During one line brawl with the Houston Aeros, I skated down the ice to fight their goalie, Troy Gamble. He kept his blocker on when we fought, which added six inches to his reach, and he was drilling the blocker into my forehead. The fans in Vegas were pushing against the glass, shaking it like it was going to come down. Then I just destroyed Gamble. I probably got him with ten straight shots before the refs jumped in. After the brawl, Kerry started taunting their bench, challenging them all to fight.
After the game, I saw Troy walking by.
“Hey, how you doing?” I asked. I was always friendly with the guys I fought. It’s an unwritten hockey rule: you bond after spilling blood.
Gamble just shook his head.
“Ah, fuck man,” he said, “why did you do that?”
“You took chunks out of my head with your blocker,” I said. “I had a right.” Another rule in the unwritten code.
We finished first overall with fifty-two wins against twenty-nine losses—eleven of them in overtime. Almost every game was a sellout, with an average attendance of 7,185—an impressive number for an expansion hockey team in the desert. The fans embraced me there. Including pre-season and playoffs, I played fifty-five games, earning thirty-four wins with a 3.36 goals-against average. But I also got involved in the community, doing a bunch of charity work. It was right up my alley—I’ve always loved to do that kind of stuff. I was on the board of the Nevada Foundation for Child Cancer. I would go to meetings in my jeans and cowboy hat when everyone else dressed in suits. I’d put my feet up on the table. They deferred to me on a lot of questions for some reason. I always gave the same answer: “It’s all about the kids, man. It’s all about the kids.”
Once a week, I’d go to the hospital to visit the kids and bring them all kinds of souvenirs from the Thunder. I considered it part of my job as a hockey player. You have a direct avenue to help people, and you’re automatically a heavy hitter with the kids. I used to try to recruit guys to come with me. Most didn’t want to—they were too uncomfortable. It was a harsh reality that a lot of these kids weren’t going to make it.
I got to know a lot of parents who were going through an unthinkable reality. These poor kids were always tired, usually doped up on pain medication or a cancer treatment, so you’d bring gifts, and the next thing you know, they’re sleeping. I spent a lot of time talking to parents next to their brave little kids and became friends with a lot of them. Far too often, their kid would die. The funerals were so difficult. It’s hard to not be grateful for the life you have at times like that. And that unquenchable pain—no parent should ever have to go through that.
I stayed in touch with several of those families.
One of the kids I visited was named Brian. He was fortunate to survive his battle with cancer. His dad was a cop in Nevada at the time, but he ended up being the speaker of the state assembly. I got an email from him maybe a decade after we met in the hospital. He told me Brian ended up playing roller hockey. We exchanged a few heartfelt emails. Being able to connect with these kinds of people is one of the things I cherish most about the opportunities hockey afforded me, even after my NHL days were done.
After my first season in Las Vegas, my agent, Daniel Sauve, started to get interest from NHL teams. The Boston Bruins were one of them. They were looking for a veteran goalie, and my success with the Thunder hadn’t gone unnoticed. It wasn’t a sure thing, but it was interest nonetheless. The thought of going back to the NHL excited me—I wanted to prove that I was strong enough to make it back. But at the same time, I was afraid of drifting back into what I’d overcome. I was pretty content in Vegas, and truthfully I worried that I couldn’t handle the pressure cooker. I was afraid things would go south if I left this comfort zone.
I was a hockey player in the minor leagues—of course I wanted to be back in the NHL. Of course I wanted to prove those fuckers wrong—to prove that I belonged. But I was going to AA at the time. I had things together. I was loving life. My shitty second marriage was over. I had a whole new deck to play with in Vegas. Finally, I was getting things right. The thought of losing it all by trying to get it all terrified me. Normally, any player in the minors would leap at a shot at the show, with no hesitation. But I wasn’t normal. I went to Strumm and told him my situation.
