Rich Cohen

  The Russians attacked wildly in the last minutes of the game—like a struck shark, they flailed in their own blood. The arena erupted when the horn sounded. The Americans skated wildly toward their goalie, Jim Craig. The United States, as a prospect and an experiment, probably should have ended at that moment. Fold up the tent, send home the clowns. It would never feel that good again. It was like we’d won a war. As the Russians skated away in defeat, the Soviet Union began to collapse—that’s how it felt anyway. Repercussions followed: as hundreds of thousands of Americans enlisted in the army the day after Pearl Harbor was attacked, hundreds of thousands now signed their kids up for hockey. Thus the modern era was born. There are currently 174 U.S. citizens playing in the NHL, including several of the league’s best players. Micah, his teammates, and all their opponents are the children of that moment.

  The Herb Brooks Arena at Lake Placid has been sanctified as a result. It’s a shrine visited by fans who want to see the site of the miracle. It’s like the Grotto in Lourdes, France, where Bernadette witnessed an apparition of the Virgin Mary, only instead of the Virgin Mary, it was Herb Brooks, and instead of healing—many are healed by the waters at Lourdes—it’s the power of hockey past.

  The most beloved tournament of the FCAH season is staged by Can/Am—an international company that’s been producing standout hockey tournaments for over fifty years—in Lake Placid each November, with hundreds of players from dozens of teams changing in the same locker rooms and skating on the same ice as the heroes of 1980.

  This would be Micah’s third trip to Lake Placid, though for him, unlike for me, it never gets old. I picked him up from school early Friday afternoon. Who cares if a kid misses a few hours of sixth grade? I parked behind the fleet of school buses dozing in anticipation of the afternoon rush. It was November early in the third millennium. Donald Trump was tweeting. The nation was losing its mind. Hockey had not changed.

  Micah’s jerseys, sticks, and equipment bag were in the trunk. We stopped for coffee, candy, petrol, then headed north. We took Route 7 to I-84, then got on the Taconic State Parkway, which, like a glade in a fairy tale, is lovely—the parkway winds through Rip Van Winkle country, beautiful but spiked with danger. There are drunk drivers, texters, cell phone talkers. It’s easy to drift into a trance on that road—highway hypnosis. Before you know it, you’re going much too fast. In a terrible premonition, you see your car in flames at the bottom of a gorge.

  Cops hide in every blind on the Taconic, aching to ruin your day. When wet, the pavement turns into Mylar. When cold, it turns into ice. Micah peppered me with questions. I could not tell if he really wanted to know these things or just liked the sound of conversation. His questions led to other questions until, now and then, I’d ask myself how I’d ended up talking about string theory, the Iran hostage crisis, or why statistics can’t explain the greatness of Jackie Robinson. Micah favors either/or inquiries about life in general. “If you had a choice of being a very successful lawyer who made millions of dollars or a baseball player who got to the majors but played in very few games and only as a pinch runner, which would you choose?” “If you could be a great hockey player with a short career or a good hockey player with a long career, which would it be?” A lot of his questions are about God and the afterlife. “If an old man dies, will he be old in heaven?” “If a person has used evil to make the world a better place, will he go to hell?” When Judd Meese drove Micah to an away game, his “we made it safely” email told me he’d gotten the business: “We made it in under two hours, the game was great, and the whole way back Micah and Barry talked about God. I’ll say this: they are not well informed.”

  I am particular about music on such trips, toggling between a handful of satellite stations, playing the Beatles, Tom Petty, Frank Sinatra singing “Nice ’n’ Easy”: “We’re on the road to romance—that’s safe to say / but let’s make all the stops along the way.” I instruct my son with my selections, tell him, “These are the things of my world. You can accept or reject them. Either way will work.”

