There's a Shark in My Hockey Pool

by Dave Belisle

  "I'm just bubbling over -- and I've saved a few for your blood stream."

  "I think you mean bubbly ... for the champagne we'll be drinking after Herculean disposes of your ragamuffin outfit. Good-bye, Marcotte."

  Derek hung up the phone and his eyes met Artie's.

  "Is that it?" Artie asked.

  "What?"

  "I thought you were going to smash the phone into a million pieces or rip it out of the wall."

  "Believe me, I would have," said Derek, "... if we hadn't cancelled our maintenance policy to save a few bucks."

  Out of the Frying Pan

  and Onto the Ice

  ... 1 ...

  The Herculean Serpents practiced three-on-two drills on the ice at the University of Toronto Arena. It was the day before the game. The Serpent players looked impressive. They executed precision passing plays in the neutral zone ... before crossing the blue line and rifling shots at the goaltender. Erskine stood with Slager at center ice, admiring their charges.

  "A well-oiled machine," said Erskine. "Running on all cylinders."

  Porkowsky and Feinstein stood in their streetclothes beside the gate. Porkowsky, 24, was wearing a 50% tweed-50% lint, brown sport coat and tan slacks. The tight pants looked to have been painted on his legs. He was a bear that had wandered into a sheep shearing competition.

  Feinstein, 23, was also a fashion plate gone sour. His leather vest was inside-out. The denim jacket he wore over the vest was covered with a slew of patches, advertising everything from Urinoyal Motor Oil to the Buzzword 1982 Spelling Bee Championship. Binky's mother had sewn them all on. She called them "conversation patches". She thought they might help Binky to overcome his acute shyness with women. He still shook nervously and slurred his words during feminine hygiene commercials on TV.

  His mother hadn't prescribed his "dillogator" (armadillo-alligator) cowboy boots. He bought them two months ago in an effort to look taller. But the nightly struggle he had getting out of them had given him back problems. It was a case of two steps forward and one step back. His resulting stooped posture had wiped out the extra 15% of the female population with whom he'd been hoping to see eye to eye.

  The two newest players for the Herculean Serpents looked down at their hockey equipment bags. Porkowsky wondered if half of his equipment still fit. He hoped Feinstein would lace up his skates for him.

  Most of Feinstein's hockey gear had been purchased at Army & Navy clearance sales. He'd boned up for the match by reading a hockey book by Brad Park. Binky had skipped the chapter on his pet peeve: skating backwards.

  The closest Porkowsky had been to this calibre of play since his Junior B days was public skating. Feinstein had been on his pick-up hockey league's disabled list for the past year because of recurring flashbacks of skating into the corner after the puck. In these traumatic episodes, one of the Hanson brothers was always in full flight after him.

  Porkowsky and Feinstein looked at each other and shrugged. However this sham turned out, they were rubbing shoulders with talent. Maybe they could keep the jerseys. Erskine spotted them and skated over.

  "Hey. Let's go, guys. Practice started twenty minutes ago."

  "I'm afraid I, er ... overextended myself during the team meal," said Porkowsky. "Doing windsprints right now would be a serious mistake."

  "You were at the team meal?" asked Erskine. He didn't remember seeing either of them.

  "Oh, yes," said Feinstein. "We had a team meal. He ordered the club on rye and I had the spinach quiche and liver pate. We then ... y'know, like ... shared it. Like we were a team."

  Feinstein clutched his stomach.

  "Unfortunately the vitamin B complex I'm taking didn't sit too well."

  Erskine stood transfixed.

  "Pate?" he finally asked.

  The Herculean boss regained his senses and a smile slowly spread across his face.

  "So, a couple of jokers, eh? Heh-heh. Okay. I know, I know. You want to see the bright lights, eh? Chase some skirts, right? ..."

  Erskine nudged Porkowsky with an elbow. Porkowsky shared a puzzled look with Feinstein.

  "All right, boys. Go get'em. Just be back by midnight. We've got a big game tomorrow."

  "Okay, coach." They turned and headed down the tunnel out of the stands. Erskine looked after them, shaking his head.

  "Kids."

  Nine-year-old Shamrock forwards Paddy O'Callahan and Stuart Forsythe compared the tickets their hockey coach, Ace Mulligan, had just given them.

