Hockey Dad

by Bob Mckenzie

  In another lifetime-the one where I'm born with a brain-I would love to do what they do. They all take such great pride in helping and healing and going out of their way; it really is quite extraordinary what they offer and accomplish. I am often awestruck, to tell you the truth, not just at their expertise, but their willingness to share it and go to such great lengths to help and heal as best they can. So while I can't do what they do, I try to make an effort as much as possible to help other Hockey Dads, and Moms, navigate their way through the difficult world of injuries and the like.

  So many wonderful people have been so giving of their time, expertise and experience to me and my boys, I feel like I should do the same whenever and wherever possible. I can't count how many people I've referred to doctors or therapists; I only want to do whatever I can to help others. Because if I've learned one thing as a Crazy Hockey Dad, it is this: It's no fun when your kids are hurting and not playing.

  36: You Try Cutting the Grass of a Quality Control Inspector

  I WILL LEAVE it to far greater minds than mine-do you think Sigmund Freud is available?-to make sense of who I am and how I've behaved, or misbehaved, over the years. But if there's one thing I know, it's this: I am what I am largely because of my parents. And for that, I'm actually eternally grateful and proud, even though they're no longer around to see how their life's work has turned out. I would hope they're not disappointed. I am certainly not blaming them for any of my shortcomings.

  It's just that everything in my life, including my wacky obsession with hockey, is pretty much viewed through the prism of how I was raised by Bob and Maureen McKenzie in Scarborough, Ont.

  I was an only child, which some might say explains a lot, but that was only because my mom was afflicted with severe rheumatoid arthritis when I was one year old. Having any more children for her was out of the question. I don't know how much you know about rheumatoid arthritis, but it's a vicious, debilitating, crippling, incredibly painful disease that attacks the joints and causes swelling, intense pain and often disfigurement. I would estimate my mom had surgery on at least fifteen to twenty occasions and pretty much every joint in her body was red, swollen and/or severely disfigured. She was, every minute of every day I knew her, racked with pain. Yet for a good many years she still managed to drive herself to a full-time job. She eventually ended up in a wheelchair for the last fourteen years of her life and, quite suddenly really, died of complications from this dreaded disease at the age of fifty-nine in 1992.

  My mom loved hockey, too. Her brother, George Rowan, was a decent player back in the day. She used to watch it as a young girl and I was home with my mom watching it when Paul Henderson scored The Goal on Sept. 28, 1972.

  My mom was sharp, smart and well-organized. She did not suffer fools and was never afraid to speak her mind. She had enough experience with doctors to know there are good ones and there are bad ones and you better figure out which one is treating you; that you don't automatically accept what they say without at least questioning or challenging them. As tough as she was on so many levels, she was an incredibly loving mother who always put her only son first. She never complained about her lot in life; never had any pity parties, and if anyone ever had a right or reason to feel like they got a raw deal, it was her. What I learned from her, aside from everything, was this: You don't waste time feeling sorry for yourself because everyone has a sad story.

  My dad was born in Windsor, Ont., but only months after that moved to Northern Ireland and was raised in the east end of Belfast. He had the Irish accent to prove it, too, although he was always quick, and extremely proud, to point out he was a Canadian. As a kid who grew up not too far from the shipyards of Belfast, he survived the German blitz of World War Two, though he once returned from the bomb shelters to find not only his family home was gone, but so, too, was his entire block. He was a rarity, I'm sure, in that he actually played ice hockey in Belfast as a young man, as well as soccer, and he would show you his vintage Kangaroo leather Tacks and tell you he wasn't too shabby at either.