Strumm and I had a great relationship. He knew I could have left, but he also knew that I had a special connection with the Vegas fans. So Strummer said, “Listen, Clint. This is what we’ll offer you. As long as you can play, we will match.” My salary that first season was around $40,000—a lot less than I’d made in my NHL contracts. They offered $130,000, figuring that would be what an offer from the Bruins might look like. It was a huge raise and a considerable sum for the minor pros. The deal was to play for another season or two and then transition into a coaching or management role with the team. Strumm knew I was thinking about my future beyond the game, and coaching was part of my plan. I looked at that opportunity knowing that my body was about to fall apart. I was in my mid-thirties, my back was bad, my knees were horrible. All things considered, this was my chance for a second life in the game. I don’t have to prove shit to anybody anymore, I thought. I was happy.
Strumm sweetened the deal by offering me a signing bonus. I asked him if he could pay it out in horses—a strange request, but if I was going to build a life in Nevada, I’d need a proper ranch. Strumm agreed to throw in two horses that year and another horse for every year I played with the Thunder after that. I think it might have been the first pro contract with livestock involved. A local reporter asked me about the odd request. I told him that I was going through a nasty divorce and that if she wanted to take half of what I owned, I knew which half of the horse she could have. The quote went over the wires and ended up in the Hockey News. I don’t think she was too pleased.
Later, when I would look back on everything, I’d always get stuck wondering what could have been, thinking I should have tried one last time. But after two or three years of madness, the truth is my mind would have crumbled under the anxiety of a return. Did I really want to come back? Sure. Could I have survived? I’ll never know.
I bought a beautiful ranch on the edge of Las Vegas. I invested in sixteen emus because they were a hot item at the time. Emu oil was in high demand. I had their fat boiled down into this oil and packaged under the Canuck Ranch brand name. We’d sell it to drugstores, athletes, sports teams.
The ranch had an amazing roping arena. It was paradise. I had a bunch of roping steers and put up lights so we could rope at night (it was so hot during the day). The National Finals Rodeo, the NFR, was always held in Vegas. I invited all those great riders out to rope at my ranch. Rod and Denny Hay, two brothers, almost missed the finals at the Thomas and Mack Center because they were roping at my house. It was like a hockey player being late for a game in the Stanley Cup final because he was playing ball hockey on some fan’s street.
I met my third wife while I was in Vegas—she was working in the promotions department at a radio station that I did an interview at. We hit it off right away, and once again, it didn’t take long before we were married. It was the first time I actually had a great connection with the person I married. She was lovely and we were really good friends.
We had more big names come through Vegas during the 1994–95 season. During the NHL lockout, Alexei Yashin, the young superstar from the Ottawa Senators, played twenty-four games with us. Manon Rheaume, the first woman to play in an NHL exhibition game, played with us, too. She was very good, but it was a big jump to face the speed and strength of the shooters in men’s pro hockey. Rheaume played only fifty-two minutes in two games with us, but she packed the arena.
I finished that season with thirty-eight games and fifteen wins to my name. It was the last full campaign of my career.
19
Dad
MY DAD CALLED ME UP ONE NIGHT IN VEGAS. I HADN’T REALLY spoken to him in about twelve years—he had left, and that was it. My parents divorced and he wa
s out of my life. He didn’t see me play junior in Fort Saskatchewan. He wasn’t there when I made it to the Portland Winterhawks. He wasn’t there for my first NHL game.
Later, when I played against the Edmonton Oilers, my family would always be there—Mom and Garth, and Terry, if she was in town. They’d come down under the seats after the game to meet me when I left the dressing room.
Sometimes, my dad would show up. We’d be down near the bus, in the parking area underneath the arena, and he’d be hiding behind a pole, kind of sticking his head out.
“I didn’t want to bother anyone, Clint,” he’d say. “I just wanted to say hi.”
That always got to me because he was there when I learned to skate, and when I first put on the pads, and when I first stopped a puck—but he skipped out on so much more. He didn’t come to Fort Saskatchewan or Portland or even Fredericton. Damn, it would have been nice to have a dad then.
