by Bob Mckenzie
It's funny, but for all the things that happen over the years, those are the moments you recall most fondly so many years after the fact.
On the ice, Mike was doing well, scoring lots of goals in house league and getting his fair share in select too, but there were some caution flags being waved at us.
The more success Mike had, the more he expected it to happen. On those occasions when maybe it didn't go as well as Mike would have liked-sometimes it was just a shift, sometimes it was a full game-he started to let his feelings be known, and in a not-so-nice way. It might come in the form of banging his stick if he missed a shot. And if he had a bad game, failing to score or whatever, he could be a little brooding afterwards. I am not sure if I was alarmed or encouraged by these emerging emotions. It's a sign of competitiveness and what Hockey Dad doesn't want his kid to be competitive? Besides, what had I been preaching to him about going as hard as he could every shift? Still, there's no excuse for acting like a spoiled brat when things don't go your way. So I would try to explain to Mike that there's no place in the game for banging his stick or getting mad or angry after a game is over. But those things are sometimes easier said by Dad than done by Mike.
The one game that epitomized this developing issue was one I didn't even attend. It was a Sunday and I was in Sault Ste.
Marie to broadcast a Greyhound game on TSN that night. That afternoon, Mike was playing in a very important select game at North York Centennial Arena, which is now known as Herb Carnegie Centennial Arena. If Mike's team won, it would qualify to play in the Timmy Tyke tournament semi-finallys at Maple Leaf Gardens the next weekend. This was a big deal. In fact, it doesn't get any bigger for Select 7s.
I remember phoning Cindy from Sault Memorial Gardens just before we were getting ready to go on the air and I asked her how Mike's game went that afternoon. Not very well, she said. Whitby lost 4-3. I asked her where Mike was and she said he was in his bed. Crying.
"Crying," I said. "Why is he crying?"
"Because he's upset they lost," she replied. "The game was two hours ago," I said. "I know," Cindy replied, "he's been up there since we got home."
I got Mike onto the phone and asked him why he was so upset. He said because they lost and they wouldn't get to play at Maple Leaf Gardens. I told him that's the way it goes, someone has to win, someone has to lose, not to be upset and I asked him if he did his best. He said yes, that he scored three goals but some really big, good kid on the other team-and Mike just butchered the kid's name trying to pronounce it-scored four goals to win the game. He also told me he was upset because some of his teammates were "laughing" after the game and he didn't understand how they could laugh after losing such an important game.
I consoled him a bit, told him to stop crying, gave him the "be a big boy" speech and hung up. If I recall correctly, I kind of liked the fact he was upset his team lost and he took it more to heart than his teammates, but I didn't have any clue then that harnessing emotions in hockey would be a long and winding road for my son, a road that he's still traveling. Oh, by the way, that kid whose name Mike butchered on the phone that day? Wojtek Wolski of the Colorado Avalanche.
10: Breaking the Golden Rule: "Grab Your Sticks"
AS WONDERFUL AS the house-league/select scene was, the first season of AAA-the highest level of play in minor hockey-was even better.
Whitby was, at that time, one of the smallest, if not the smallest, AAA centers in Ontario. But with Liam Reddox, Steven Seedhouse and Brandon Davis returning to their own age group after a year of minor novice AA, plus Mike and others moving up from the Select 7s, Coach Velacich's team was competitive with most of the teams they faced. A big part of the reason was Liam Reddox, who if he wasn't the most dominant eight-year-old in southern Ontario was awfully close to it.
Everything Liam did was at a higher level than everyone else. He was a very strong skater, extremely athletic, and his puck-handling skills, his shot and his competitive instincts were off the charts. It was difficult to imagine Liam not growing up to be a professional hockey player and that is, in fact, what he is. A fourth-round pick of the Edmonton Oilers in 2004, Liam scored his first NHL goal for the Oilers on November 15, 2008. Unlike some of the stories you hear about kids who dominate when they're very young and are never heard of by the time they get to peewee, well, that's not Liam.
There were many games back in minor novice AAA when Liam was a veritable one-man band. He was that good.
John Velacich decided a position change was in store for Mike, moving him from center to left wing. Were we thrilled about that? At the time, no. We had just sort of presumed center was the position Mike would always play. But the coach wanted him to try left wing on a line with Liam. So that was that. Mike, by the way, didn't have any problem with it.
As an aside, more minor hockey blood, figuratively speaking (for the most part) has been spilled over position changes than any other issue. I've seen players drop down a level, change teams, move out of town or quit hockey altogether, all in the name of combating a position shift. In rep hockey, especially AAA, every coach reserves the right to determine which position a player will play. While center to wing isn't a seismic shift, watch the fireworks when a coach takes a forward and makes him a defenseman or vice versa. It can get ugly and, in fairness, some kids simply don't enjoy playing a different position. But it's also amazing how many kids will give anything a try even though their parents fight it every step of the way.
So Mike became a left winger and John Velacich must have been on to something-Mike never played anything but left wing after that.
As for playing on Liam's wing, it had its obvious benefits but there was one significant drawback. Liam was such a good player, he would often just take off. Because he could skate right through the other team, he would do exactly that. Mike and the other Whitby Wildcats on the ice might as well have stood and watched Liam. And some games, they did.