  He came to Canada in the 1950s and proudly worked forty-three years at DeHavilland Aircraft in Downsview, Ont., first as a production worker on the assembly line, then as a quality control inspector and finally as a production supervisor. You would have thought he was personally responsible for every Beaver, Otter, Buffalo, Dash 7 and Dash 8 that came off the line there, that's how proud he was of his work. He wore a tie to work every day of his life, even when he worked on the line, and as a quality control inspector drove everyone there crazy with his ridiculously high standards and expectations of perfection. He had a voracious work ethic-when the roads to DeHavilland were impassable because of a snowstorm, he once got out of his stuck car and walked the rest of the many miles through the snow to get there-and he always had two jobs to help make ends meet. Between his job(s) and countless hours as a caregiver to my mom, I'm not sure how he had any time for anything else. But he still loved to wash and wax his cars-the 1963 Impala Super Sport; a 1966 Impala SS; his big boat, the white 1968 Buick Wildcat convertible with the black roof and the 430 four-barrel; the 1971 Monte Carlo; and the 1973 Grand Prix-and he would take care of his front lawn like it was a fairway at Augusta. Like a lot of Irishmen-I mean, Canadians-my dad was a little quirky. He used to say "Whether you're rich or poor, it's nice to have a buck," and he was a terrific singer, an Irish tenor who could bring down the house and a tear to anyone's eye with "Danny Boy." There's a New York City hotel where they still talk about the crazy Irishman who sang it so well in the packed lobby just before Ireland played Italy in the 1994 World Cup soccer game at the Meadowlands. That was my dad, the exasperated Toronto Maple Leaf fan who never hesitated to call them "a bunch of bums," the same guy who had a fine wardrobe (including the always stylish fedora, suit and tie) and a sparkling gold jewelry collection that would have been the envy of Don Cherry. He loved golf and holding court over a pint in the pub, right up to when brain cancer claimed him in the summer of 2003.

  Like my mom, my dad didn't believe in complaining or feeling sorry for himself. He got up in the morning, did what had to be done and then did it all over again the next day.

  Through all of that, though, my parents always made sure I didn't lack for anything, especially when it came to hockey.

  In spite of the fact we were a decidedly middle-class, blue collar family, I always had the best of everything-the best skates, the best equipment; my dad believed you buy quality. And they always managed to get me to my practices and games. It would be fair to say I was the apple of their eye, but for anyone who might think that or being an only child equates to a life of privilege, think again. It wasn't always easy living in the home of two perfectionists, each of whom was either blessed or cursed with an extreme case of the old Protestant work ethic. You try cutting the grass of a quality control inspector.

  Growing up, I was absolutely crazy about hockey, not that my passion for the game ever amounted to excellence playing it. My first year of organized hockey was when I was eight years old in the Dorset Park house league, although I recall playing it long before that for hours at a time on the outdoor rink at Bendale Public School. Of course, my friends and I played road hockey every free minute of every day. I played two years of Dorset Park house league on the outdoor pads at McGregor Park Arena. Then I moved up to play two years with the Agincourt Lions rep team in the old Scarborough Hockey Association. I played my peewee season with the Scarborough Lions of the old Metro Toronto Hockey League (Scarborough, Leaside, Ted Reeve, East York and Wexford) and Frank Mahovlich's dad used to sharpen my skates at Leaside Arena.

  I tried to play at the highest level possible in minor bantam but was cut from the Agincourt Canadians partway through the season. I licked my wounds and went back to house league for two seasons before giving the lower levels of MTHL rep hockey another try, playing with a bunch of my buddies for independent minor midget and midget teams. I fancied myself a bit of a late bloomer. I played two years of juvenile hockey for t
he West Toronto Hawks and they were the two best seasons of my hockey-playing life. I tried out for Wilfrid Laurier University's varsity team but I lasted a lot longer at the school as a student (six weeks) than I did in the tryouts (about sixty minutes).

  It was a decidedly unremarkable minor hockey career but I loved every minute of it. I knew that whatever I was going to do with my life, it was going to be connected to hockey in some way.

  Even my romantic interests as a teenager were influenced, to some degree, by hockey. Before Cindy and I started dating in high school, I was already taking her little brother John, five years younger than me, to shinny. When Cindy asked him what kind of player I was, John said: "Really good, I think he's good enough to play Junior. B." John's scouting prowess most certainly could be questioned-I was actually cut from Sherwood Bassin's Pickering Panthers' Junior. B team when I was seventeen-but there was no doubting John's ability to play the game.

  As much as I learned about life from my parents and about hockey from my own experiences as a player, and as much as I've learned of both from being a journalist who covers nothing but hockey, I learned so much from being around my brother-in-law in his formative hockey years and his time in the professional ranks.