So I make the NHL and all of a sudden he’s hiding at a game in Edmonton from the family he tore to pieces. He tried to get in touch with me more as my career went on, but it always seemed that, the more success I had, the more he wanted to be part of my life. I don’t know if that’s fair; I never knew his heart—but that’s the way I took it.
Before he called that night, we’d lost total contact. I couldn’t tell you the last time we’d had a conversation. He wanted to apologize.
“Clint, I’m sorry. I’m so proud of you.”
He was crying. I couldn’t tell if he was drunk, but I assumed he was. He said he was sorry over and over again, between sobs. It really made me uncomfortable.
“Listen, Dad,” I said. “Listen. It’s okay. I forgive you.”
I hated him for what he had done to my mom, but I was an adult now, and as far as we went, I’d moved on.
He was crying still.
“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. I should have stayed with your mom,” he said. “I fucked up.”
“As far as I’m concerned, Dad, I forgive you.” He was in a bad way, so I bought him a ticket to come down to Vegas.
When I was young, he always made sure I wore a sharp shirt and tie to games. It was a matter of self-respect and pride. He came off the plane in Vegas in this baggy old suit that wasn’t his, and he had this short, fat tie on. He was missing most of his teeth. He was in his early sixties, but he’d aged so much, I barely recognized him.
Dad was all over Alberta through that lost decade. I think he’d married a couple of times. I know he had gone up to the Yukon and hooked up with a native woman. He bragged about how he taught people in Whitehorse how to plant gardens—as if they didn’t know how. He ended up working as a handyman for room and board at a motel in northern Alberta.
We spent five days together. We got along really well and had some decent talks. He told me he wasn’t drinking, but I knew he was. He’d stashed some booze in his luggage, and I could smell it on him. I didn’t care, but it was like he really wanted me to believe that he wasn’t drinking anymore. Maybe he thought it would make me proud of him. I don’t know.
He cooked barbeque one night. It was really good; he put the vegetables in tin foil. We sat there eating dinner and then he reached into his mouth, gave a twist and pulled this rotted tooth out.
On his last night in Vegas, we sat on the porch at my ranch, just talking and staring at the stars. He was on again about how sorry he was for everything he’d done, saying how much he missed everything he’d lost along the way. He was well lit; I could smell the booze on him. He carried so much guilt, and he knew that he would never be able to make amends for the pain he had caused.
“I loved to dance,” he said. “I loved to dance with your mother.” He picked up a broom leaning against the wall, turned it upside down and slowly waltzed around the porch—twirling and twirling, singing softly to himself.
I realized then how much I’d lost. It was his fault, of course. He’d fallen into the bottle. I looked down on him from the edge. There were so many years lost to his disease. I think that’s why I softened, knowing how rough the struggle was.
My mother tried so hard to love him. She tried to forgive him for the booze and the rage and the violence. She really loved him. She forgave him over and over until the guy who used to take her dancing fully became the monster inside him. It was the infidelity that turned her hurt into hate. When she hit the wall, she hit it hard. It was too much. I can’t and won’t blame her.
I really tried to hate him, too. I didn’t understand it, because I was young. He’s your dad. You can’t just hate him. Maybe that was what screwed me up first. There was so much love and anger, confusion and fear. And this attempt to understand hate.
And here he was, this drunk sketch of a man—my dad, again. Waltzing with a broom on my porch. “I loved to dance with your mother,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
20
Retired
BY THE END OF THE 1994–95 SEASON, MY BODY WAS BREAKING down. I was in my mid-thirties and I knew I couldn’t keep my game up to the standards I demanded of it. The Thunder offered me a position as assistant coach and assistant GM, so I retired and took the front-office position.
I wasn’t completely done playing yet. In March 1996, the team asked me to suit up for one more game, and they put me in for the final five minutes of the first period. I turned away two shots, and when the period ended, my playing days were officially done. It was emotional. The Thunder retired my jersey right then and there, in a ceremony before the second period started. My mom, sister and brother-in-law made the trip from Canada to be there. My buddy Coleman Robinson came out, too. My dad wasn’t there.