  We exited at Route 73, which narrows as it climbs into the Adirondacks. The mountains are ancient, the peaks beaten down by the wind and water of geologic time. The rounded summits are carpeted with fir trees. At its apex, the range stands over five thousand feet, pint-size compared with the western mountains, but awesome up close. Route 73 crosses a valley on its final approach to Lake Placid. Waterfalls and cliffs on this side, frozen lakes on that. I turned off the music and opened the windows. We could hear the Ausable River. The air was cold and clean. You know you’ve made it when you start seeing motels and restaurants, then the old Olympic architecture, the ski jump and training complexes. The main drag is called Sentinel Road. It was lit up when we arrived, crowded with cars and people. The distant mountains had become a black line against a dark blue sky. The stars were out. Sirius was blazing. The temperature had dropped to fifteen degrees.

  We were staying with half a dozen other youth hockey teams at the Crowne Plaza on top of a hill above the commercial strip. You could see the town from the windows, the lake, and the distant shore. The lobby was crawling with hockey players of every age, size, and demeanor trailed by every variety of coach. You could draw a map of the Northeast and the mid-Atlantic by looking at the jackets: the Lexington-Bedford Barons, the Malvern Ice Eagles, the Montclair Hitmen, the New City Rascals, the Kent Stars, the Cape Cod Lobstermen, the Medford Storm, the Portsmouth Pilgrims, the Portland Progress. The parents were already drinking at the bar.

  The desk clerk gave us a list of rules when we checked in. These had clearly been devised in response to previous incidents. He asked Micah to read the list out loud, then drew special attention to rule fourteen: “I will not participate in the game known as knee hockey, which is played by children on their knees with shortened sticks and a small hockey net, in any public areas of the hotel, including but not limited to meeting rooms, dining rooms and restaurants, the pool deck, fitness area, business center, and guest hallways.”

  When asked if he understood rule fourteen, Micah nodded.

  “I need verbal consent,” said the clerk.

  “Yes,” said Micah. “I understand.”

  We were among the last Bears to arrive, which is why we ended up in the handicapped room beside the elevator. There was only one bed, a double. We went to sleep on opposite sides but always woke up together, hugging for warmth.

  Micah left in search of his teammates as soon as he’d dumped his bags. I followed. There is a toy store in Lake Placid that sells wooden rubber-band guns. Some have been made to look like pistols, some like rifles, some like machine guns. The most elaborate model shoots fifty rubber bands at once, a killing fusillade. The hotel halls were filled with gun-toting kids. They’d pop out of the shadows, look you up and down, then wave you through. Now and then, you’d hear a distant rumble and think, “I’m glad I’m not over there.”

  I tried to sit with several other parents who’d camped in deck chairs beside the indoor pool, but the air was too steamy and chlorine-soaked. Pee Wees packed the Jacuzzi. More parents were eating dinner at the buffet, which started with chicken-fried steak and ended with a crescendo of fluorescent gelatin squares. The parents divided into cliques, like high school. There were the ins and the outs, the blessed and the damned. Status came from your child. If he could play, you were in. If he could not play, you ate alone. The damned returned to their rooms after dinner, while the blessed lingered in the bar.

  I took a seat beside Simone Camus, the Pee Wee parent at the bottom of the social ladder. Her status was partly due to a particular episode. Whereas most parents brought beer coolers or coffee thermoses to games, Simone brought a crystal pitcher filled with iced tea. One afternoon, she placed it beside her on a bench in the Winter Garden, where Broadway Jenny caught it with her stick. It shattered, sending glass and tea everywhere. Coach Hendrix scolded his daughter—“How many times have I told you to watch your stick!”—then apologized and helped Simone c
lean up the mess. He thought that was the end of it, but a week later Simone sent a bill for $250. When Coach Hendrix realized this was not a joke, he flew into a rage—“Who brings a crystal vase to a hockey rink?”—and refused to pay. Simone persisted; he ignored her. So here she was, outcast, as far from Paris as a person can get.