  "Are these teams juniors, pros ... or what?" asked O'Callahan.

  "It says exhibition," said Forsythe.

  "Hmmph. Probably Junior B," said O'Callahan, stuffing his ticket into his pocket.

  Derek's dwindling finances had forced him to contact Mulligan, a drinking buddy from Guelph. Ace obliged Derek's request to trade a block of thirty tickets to the May-Ja-Look - Herculean game, in exchange for the Shamrocks' practice ice time.

  Marcotte had been careful to explain his problem to Mulligan while the players' parents were out of earshot. All he needed was one hockey mom to catch wind of this, and he'd have yet more women ready to raise him in effigy.

  Mulligan had helped diffuse the situation by explaining to his team and the children's parents that Derek's team had lost their own ice time when the Zamboni had overheated, broke down and melted a twenty-foot wide crater at the blue line. He embellished it somewhat, explaining that Marcotte's team was a group of touring players sponsored by the Give-Me-A-Break Foundation. The foundation was a non-profit organization that catered to middle-aged males who never recovered emotionally when their dreams of making the NHL were shattered. Many of these men lived their lives in relative obscurity ... specifically searching out areas with low cable TV penetration.

  Most of the parents nodded sadly in agreement. A few of them, who had cousins or friends of neighbors playing in NHL, cleared their throats with embarrassed coughs. They bowed their heads and congratulated themselves at their good fortune.

  Thusly, the Leafs began their first practise with thirty, snub-nosed kids and their nostrils pressed against the plexiglass. Derek told his players in the locker room that they were to give the kids autographs whether the kid wanted one or not. Any player who refused would be off the team.

  Derek stood by Artie at center ice against the boards. They both wore blue and white sweat suits. Artie wouldn't let go of the whistle dangling around his neck. He was doing his best to look the part of an assistant coach.

  "I don't feel so good about this," Artie said.

  "Well, damn it. It's the best we could do. We were tapped out after paying for the players' transportation, your crazy signing bonuses ... and Aunt Rita's grocery tab."

  "Do we have any extra pucks or something we could give to the kids?" asked Artie.

  "I was just going to ask you which end of the rink you wanted to watch."

  "For what?"

  "The pucks that go over the glass. The only way those kids are going to get a puck today is if they beat us to it."

  Artie turned for one end, Derek for the other.

  ... 2 ...

  The May-Ja-Look Leaf players were gathered in the Marvin Gardens Jiujitsu Training Center. The Maharishi Fishi was holding court. The Leafs sat on the blue tumbling mats before the great guru. On the wall behind the spoon-bender-extraordinaire, was an unraveling portrait circa 1958 of Queen Elizabeth II. Beside the picture, hung the guru's framed citizenship certificate.

  The Maharishi and the players had begun their class 45 minutes early, following an accident in the judo class prior to their session. A 13-year-old boy had flipped another boy into one of the mirrored walls and separated the kid's shoulder. Both of the boys' fathers were present. As they escorted their boys out the doors, the two men argued loudly about whose lawyer could urinate the farthest.

  With the extra time afforded them, the Maharishi began the session by playing both the French and English versions of the Canadian and Bangladesh national anthems. He
passed out the required reading for the course ... a brief pamphlet called 20-20 Hindsight -- Gift or Myth?. He also handed out a testimonial from a Rhode Island man who had combined a 1-800 psychics line with a phone sex line to create a phone service that would predict the caller's next occasion for intercourse. Disappointed callers were guaranteed their next two predictions for whoopee ... for free.

  "In order so that you may defeat your enemy," the Maharishi said, "you must sincerely believe his greatest strength cannot possibly touch your most noticeable weakness with a 120-inch pole. He is a measly grain of sand and you are the Sahara Desert. He is a teeny-weeny drop of water and you are Niagara Falls. He is --"

  "We get the picture," said Hackett.