During the intermission, they pulled out a red carpet and brought my family down to the ice. There was a highlight video on the big screen, showing my best saves and footage of me picking up the horses the team had given me in my first season in Vegas. They presented me with a roping dummy and a cowboy hat, and then Coleman brought out this beautiful horse. It was a high-dollar rope horse—probably the fifth the Thunder had given me, but easily the finest one. I called him Ace. He’s still alive, even though he’s well over thirty.
Being an assistant coach wasn’t that bad. I’d played with a lot of the guys on the team, so I already had a relationship with them. Chris McSorley was the head coach, and the players didn’t really like him all that much. The two of us even clashed at times. Once, there was a trade rumour about one of our players, Ken Quinney, and Quinney came to me to ask about it. He’d been a teammate of mine in Quebec, and we had a good relationship. I told him he was on the block. Afterwards, I had a meeting with McSorley and Bob Strumm, the general manager. Strumm said, “Clint, you need to learn how to lie. In this business, you can never tell a player something like that.”
Strummer saw my body language change the moment he said it.
“What? What the hell did you say?”
“Well, you have to learn to stretch the truth, Clint.”
I was leaning over his desk now. He could see the anger rising. I went off.
“Are you kidding me? You want me to lie? I will not fucking lie. If that’s what you think running a hockey business is, you guys have the wrong guy to do that. When Quinney came to me and I told him the truth, he lit up the scoreboard. Screw you guys.”
I was livid. And I might have overreacted a bit. Strummer kept trying to talk me down. He’s a guy that I love and respect. We’re great friends. But I don’t believe in lying to people, so I got my back up pretty quick. I’ll tell you what I think, I’ll tell you the truth—but I’ll never screw you over with a lie. Later, I realized what Strummer meant. I should have said, “Ken, I don’t know.”
I was assistant coach until March 1998, when they fired McSorley and I took over as head coach for the last nineteen games of the season. I loved coaching, but one thing I refused to do was to sacrifice the good relationships I had built with the players. They would come into my office and I’d sit them down and tell it to them straight. The mino
rs are unique, because you have guys coming in from all different levels of the game. Players were always shuffling up and down between the NHL and the IHL, so a lot of talent came through the Thunder. Curtis Joseph, already established as an NHLer, played a handful of games for us in 1995–96. Goalies Manny Legace and Tim Cheveldae shared the net a couple of years later. Pavol Demitra and Ruslan Salei joined the team in 1996–97. Sadly, both died in the tragic Lokomotiv Yaroslavl plane crash in 2011 that killed forty-four people.
In Vegas, I was in way over my head as a head coach, but my relationship with the players helped, and I hired a good assistant coach, Rod Buskas, who was very supportive. And Strummer was good, too. He was an excellent GM.
Being a head coach is fun because you’re in control and you get to bring guys in and work with them on a personal basis. I liked to find out what was going on with my guys. I wanted to know what made them tick. “What’s going on with your life? You married? Have a girlfriend?” I wanted to know because of all the shit that I had gone through. I didn’t just want to be their coach—the game is nothing. I wanted to know the person. A lot of my old players still email me. I think that’s why.
I don’t know if that makes you a good coach. But I know that my players loved me. They went to the wall for me. They knew that if I gave them shit, it was from the heart.
In the minor leagues, whatever your job description, you end up doing a bit of everything. Sometimes I did colour on the broadcasts of the Thunder’s games, though my personality proved a bit too colourful for the gig. We only had about six games on TV each year. One time, John Van Boxmeer, my old teammate with the Quebec Nordiques, was in town coaching the Long Beach Ice Dogs. I kept calling him “John Van Pap Smear.” I’d say, “There’s a close-up shot of John Van Pap Smear.” I was just joking around. I’d say it so quick, I don’t think people realized. Tim Neverett was doing the play-by-play, and he was having fits. “You can’t say that!” he said.
The Crazy Game Page 14