Breaking Away

by Patrick O'Sullivan

  If the IceDogs management couldn’t have imagined the physical stuff, then there had to be a breakdown in their communication with USA Hockey—they couldn’t have heard that Moe Mantha had confronted my father about him hitting me. And the IceDogs might have taken any other negative feedback about my father as sour grapes—USA Hockey officials had hoped I’d be back for another year in the program or move on to college hockey rather than major junior. Don Cherry and the rest of his management team could really have bought the Suitcase Sully act.

  “Early, things were going maybe even better than we hoped,” Washkurak said. “I don’t know what set John off. Maybe it was that the team couldn’t keep it up and started losing. Still, you were playing really well even if the team was struggling. Maybe some fathers get set off when their sons aren’t getting played, when the coach isn’t giving them ice time. But you were getting a ton of time—we depended on you right from the get-go. The way he was acting . . . the way he was mad . . . just didn’t seem normal. Every now and again you could hear John from the stands. I think as the season went on I had a sense that John was getting louder and yelling at you more often. And it wasn’t the team, wasn’t the refs or the other team. It was always you. I would have been more concerned, but then after games he seemed fine, at least with me. He never came up to complain. He actually came off pretty decent to me. It was like he had a toggle switch that he flipped after the game.”

  I can see how Joe Washkurak and the rest of the IceDogs staff could miss it for a while, imagine that the face my father put on before and after games was the real one. Without real hard physical evidence of abuse and any admission on my part, it would have been easy to miss when the coaches’ attention was split his attention twenty-two ways, besides keeping up a day job. But in fact Washkurak had reason to act.

  “I remember coming to practice one day in December,” Washkurak said. “It would have been early in the week, Tuesday, with Monday off after games that weekend. John would have been up for those games. That day you came in you had a black eye. I said, ‘What the fuck happened to you?’ And you said, ‘You know exactly what happened.’ I’ll never forget that. That’s all you said. I didn’t ask for any more explanations and I should have. But you didn’t want to talk about it, did you, Sully?”

  “No, I didn’t bring it up with anybody,” I told him.

  “And nobody else ever asked you about it,” Washkurak said. “You just walked away and you went out there and practiced. I didn’t know whether to tell people or go to [your father] or Don. I didn’t mention it to them. I didn’t know what to do. I was pretty torn about that. You were just a minor at the time. You were living with John’s brother and I knew it was a bad situation. I don’t whether if I had done something at that time I could have prevented all this shit.”

  “Maybe,” I told him, “or maybe it turns out even worse. There’s no knowing.”

  To his credit, Washkurak isn’t passing the buck. He puts it squarely on himself. A few others have declined blame that things had gone this far. Washkurak thinks it nobody’s fault but his own that it went any farther. He was at that point in a better position to know what was going on, what had happened and even what to do. He knew all about the dynamics of family dysfunction, and in his working life he would have acted right away—his professional obligation. But in the dressing room, in the arena, he had to suppress a Samaritan’s instinct to act. Washkurak had always been good to me, and he’d be a great help later on, but he’s an example of how a moment’s hesitation makes it so much harder to budge later.

  Epilogue

  REAL LIFE

  Florida, April 2015

  Whenever I drive past the sports complex near my house, I see kids playing Little League baseball, Pop Warner football, soccer and basketball on the outdoor courts. We’re living in what all my neighbors think of as a good place, a good community, and they would consider the scene at the sports complex evidence of that. If traffic slows to a crawl or a stop, I’ll watch a game being played on a Little League diamond, where parents sit on aluminum benches on the other side of the cage. A strikeout or a pop-up will end the game and the kids will celebrate. They will exchange high fives and shoulder bumps and then go to the other side of the backstop to accept the congratulations of their parents—hugs from their mothers, backslaps and roughed-up baseball caps from their fathers.

  For years, seeing parents show any special affection toward their kids triggered an awful feeling for me. I didn’t need to think deeply about it to figure out why. The sight bothered me because I wanted the same thing, but I knew it only from watching other families interact. For all my father’s pushing, he made a point of never congratulating me for a win, a goal or an award I’d won. Everything I ever did could have been improved upon, at least in his mind. I craved his approval—I wanted a “normal” relationship with my father, a relationship like the ones my teammates and those kids coming off of the Little League diamond had with their dads. My father was sure that if he ever gave me a high five or a hug, if he ever congratulated me after I won or reassured me after a bad game, it would make me complacent.

  Despite The Hockey Handbook, my father didn’t have a master plan. Everything he did to me and had me do, on and off the ice, had just one intended purpose: to toughen me up. But in his mind, it didn’t work—like he said to the writer from ESPN, he wished I had become as tough as him. I believe that what he did probably worked too well.