  When Toronto Telegram reporter John Iaboni wrote on Oct. 28, 1971, what is considered the first major newspaper article about (ten-year-old) Wayne Gretzky, after watching him score five goals and two assists in a 7-4 win over the MTHL's Toronto Kings, my future brother-in-law got a mention in the article. Iaboni wrote: "[Gretzky's] Steelers were in front after the second period, but center John Goodwin, by far the Kings' best player, tied the score after 32 seconds of the finally period. But Gretzky won the game with goals at 9:08, 12:28 and 14:59."

  John played the game at a high level, but he wasn't a prototypical minor hockey star. He was as skinny as they come and he certainly wasn't the fastest skater, but he had vision and smarts and skills and could always score and create offense.

  I first watched him play minor bantam with the Don Mills Flyers and saw his teammate, a young Larry Murphy, prepare to embark on a Hall of Fame career. I watched him play bantam and midget with Wexford, playing against Paul Coffey, Steve Ludzik, Daryl Evans, Greg Gilbert and others.

  It seemed to me that life in the Goodwin household-father Tom and mother Mary, the baby Johnny and his three sisters, Joanne, Susie and Cindy-pretty much revolved around John's hockey. My father-in-law Tom was a (Crazy?) Hockey Dad. John can still hear him yelling, "Skate," and threatening to tape John's gloves to his stick if John insisted on skating with one hand on it all the time. My mother-in-law, Mary, may suggest otherwise-sorry, Mrs. G-but she can still tell you which coaches cut John from which team.

  John's minor hockey even impacted on my career path. I ultimately ended up at the Sault Star, in large part because I was in Sault Ste. Marie with John's Wexford team for the Air Canada Cup midget championship playoffs. John was taken in the sixth round of the OHL draft by the Soo Greyhounds and he made the team just as that Gretzky kid left to play in the WHA.

  For a kid who couldn't skate, John did all right, and then some. He beat out Sudbury goalie Don Beaupre for OHL rookie-of-the-year honors in 1978-79, scoring 43 goals and 125 points to finish top five in OHL scoring for the last-place Greyhounds.

  It turned out to be the best of times and the worst of times.

  In John's finally year of junior, he won the OHL scoring championship with 56 goals and 166 points and the Greyhounds came within a hair of taking the OHL championship, losing to the Kitchener Rangers of Brian Bellows and Al MacInnis vintage. In spite of his impressive accomplishments, John wasn't selected in the 1981 NHL entry draft. The scouts said he couldn't skate well enough; he wasn't strong enough. He was devastated. So was I. He wasn't at the draft in Montreal, but I was. I imagine there may be worse hockey-related kicks in the teeth than that one, but I'm not sure I can come up with one, to be honest.

  That day had a large impact on me. I realized then what a hard life or business hockey can be. I learned a lot by covering junior hockey for the Sault Star, but not half as much as being intimately involved in the ups and downs of a family member who was trying to make his way in the game. Over the ensuing years-John signed as a free agent with the Montreal Canadiens and had a six-year minor pro career that included time in Nova Scotia, New Haven, St. Catharines and Peoria-I had a front-row seat to the good, the bad and the ugly of the true minor-league experience.

  John never made it to the NHL, although he played with many who would. The other centers in his first year in Nova Scotia were Guy Carbonneau and Dan Daoust. They were replaced by Brian Skrudland and John Chabot. John only ever played in one NHL preseason game for the Canadiens, in Halifax, and that was after he'd already been sent down, but he evolved into a responsible, hardworking, two-way checking center who could still put up good numbers and satisfy the many demands of legendary tough-guy coach John Brophy, for whom John played in four of his six pro seasons. John won a Turner Cup championship playing for the Peoria Rivermen in 1985, playing through the playoffs with a broken orbital bone.

  John finally decided to give it up in 1987 and start at a career at Ontario Hydro, where he still works today (although he did put up some very good numbers as both an assistant coach-first to Stan Butler and then Bill Stewart-and head coach of the Oshawa Generals).