  Micah went out with his knee hockey stuff after dinner. I reminded him about rule fourteen, but he didn’t listen. I could hear him playing in the hall with teammates, shouting and cheering. Someone was flung into a wall. Then it got quiet. An adult was talking. The man from reception. He’d handed one of the kids the rules and made him read rule fourteen out loud. I could hear a small voice. I think it was Tommy. “I will not participate in the game known as knee hockey, which is played by children on their knees with shortened sticks and a small hockey net, in any public areas of the hotel, including but not limited to meeting rooms, dining rooms and restaurants, the pool deck, fitness area, business center, and guest hallways.”

  “Where are you?” asked the man from reception.

  “Planet Earth,” said Tommy.

  “In a public hallway on planet Earth,” the man corrected. “Please return to your rooms, or your equipment will be confiscated.”

  Micah came in a moment later.

  When I asked him what had happened, he said, “Nothing.”

  * * *

  The Bears played their first game at seven the next morning. The Herb Brooks Arena is on the main drag across from Mirror Lake. There are three rinks inside, jerry-rigged together. The complex is packed with waiting areas, hallways, locker rooms. There’s a skate-sharpening station, a gift shop, and a nurse’s office. The oldest rink was built for the 1930 Olympics, which were also played at Lake Placid. Canada took gold that year, followed by Weimar Germany and Switzerland. America did not finish in the top ten. Even Imperial Japan beat us. The 1930 rink is elegantly old-fashioned, with seats climbing up to a barrel roof. There’s a practice rink, which is small and gritty, with just a handful of seats for parents; then there’s the 1980 rink, where the miracle happened. It’s state of the art circa the Carter administration, a cavernous hall distinguished by the huge four-sided scoreboard that hangs over center ice. It’s the permanent home of the Adirondack Thunder, a minor-league team.

  A TV outside each rink plays Miracle, Hollywood’s take on the 1980 triumph, on a continuous loop. I always seemed to pass by during the penultimate scene, in which Herb Brooks, played by Kurt Russell, talks to his squad before the Russian game: “Great moments are born from great opportunity,” he says. “And that’s what you have here tonight, boys. That’s what you’ve earned here tonight. One game. If we played them ten times, they might win nine. But not this game, not tonight. Tonight we skate with them. Tonight we stay with them. And we shut them down because we can. Tonight we are the greatest hockey team in the world. You were born to be hockey players. Every one of you. And you were meant to be here tonight. This is your time. Their time is done. It’s over. I’m sick and tired of hearing about what a great hockey team the Soviets have. Screw ’em. This is your time. Now, go out there and take it.”

  Outside each locker room is a name of the team that used it during the 1980 Olympics: Team Sweden, Team Norway, Team Canada. The American locker room is the best to change in, but dressing where the Russians got lectured by their coach after the upset is pretty cool, too.

  The Pee Wee A Bears started the tournament on the practice rink. I was pressed to the Plexiglas near our goal when the puck was dropped to start the game against the Duxbury, Massachusetts, Ducks. I’d been giving Micah pep talks all year. I might say, “Look for the pass, take the shot.” Or “Use your body on the boards.” I kept it simple in Lake Placid: “Skate hard, have fun.”

  Crashing the net. There is no such thing as a garbage goal.

  And it worked. Micah was a demon on the first shift, chasing pucks, skating down opponents. He set up in front of Duxbury’s net, making himself a nuisance to the goalie, who pushed and wacked till given a penalty. Micah developed a new style at Lake Placid. He became an agitator. “He’s mediocre when he lollygags,” Coach Pete told me later, “but he’s an impact player when he goes crazy.” The romance of the location kicked the entire team into higher gear. The Bears played with hustle all weekend.

  They were even better that afternoon and the next morning. They passed the puck, crowded the goalie, took a lot of shots, scored a lot of goals. They beat Portland, Cape Cod, Potomac, Montclair. It was turning into a breakthrough weekend. Something like this happened every year at Lake Placid. Maybe it was being away from home, staying together in a hotel—the kids were becoming a team.