In one particular game, Liam scored a bucketful of goals and the Wildcats won big. I couldn't have been angrier. The way I saw it, Mike might as well have sat in the stands and watched the game with me because that's all he was doing while Liam went end to end.
I was steamed. It was then I committed my second big minor sports parenting faux pas-you will recall the first one was revving up Mike to rough up Kyle O'Brien to make the rep lacrosse team-and this was probably worse than the first.
I went into the dressing room after the game to untie Mike's skates and he was sitting right beside Liam. Liam's dad, John, a ginger-haired Glaswegian who is an ardent member of the Glasgow Rangers Supporters Club, was untying Liam's skates beside me. I was seething and not saying anything when Mike asked me a question: "How did I play, Dad?"
"Great, Mike, you played great. It's not your fault if no one will pass you the puck."
Unlike the targeting incident in lacrosse, where it took me years to realize what an ass I was, I knew I had made a big mistake the second the words came out of my mouth. Mike just looked at me. Liam looked at me. John Reddox, a good guy but every bit as much a Crazy Hockey Dad as me, just looked at me. No one said a word, which was good because it died right then and there. Under different circumstances, it could have evolved into quite a scene.
I was immediately embarrassed. These were eight-year-old kids, after all. Completely innocent. Liam was just playing on instinct, doing what he could do because he could do it, exactly the same as Mike did in the house league the season before.
And John Reddox had nothing to do with it either. He was up there in the stands with the rest of us parents. A valuable lesson or two was learned that day as I waited for the embarrassment to drain out of my face in that dressing room.
One, no matter how upset you are, regardless of how justified you think you are, hold your tongue. There needs to be an emergency brake between the brain and the mouth. The dressing room right after the game is no place for an airing of grievances, not in front of kids and parents.
Two, and this I foun
d out from personal experience of being on the other side of it, the parent of a player should not necessarily be held accountable for what his kid does or doesn't do on the ice.
But the bottom line is when you're bent out of shape about something in kids' hockey, just shut the hell up and get home without making a fool of yourself.
One of the great aspects of the first AAA year is the newness or novelty of virtually everything. The caliber of play is terrific and while Mike's team was competitive most of the time, it was far from the elite squads from the Greater Toronto Hockey League (GTHL) or the Detroit area.
Cindy, however, was not quite as impressed with every part of the minor hockey culture. Don't get the wrong idea. She was an extremely supportive mom who was there for her kids and recognized there is much wonderful family time to be spent as part of the minor hockey experience. But she didn't blindly accept every part of it without question. One of Cindy's favorite lines over the years was "Minor hockey would be a lot better if it were run by the Moms instead of the Dads."
She never understood or embraced the concept of kids having to miss a day of school (Friday) to play in a minor hockey tournament because all tournaments are three-day affairs that start early Friday morning. (Neither did my TSN colleague Gord Miller, who was astonished that it happened with great frequency.) Oh, Cindy understood the ice-time issue, but the basic premise that kids have to take off a day of school to play hockey? And the fact most teams start with two tournaments in the first three weeks of the new school year? She was not impressed.
Me and Mike? We loved it. There's nothing quite as fine as playing a little hooky, from school or work, to drive to, say, Kitchener, on a crisp autumn morning and have the first game over before noon. Then grab lunch as a team, check into the hotel, let the kids run wild for a bit while the dads hash out the morning game over a couple of adult beverages before gearing up for the second game of the day.
As much fun as out-of-town tournaments were, that isn't to say there weren't dangerous pitfalls to be wary of. Like the postgame hospitality suite, especially on the Friday or Saturday night, when all the parents and sometimes the coach would be together in a social setting in the hotel.
Alcohol, minor hockey parents and the coach in the same room after a couple of tournament games and with another one the next morning is not always the wisest of recipes. It can be nitro. The hospitality suite can turn into the hostility suite in no time.
Smart coaches avoid them or are wise enough to get out while the going is good, before the alcohol-inspired courage/stupidity has bubbled to the surface. In Mike's minor novice year in Kitchener, one of the moms on the team was overly refreshed late in the evening and launched into a very public tirade outlining specific shortcomings of this player and that player. Suffice to say, that didn't go over too well with the other well-oiled parents in the room. The tension meter was on high; the fun meter on low. Had the words been delivered by a dad instead of a mom, I don't doubt for a moment there would have been fisticuffs. As it was, it was still ugly and raw and nasty. Some tears were shed, angry words were exchanged and there was residual bitterness that never fully went away.
The other thing about minor hockey Cindy could never understand was why they had young kids play games on
Halloween night. Outside of Christmas, there is no day of the year that means more to kids of virtually all ages. When Mike and Shawn were young and of the trick-or-treating age, they would invariably have games scheduled on Halloween. This always caused major problems. It was the one night of the year when the kids, every one of them, would choose not to play hockey if they could. The funny thing was that when the kids were older and not trick-or-treating, there were no games scheduled. A mom, Cindy always maintained, would take care of this.