  When I see those parent-child scenes play out as I drive by the sports complex every day—when I feel those same wrenching feelings, that familiar pain—I get an important reminder that my recovery from my father’s abuse will never be complete. It will never be over. It’s going to be something I have to work on the rest of my life. There’s no denying or erasing the damage. It’s about managing the effects. I show affection with my wife and with my sons, but it didn’t come naturally at first. I had never experienced it. I had no model for it at home. Not with my father, of course, but not with my mother either—she didn’t console me even though she must have known that my father had slapped me around and abused me. Maybe she believed that if she did, she would have been acknowledging that she knew what was going on. I don’t know. For whatever reason, she acted as if she was completely in the dark and without any reason to feel the tug of conscience.

  * * *

  When I get home one day, the boys are in the backyard kicking a ball around. My younger son is making about as much contact as you’d expect for a kid who not long ago had two candles on his birthday cake, but my older son is a little more practiced. He’s turning four soon.

  “Should we have soccer shoes on the list of presents?” Sophie asks.

  “If that’s what you think he’d like,” I say.

  This is going to be my first brush with being a sports parent, something I had thought about. I’m not exactly dreading it, but I’m not looking forward to it either.

  I don’t think I’d be excited about my kids following me into hockey. I have a love-hate relationship with the game and I always have. Everything good in my life came from hockey. Without it, I would never have met Sophie. I met most of my closest friends through the game as well. Still, I feel like hockey robbed me of the chance to have a happy childhood. I feel like it wrecked my family life growing up. When Sophie and our sons came along, I realized that I didn’t want the game to define me. I wanted more for myself and, more importantly, more for them. I’d like to see our sons take up other games or have a passionate interest outside of sports. But no matter what they choose, the same question remains: How do I encourage my sons without pushing them? It’s not like I could ever push them the way my father pushed me. If I manage to stay halfway sensible, that shouldn’t be an issue. If anything, I’ll likely just let them play.

  I’m not worried only about how I’ll act as a sports parent. I’m worried about what I’ll see. My father was extreme, but I know that other parents also crush their kids’ spirits and desire to play sp
orts. I wasn’t the first young athlete to take out a restraining order against a parent. Mary Pierce, the Grand Slam tennis champion, did the same with her father twenty years ago. I’m not the only one who has become estranged from his family. Just the other day I read about Patrick Reed, a PGA golfer who had security guards remove his parents from the course at a tournament. Even my former Los Angeles teammate Jack Johnson broke off relations with his parents after he signed over power of attorney to them and they drove him into bankruptcy.

  Once upon a time, Mary Pierce’s father bought her first racquet, Patrick Reed’s parents cheered for him on the eighteenth green of a youth tournament and the Johnsons signed up Jack for youth-league teams. It always begins with good intentions, I guess.

  “Soccer would be something to start with,” Sophie says. “Everybody’s kid starts out playing it, boys or girls. And every kid is out there on the field. There’s nobody stuck on the bench. We could make a couple of calls about signing him up.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” I say.

  I know where the conversation is heading. I think that maybe if I shut down, Sophie will change the subject. She doesn’t. She asks what she can’t know is a loaded question.

  “Yeah, I played it one summer,” I reply. “I was probably seven, I guess.”

  “Did you like it?” she says.

  “I guess I did,” I say. “It wasn’t like I had to be forced to go to practice or games or anything.”

  “Why did you stop?” she asks.

  I knew all along that it had to come to this. I’m not going to avoid the story though. I’m not going to lie. Sophie asked an honest question and I could only give her an honest answer.

  “I remember one game I didn’t play so well. My father was giving it to me on the drive home from the field. He talked about me wasting his time and money. I told him that I wanted to play and that I’d play better next time. But then he said, ‘If you’re not going to take it seriously, you’re not going to fuckin’ play, period.’ And then he threw my soccer shoes out the window on the highway and we just kept going. That was the last soccer game I ever played.”

  My personal history is once again a conversation killer.

  “You never told me about that,” Sophie says. Even though she knows more about me than anybody, she’s still surprised and hurt when she hears about an incident like this for the first time. She can’t imagine any parent treating a kid this way.

  “It never came up, I guess,” I say. “It’s been years since I thought about that day, really.”

  That’s the truth. What my father did that day is something that I could never think about doing to one of my sons—not just tossing their soccer boots out the window, but also being that mean-spirited and domineering. I’ll never cut them out of any positive activity that they have a passion for. Likewise, I’ll never become the “involved” father, the one who makes officials and other parents roll their eyes and makes his child feel embarrassed or ashamed. I’ll never deny them their childhood or impose my ambitions on them.

  I just wonder how I’ll react when I see someone like that on the sidelines of one of my kids’ games. I want to believe that I’ll step in and say something the way that Dwight Foster and Moe Mantha did—something stronger if there’s real cause. It doesn’t have to be criminal, like the assault that put my father behind bars. If I see parents go off on their kids, it will trigger something in me, no doubt. It won’t be a response that I should completely suppress—I will feel obliged to act, as anyone witnessing abusive behavior should. If I see parents physically abusing kids, I’m really not sure how I’ll handle it. I hope I’ll remain in control enough to step in and protect the kid and be able to give a coherent account to authorities when they get to the scene—again, as anyone should.