  I'm sometimes asked by people who I consider to be the best player who never played a game in the NHL. The answer for me is too easy-it's my brother-in-law, John Goodwin.

  I've made his story-the abridged version anyway-part of my story here for the very simple reason that it is. I mean, between how my parents raised me, my own less-than-stellar experiences as a player, witnessing John's life in the game, to say nothing of my career path and my involvement with Mike's and Shawn's hockey, well, I never really had a chance to be anything but…

  You know…Crazy Hockey Dad.

  EPILOGUE

  NOW THAT THE STORY is all down here in black and white hopefully, as promised, an unvarnished look at the good, the bad and the ugly of multiple lifetimes in minor hockey-I am not quite sure what to make of it. I look back at all of it and ask myself, what would I change?

  Honestly, probably not a lot.

  Hey, if I could snap my fingers right now and Shawn's headaches were gone, you know I would do it in a heartbeat.

  He wouldn't have had to stop playing hockey and lacrosse at age fourteen and he wouldn't feel like he was cheated out of a lot of really good times in what should have been the best and most carefree years of his life.

  I don't blame hockey for what happened to Shawn. I blame plain old dumb bad luck. Lots of people get a cross to bear in life; Shawn's was concussions and a migraine-related condition that was triggered by one of them. It could be a lot better; it could be a lot worse. I'm not pleased with how it ended for Shawn-in a stupid minor hockey fight that didn't mean a damn thing-but if it hadn't happened in a hockey game, I really do believe it would have, given Shawn's propensity for hitting his head even outside of organized sports, happened while he was doing something else-riding a bike, snowboarding, wakeboarding, whatever….

  If I were able to do it all over again, I would like to think I'm wise enough now to not pick up Mike by his hockey sweater on the bench in Kitchener that day, to not send him crying into the house by threatening to cut him and that I would not run down those stairs to foolishly get into it with Larry Labelle. But, truthfully, I couldn't guarantee you I wouldn't. You do what you think is right at the time, by you and your family, and hope like hell it all turns out for the best. That's the hard part of being a parent. Besides, in real life, you don't get do-overs.

  But here's what I do know to be true. Cindy and I love our kids more than anything in this world. I'm confident they feel the same way about us. Our family unit is amazing, the bond between all of us is so strong.

  The best times in life are when the four of us are all together as a family and, whatever it says about us, those time
s have often been set against the backdrop of something hockey-related.

  My only fear in writing the book-and telling the crazy stories that entertain, amuse or irritate you-is you may not fully realize how many wonderful occasions there were when we were all just together having a terrific time. No conflict.

  No morality plays. No metaphors for life. Those stories aren't going to sell a book or keep you interested for long, but most of what our family experienced in sporting endeavors, and in everything else we did for that matter, were warm and tender family moments, the memories of which will last a lifetime.

  I will tell you this-for all the specific errors in judgment I may have made, I feel no need to apologize for giving our kids a lifestyle that revolved primarily around minor sports, especially hockey. For the longest time, there were only two seasons in our house-hockey and lacrosse-and we embraced them both, highly anticipating the shift from one to another.

  It really is a way of life-you either get it or you don't-and I believe with all my heart the boys have no regrets in that regard. Neither do I.

  For us, it was never meant to be only about hockey as much as it was the whole value system and the virtues by which we wanted our kids to live their lives. Whatever foulups, bleeps and blunders I committed, when I think of the lifetime of friendships and relationships Mike, Shawn, Cindy and I have experienced directly as a result of the boys playing hockey and lacrosse, I can't imagine trading any of that for anything. And neither can they, I'm sure, to say nothing of so many others who have willingly and passionately embraced the same so-very-Canadian lifestyle that we tend to wear like a badge of honor.

  As for the judgment of whether I'm capital-C Crazy, it's not so difficult to make that call. If you are someone who is not immersed in the minor hockey culture, it's a no-brainer-you will say, "Dial 9-1-1, this guy is certifiable." But if you've spent any amount of time in the rinks over the years, you will have read the stories I've written here and say, "Pffft, that's nuthin', I know a hundred guys crazier than him."