  "The best way to achieve this wonderful way of thinking is to make believe you have just finished fasting for forty days and forty nights. On the forty-first day you wake up and are as hungry as a pony's papa. You are too tired to cook, so you go to a restaurant where the food is good and fast. You have a coupon in your pocket that is starting your pants on fire. It is a two-for-one coupon and you are very happy you didn't bring a friend. When you are waiting for the cheerful voice in the talking box, you notice a new item on the menu scoreboard. Below the Hash Browns and on top of the Sausage Muffins, the sign says, "Dates ... $3.99." But believe me you, these dates are not food. Beside the three-ninety-nine price, there are pictures of Elle MacPherson, Anna Nicole Smith and Demi Moore."

  "Gentlemen," the Maharishi said to his hordes, suddenly rapt with attention. "May I please take your order? Do you listen to your talking tummies and take the hash browns so you can live to do fisticuffs another day? Or do you use your last one-sixteenth of a pound of energy doing the Punjab fun-jab?"

  A chant of "Punjab" starts up among the players. The Maharishi, with an all-knowing smirk on his face, extends his hand to quiet his audience.

  "Students, please put your pupils back in their eye sockets. Life is not all foreplay and no work. In our dogwood dogma of self-preservation, sometimes the most difficult thing is to walk away from a battle without dropping your mitts."

  "I will never forget, no matter how hard I try ... the old Pakistani handyman's tale about the puppy dog and the kitty cat. There was a dalmatian puppy dog who was turned down by all the movie studios because he didn't have enough spots. He wandered around the Hollywood movie lots all day and into the night. He was very sleepy and wondered where there might be a hook for his hat that night. He bumped into a kitty cat that was also having a very bad day. The fussy pussy had come within two whiskers of being the Cheshire Cat ... but Alice was allergic to his breed and they had to change kitty cats."

  "So," the Maharishi continued, "the two animals began looking for a puppy doghouse and a kitty cathouse. Soon the puppy dog and kitty cat bump into a cardboard box. They argue about who should have it. The puppy dog tells the kitty cat to let him have it or he is going to go and get his 101 spotted puppy dog friends. The kitty cat tells him to go ahead and get the puppy dogs ... because he knows the kitty cat that saved them in the movie."

  "No sooner does the puppy dog leave and the kitty cat curls up in a ball in the box, than an elephant with big ears flying overhead -- trying out for another movie -- falls out of the sky and lands on the box, killing the kitty cat instantly."

  "What kind of parable is that?" asked Coolidge.

  "My friend," said the Maharishi, "You should always let sleeping puppy dogs lie."

  ... 3 ...

  The next day fans filed through the doors of the Varsity arena on Sir John Avenue. It was a corporate crowd with the white collars outnumbering the blue two to one. The one o'clock face-off meant a businessman's special for the downtown sports fan. It also brought out the hooky-playing regulars from area schools. Early odds among the bettors had Herculean a prohibitive 1 to 10 favorite. With a win, $100 wagered on the advertising Goliath would fetch back $110. Outside the building, above the mingling mops, weaves and shoulder-length hair was an electronic marquee. The message, "SERPENTS VS. LEAFS", ran across the foot-high screen every 30 seconds ... taking turns with an ad for the Red Cross blood bank.

  In the Leafs dressing room, Derek checked the battery pack on his belt, then his headset. A friend at CBC, Newton "Oggie" Nash, had been laid off six weeks ago. Nash had swiped the gear as part of a self-negotiated severance package.

  He stared through the doorway at the team inside. What had he done? He'd heaped his hopes onto the backs of a bunch of strangers, expecting them to go and grab his Holy Grail. He was the pacing, chafing coach ... a rookie in those ranks, a one-game indoctrination for which he'd spend more than one summer reflecting on the outcome.

  The room rank of nervousness. He could smell the ice. A gaggle of goose bumps honked up and down his spine. The crisp cool air swept him back to his college days. Adrenalin squeezed off another round as Marcotte watched the Zamboni exit the ice. He longed to step out onto the immaculate, virgin-anew, frozen surface. It was similar to getting into a cold car and waiting for it to heat up. The initial chill in the air zipped through your long underwear. It was forgotten however, after a lap and a half around the rink.

  Derek and Artie stood in the doorway. Artie held two cups of coffee. Behind them, their goalie, Cal Arrette, stood in full gear in the open area washroom. There were no doors on the stalls. A no loitering policy was arena-wide. Arrette checked his face in the mirror. The mug staring back at him was creamy white, on the verge of turning a sour yellow.