  The peak came in the middle of the tournament. We had to beat the Vikings from Haverhill, Massachusetts, to make the gold-medal round. We were down 4–1 at the end of the first. That’s when the Bears usually rolled over to have their bellies rubbed, but this time was different. They kept plugging, passing, shooting, pressuring the goalie. They kept trying. Tommy McDermott tied the game late in the third period with a laser from beyond the hash marks. The game-winner came a minute later. Tommy again, sailing a slap shot from the blue line. It went over the net, hit the boards, and bounced back to Barry, who got it in front of an empty net. He waited a moment, toying with the goalie, then finished the play.

  “That’s it,” said Jerry Sherman, slapping me on the back. “We’re in.”

  All the Pee Wee players gathered at the hotel banquet room that night for a party, meaning pizza and pop. Can/Am, the hosts of the tournament, had put together a highlight reel showing every goal and standout play from the weekend. The kids watched themselves as they ate, commenting and heckling. “Look at that toe drag!” “What a save!” They were like surfers, crowded into a Malibu cottage, watching themselves on Super 8, validated in a way that only film can validate.

  Though they hadn’t had alcohol, the kids seemed hungover as they sat in the Russian locker room the next morning preparing for the gold-medal game. The 1980 Rink, the Sunday before Thanksgiving. Coach Pete made them run through the parking lot, hoping the cold air would wake them up. Dark clouds in the distance. A single snowflake fell. I remember thinking, “That’s the first snowflake of winter.” Ten minutes later, we were in a snow globe.

  Once dressed, the kids stood along the Plexiglas, watching the last minutes of the concession game—the team that came in third place won a bronze medal. Tournament veterans said it was better to win the concession game than to go down in the championship, in which case you’d get the silver medal but finish the weekend with a loss.

  I was leaning against a wall in the lobby as Coach Hendrix talked Coaches Wilson and Rizzo through his scouting report on the Lexington-Bedford Barons, the team we’d play for gold. He broke down each Baron by number and position, describing one as dirty, another as crafty, a third as dumb. He said, “They are beatable, but the key is our second line. Their best players are better than our best, and our worst players are worse than their worst, but we have an edge in the middle.”

  Dozens of kids from the other teams—the teams that had been eliminated—had stuck around to watch the gold-medal game. The Ridgefield Bantams and Midgets, who would play after us, came to watch, too, as did rink rats and Can/ Am officials. It gave the game a feel of genuine importance. The Pee Wee As went back to the locker room while the ice was resurfaced by not one but two Zambonis working in tandem—that’s big time.

  Coach Pete spoke to the kids, then led the way to the tunnel, where we could see them silhouetted in dim stadium light. The players were introduced one at a time. As each skated out, the scoreboard flashed a picture and stats: height, weight, favorite athlete, and favorite song. Barry Meese: 5'2", 103 lb., Patrick Kane, “Crazy Train.” Jean Camus: 5'2", 105 lb., Brad Marchand, “Sweet Child O’ Mine.”

  The Lexington-Bedford Barons, who had not lost at the tournament, came out like stone-faced killers. This one with a sneer, that one with a mullet, this one with a scar, that one with
fresh stitches. None was under five feet tall, nor less than a hundred pounds, which, converted from Pee Wee to NHL, equals 6'4", 220. They executed precise drills during warm-ups. You could hear their freshly sharpened blades cutting the ice. It was like a commercial for Ginsu knives. The Bears appeared to be a rabble in comparison, a mismatched collection of height and weight. Not even our jerseys matched—some parents had bought new sweaters in the off-season while others stood pat. Micah had been wearing the same jersey for years. It was a relic, a rare example of an abandoned design. His name was written in a different font from the others’. He wore it differently, too, tucked in in back, like Gretzky.

  The Bears looked lost in the early minutes. It was their first game on the Olympic-size ice, which is significantly bigger than the standard North American rink—200 by 100 feet compared to 200 by 85 feet, fifteen feet wider. They never got used to it. They’d slow down where the boards would normally be, dumbstruck at how the ice continued on.