Alas, common sense is nice in theory but often difficult to achieve in the real minor hockey world.
Example.
Once Mike started to play rep hockey, the golden rule was that if he didn't go to school that day, he would not be permitted to play hockey that night. It's a sensible approach. Lots of families do it. We did, although what is it they say-rules are made to be broken?
There was a day in Mike's minor novice season when he had to miss school because of a nasty ear infection, although he had already started on antibiotics. Cindy was out with Shawn for a few hours, so it was just me and Mike at home.
Mike's team was playing at Northcrest Arena in Peterborough at 6 p.m. It was around 4 p.m., Mike was in his pajamas, lying on the couch, looking a little worse for wear.
"How you feeling, buddy?" I asked him. "Okay, I guess," he replied.
"Hey, I've got a great idea," I said to him. "Why don't you get dressed and we'll take a drive and go watch your team play."
"Can we?" Mike asked. "I didn't go to school today."
"Sure," I said, "but we're just going to watch. A little fresh air will do you good."
Mike got dressed and we were about to leave. "Hey, Mike, why don't you grab your sticks and your hockey bag?"
"Why?" Mike said. "I can't play, I'm sick, I didn't go to school today."
"Well, you never know, maybe you'll feel well enough to sit on the bench, maybe you can serve a bench penalty or something."
So we took the one-hour drive from Whitby along the 401 and up Highway 115 into the Borough, as we like to call it, and pulled into the parking lot of Northcrest.
"How you feeling, buddy?" I asked Mike.
"I think I feel a little better," he said.
"Great," I said, "grab your bag."
Well, I don't have to tell you what happened after that.
Mike played. That was the good part. Then reality set in. Once the game was over, I had two major concerns. One, I was now afraid Mike might get even sicker because he played when he really shouldn't have. (Thankfully, he didn't.) Two, how was I going to explain this to Cindy? (Sheepishly, if you must know.)
So much for the golden rule.
11: So, That's How You Want to Play the Game, Is It?
I AM NOT GOING TO LIE, writing this book isn't easy at times. I don't mind highlighting my shortcomings to get a laugh or make a point, but I also don't want you to think I was some kind of loon bar 24/7, because I wasn't. I look back at Chapter Eight, where I told you about Mike's scoring exploits in house league, and I worry you might think I'm one of those self-centered Hockey Dads who are so full of themselves and run around bragging about their kids. I would be devastated if that were the case. That's not me at all.
But the real conflict in writing parts of this book isn't as much about how I characterize myself-because I am ultimately driving the bus on that-as it is my family and whether, in the telling of this very personal story, I am doing Cindy, Mike and Shawn justice in terms of how they are portrayed. I mean, it's possible some of these snapshots I'm providing could create the wrong impression, or least an imbalanced one.
So as I prepare to tell you about some of the things that happened in Mike's major novice AAA year, and throughout his hockey-playing days, maybe some things that are not so flattering to Mike, I feel the strong need to tell you this up front about him.
Mike was, as a boy, and is now, as a young man, a great son, a terrific person.
As a kid he was fairly quiet and could, when in the company of people outside of our family, be quite shy. He was extraordinarily respectful of all authority, conscientious at school, a very good student who worked hard at all times. He cooperated and played well with others, including his little brother, Shawn, and really was never any problem to his parents or teachers or anyone else.
But when it came to anything where competition was involved, winning or losing, well, this quiet, well-mannered, well-behaved, bespectacled little kid could go from Jekyll to Hyde in a heartbeat. Probably the first time Cindy and I saw this manifest itself was with video games when he was four or five. He would be playing Super Mario on the old Nintendo system. If the game was beating him, look out, because that video game controller used
to go flying all over the place. I lost count of how many times we had to ban video games for a week or a month.
The same was true when he played sports.
Mike was over-the-top passionate about playing hockey and lacrosse. He just loved his sports. He couldn't wait to get to the rink. He would always be one of the first kids dressed.
While other kids would horse around in the dressing room, thinking and talking about anything but hockey, Mike would go out and watch the game being played before his. My friend Kevin O'Brien, who coached Mike in lacrosse and was the trainer for hockey, said in all his years of being around kids playing sports, no player ever prepared himself for games the way Mike did.
As calm and quiet as Mike was at home (except when he was playing video games), the intensity came off him in waves in the sporting arena. He was driven on the ice, gave his all every shift and badly wanted to be successful as an individual scoring or setting up goals-and ultimately wanted team success in the form of a win. I would like to tell you he was this way because I was drilling it into his head that a good player works hard every shift and never lets up, but who's kidding who? It was just his nature and my words only reinforced what came naturally to him.
There was one time I was driving Mike home from a minor novice AAA game. He told me that in the middle of his game he had to go to the bathroom but that he didn't want to leave the bench and miss a shift by going to the dressing room.
"So what did you do?" I asked him. "I just went on the bench," he said.
The good news was it was No. 1, not No. 2. And between his long johns, jock, pants, socks and shin pads, any of the evidence would have been soaked up so it was just our little secret, until now, but it gives you an idea of how intent Mike was to not miss a single shift. (Cindy gave Mike's equipment a good cleaning that night.)