  "I didn't think we could afford an eye in the sky," said Artie, pointing to the hardware Marcotte was packing.

  Derek winked at him.

  "Thank god for CBC cutbacks."

  Artie shook his head, not wanting to hear the rest of the story. He handed Derek his coffee. They both took a sip.

  "You ready?" asked Derek.

  "My resume is."

  Behind them, Arrette grabbed the basin with both hands and let loose a spew that included most of the Soft Jazz Cafe's blue plate special. Derek nodded to Arrette.

  "Looks like he's ready too."

  "Okay, guys. Let's go," Derek said.

  The players filed past Marcotte and Hammond out through the door along the rubber-matted runway to the ice. Tuckapuk ... Starsikov ... Hutchny ... they all shuffled by. Derek watched their faces. He wondered if deep down inside they were ready to bust their butts for a small advertising firm. Would they realize this wasn't some kind of beer league game? He'd gone over the pre-game preparations with them already. He reminded them of the TV cameras, a good crowd on hand, a chance for some exposure ... and if they were going to party in the big city tonight, to at least do something on the ice that would be worth talking about later.

  It was the first time Derek couldn't lead by example. In a sense, he was out of his element, standing behind the bench, unable to leap over the boards. The gap between the bench and the dasher boards may as well have been the Grand Canyon. Though he wasn't making the leap, Marcotte still suffered from Evel Knievel-like pre-jump jitters.

  Greg Arryus was the second last player out the door, followed by Cal Arrette. The Leaf's goalie only had an upset stomach -- the kind that flared up 35 minutes before game time. His metabolism would quit red-lining after the first kick save.

  Derek looked back into the dressing room. This was it. The troops were advancing. This was his Waterloo, his destiny. Ever the diligent field marshal, Marcotte sensed his army lacking a vital enlistment. Sylvie. Or perhaps Florence Nightengale.

  Ray Marcotte looked on from the crowd. He'd bet the Brooks Brother suit beside him $50 that the Leafs would prevail, at 20-to-1 odds. Bradley Muldowney had centre ice seats. The Tortellini brothers were also in attendance. The seats immediately in front of them had emptied out a few minutes after the beer vendor had arrived. The three brothers were debating which Toronto players should be traded since the team had missed the play-offs again. The Tortellinis' animated discussion, jostled beer cups, and sincere apologies did little to stem the tide of splashed
beer on the row of seats below them.

  A couple of sections away, Helen sat knitting a muffler for Derek. It kept her from chewing on her nails. She looked up and noticed a big, lumbering Serpents defenseman, Art Riddick, skate by. He spotted her. Their eyes met and he flashed her a big, toothless grin. Embarrassed that she'd been caught staring, she quickly looked back to her knitting. She forgot to pearl. When Riddick passed again, her gaze followed him, watching him skate behind the net.

  High above the ice surface in the press box, Syl Able and Harvey Kane, both in their fifties and passionate collectors of Perry Como LPs, sat at their respective microphones. Able was the balding play-by-play man. Every suit he owned was an off-the-rack, off-brown shade. He spoke with a drilling, nasal drone, which at times felt like the worst thirty seconds of a root canal.

  Kane, the color analyst, was forty pounds overweight and hated ties. Ever since one of the New York Islander Stanley Cup parties, he had recurring nightmares where he saw himself sitting on a Clydesdale horse. One end of a large polka-dot tie was wrapped around his neck, the other end tied to the Statue of Liberty's torch hand. The final siren of the period would sound, sending the horse bolting and leaving Kane dangling in the wind. One Coney Island gypsy told him the dream harkened back to distant relatives of his who had arrived at Ellis Island at the turn of the century. They were denied entrance after they'd listed their occupation as polka party emcees. Another crystal ball doll told him to lay off the beluga and beer.

  Beluga, beer or not, Kane's booming voice had been known to trample all over Able's nasal narrative when the action on the ice turned up a notch.

  Able received the cue from his producer to begin the broadcast.

  "Tonight, in a Cinderella match-up ... the rag-tag Leafs will try and topple the Herculean Serpents. Both teams' rosters have been stocked in a cross-country search where their respective coaches have tried to get the proper feet to fit into the glass slipper ... heh-heh ... or hockey skate. Your thoughts, Harv."