  I know there’s no avoiding it. I know that I’m going to see sports parents mistreating their children. I have no illusions. My father wasn’t the only one. I saw enough growing up to know that he wasn’t alone. And I saw enough to know that only a few people ever tried to get in his way—more people did little while my father put me through hell.

  I’ll be a good father to my sons, but not only that. I’ll look at other families and ask the hard question: Would I treat my kids that way? And if I don’t like what I see, I’ll say something and do something about it. If I see a kid in trouble, it won’t be left to that kid to call 911 in the middle of the night.

  PHOTO SECTION

  My father met my mother when he was playing in Winston-Salem.

  My father and I at his parents’ house in Scarborough, Ontario.

  A school photo taken when I was five.

  Wearing my father’s hockey gloves and holding his stick.

  Playing with the Toronto Red Wings. We rolled through the season to a championship, but some people behind the scenes were bothered by my father’s coaching.

  With the Red Wings. From left to right: Steve Pinizzotto, Brad Bonello and me.

  The Toronto Red Wings, with my father standing on the far left. Even though our team had won it all, my father had worn out his welcome in the city league. We moved to Michigan the next year.

  Kelley, Shannon and I in our neighborhood in Sterling Heights. Our father pushed Kelley into tennis, but she never picked up a racquet after he was out of our lives.

  COURTESY DAVID HONSBERGER

  The pressure intensified when I was fourteen and playing in Strathroy with the Rockets. I had a few twenty-year-old teammates there.

  COURTESY DAVID HONSBERGER

  In Strathroy I was the youngest and smallest player in the league, but the Rockets named me their rookie of the year.

  Grapes and I during my rookie year in Mississauga. Playing for him was quite the experience.

  With the Ice Dogs, I wound up being named the Canadian Hockey League rookie of the year in 2002.

  I was emotionally drained by the time Minnesota called my name at the 2003 NHL draft.

  On the left: Kelley, my mother and Shannon. On the right, my mother’s folks. I had to force a smile for this family photo on draft day.

  With my security team at the NHL draft—not your typical draft day photo.

  Scoring the winning goal in the 2003 World Juniors.

  In the locker room after winning the 2004 World Juniors. From the left: Brady Murray, Zach Parise, me, Dan Fritsche, Brett Sterling and Ryan Kesler.

  After we won the 2004 World Juniors in Helsinki. With my linemates Ryan Kesler (left) and Patrick Eaves.

  Zach Parise and I after winning the 2004 World Juniors

  DAVE SANDFORD/GETTY IMAGES

  Playing in my third world junior tournament on home soil was a great experience.

  BILL SMITH/GETTY IMAGES

  Rob Blake and I, celebrating one of my goals in LA. Getting to play with him was an honor, and he was by far the best captain and person I got to play with in my career.

  DAVE SANDFORD/GETTY IMAGES

  In Edmonton I got mixed messages about my role in the team. I wound up on the checking line and killing penalties, something I hadn’t done much in the NHL previously.

  WENDI KAMINSKI/GETTY IMAGES

  Sharing a laugh with an old linemate from LA, Dustin Brown. He would do a lot more laughing in the coming years, winning two Stanley Cups while my career slowly dwindled away in frozen Edmonton.

  Sophie and I have been together since we were teenagers. She has always been in my corner.

  The summer of 2009, at my engagement party. From the left: my best man, Dan Carcillo, me and my father-in-law, Mario. Teeth optional.

  5IVE15IFTEEN PHOTOGRAPHY

  My beautiful wife and I on our wedding day, June 19, 2010.

  Holding my son Henry. The birth of our two boys made me realize that there were things much bigger than the game.

  My wife and I with our two sons, Henry and Nathan, outside our home in May 2015. If someone had told me when I was twelve years old that I would someday have a loving family like this, I would have thought they were
crazy.

  Putting my son Henry’s hands on a golf club for the first time. If they choose to play sports, I hope it’s something other than hockey.

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  PATRICK O’SULLIVAN was the OHL and CHL rookie of the year in 2002 and the AHL rookie of the year in 2005. He remains the all-time leader in games, goals, assists and points for the Mississauga/Niagara franchise in the OHL. He played 334 games over eight seasons with the Los Angeles Kings, Edmonton Oilers, Carolina Hurricanes, Minnesota Wild and Phoenix Coyotes in the NHL. He played in three world junior championships and is all-time second in games played for the USA in tournament history. O’Sullivan scored the gold-medal-winning goal for the United States at the world junior championships in 2004, the first gold medal in the team’s history. The thirty-year-old now lives in southwest Florida with his wife and two sons.

  GARE JOYCE is features writer for sportsnet magazine. A former writer for ESPN The Magazine and The Globe and Mail, Joyce has won four Canadian national magazine awards and been a finalist twenty-one times. He is the author of seven books of sports non-fiction, including When the Lights Went Out, Future Greats and Heartbreaks and The Devil and Bobby Hull. Under the nom de plume G.B. Joyce, he has written two mystery novels, The Code and The Black Ace.

  Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at harpercollins.ca

  CREDITS

  Photo courtesy of Robert Stamenov

  Cover photo by Joe Morahan / Corbis Images