by Jack Falla
“Careful next period, guys, the refs’ll be looking to even it up,” Picard said between periods. He was right. Refs tell you they call what they see. But count the penalties to each team at the end of a game. They’re usually close to even.
Sure enough, Justin Pelletier got whistled for interference in the first minute and Boston scored on the power play. Three minutes later we were down a man again and Boston tied the game at 2–2. I figured the refs would let us play in the final period. I figured right.
The third period of that game was the best of the series, a clinic of quick breakouts and tic-tac-toe passing. Rinky made a few unlikely saves. So did I. The Boston fans were going crazy. I got caught up in the excitement, which is probably why I thought I could win a race with Gaston Deveau. We were pressing the Bruins when Cam got the puck and spotted Gaston breaking through center ice behind our defense. Cam hit him with a pass that bounced off Gaston’s stick and rolled toward the face-off circle to my right. You don’t really think at times like this. You react. I felt I could beat Gaston to the puck so I darted from my net. I hadn’t gone ten feet when I knew the race was closer than I’d figured so I dived—headfirst. The game tape showed that I won the race and knocked the puck to a Montreal back-checker. But I don’t remember any of that because just as I hit the puck, Gaston’s knee hit my head. I felt a thud on the left side of my helmet and then it was lights-out. When I regained consciousness my leg pads, skates, helmet, and gloves had been removed and I was strapped to a stretcher that Marc Wilson and two EMTs were loading into an ambulance. Faith arrived just as the EMTs were about to close the doors. “I’m his doctor,” Faith told the EMTs, who let her jump into the back of the ambulance. “And I should be sued for malpractice,” she said to me. As the ambulance doors closed, one of the clubhouse boys handed Faith my street clothes.
What happened back at the Garden was that my backup goalie, Ryan McDonough, went into the game and let in three of the first six shots he faced for a 5–2 Boston win that tied the series at two games each.
What happened in the ambulance was a seminar on concussions conducted by the charming, soft-spoken, and ever compassionate Dr. Faith McNeil. “Jesus Christ All-freaking-mighty, Jean Pierre, can I ask you a personal question? What do you plan on using for brains for the rest of your life?”
“Is there a radio in this thing? Can we listen to the game?” I said.
“No. There’s no radio. There’s no wet bar. There’s no CD changer. There’s no cable TV. We’re in a goddamn ambulance on our way to Massachusetts General Hospital because you have a concussion. Do you know what happens in a concussion, JP?” I figured that was a rhetorical question so I didn’t say anything. “What happens is that a few million brain cells—this would be your alleged brain we’re talking about here—slam against the inside of your skull. Basically, a concussion is a bruise on your brain. You’ll recover from the symptoms but some of the damage can remain. It can be cumulative. It’s very serious, JP.”
“So are the playoffs,” I said.
Faith looked up, drew a deep breath, exhaled slowly, and took my catching hand, which was all clammy and taped up; she kissed it anyway. “I know it’s important, hon. I know it’s your life and your work. But head injuries have ended a lot of careers.” She mentioned former NHLers Pat LaFontaine and Brett Lindros. “I think you’re done for this season. After that…” The words hung in the air for a few seconds before she said, “… I don’t know. It’s up to you.”
* * *
I said I could walk into the hospital but the EMTs insisted on wheeling me in. One of our trainers had phoned ahead so the hospital was expecting me. “We can do a brain scan right now, Mr. Savard,” said a young woman whose name tag identified her as Ella Rae, M.D.—Neurology. “I think you’ll be spending the night with us.” I asked her if she had a final on the game. “Five-two Boston,” she said. “What’s the schedule now?” I told her Game 5 was set for Friday in Montreal and Game 6 back in Boston on Sunday afternoon. “If we need a Game Seven it’ll be Tuesday in Montreal,” I said. “You think I can make any of those?”
“I’m not supposed to guess, but no. I reviewed Dr. Wynn’s records before you came in tonight. I know he saw you for a concussion a few weeks ago.”
“And I’m pretty sure he got another one in Game One,” Faith said.
“Squealer,” I said.
“We’re going to do some computed axial tomography. A CAT scan,” she said. “Should take about twenty minutes. It helps us determine the extent of any damage to the brain tissue. Let me know if you have any questions.”
“Do you have a Sharks-Ducks score?”
“Scoreless. Just started,” she said.
“Celtics?”
“Lost to Denver 101–98. Iverson had 42. He’s on my NBA fantasy team.”
“Red Sox?”
“It’s 2–0 Boston top of the third in Seattle. Two-run homer by Ortiz in the first. Sweet for me. He’s on my baseball fantasy team.”
“Am I on your NHL fantasy team?”
“Jesus Christ,” Faith said before Dr. Rae answered.
“Truthfully, I drafted Claude Rancourt of Montreal,” Dr. Rae said. “But I took you when Rancourt got hurt.”
“So did the Canadiens,” Faith said.
“Who else is on your fantasy team?” I asked.
“Brad Pitt,” she said.
* * *
I had the CAT scan and a few other tests. It was almost midnight when I got the official diagnosis of a concussion. “I’m afraid you’re out for the rest of the playoffs,” Dr. Rae told me after she’d looked at the tests. “We’d like to keep you overnight. We’ll probably release you in the morning. We can give you a private room.”
“I can take him off your hands,” Faith said.
“And your relationship to Mr. Savard is…?”
“Parole officer,” Faith said before she explained she was a doctor.
Dr. Rae handed me some pills—“These are milder than what you’ve been taking,” she said, then called for a wheelchair. I stood up to show her I could walk and didn’t need a wheelchair, hospital policy or not. I changed into my street clothes and threw my game uniform and chest-and-arm protector into a huge plastic trash bag that I thought was a pretty good metaphor for where my career might be heading. We took a cab back to the Garden to get the Ferrari.
I wasn’t nauseated so Faith made us a late-night dinner of a mushroom omelet with a spinach salad and crostini with melted Gorgonzola. I thought about watching the last period of the Ducks-Sharks West Coast game but I didn’t really want to. What I wanted to do was sleep.
“I’m sorry I got mad at you in the ambulance,” Faith said as we got into bed. “It’s just that I hate to see what you’ve been doing to yourself these last few weeks.”
“I’ve just been trying to win the thing, you know. Get my name on the Cup.”
“Well, you’re off the hook now. You’ve got a legitimate injury that should keep you out of the playoffs.”
“We can argue about that later,” I said, turning onto my right side and slipping my left arm around Faith, who was wearing one of my V-necked T-shirts and doing more for it than I ever did.
* * *
The sun had been up for a couple of hours when Faith woke up for the very good reason that my left hand had found its way under her T-shirt.
“Mmmm. Feeling better, are we?” she said. “How’s your headache.”
“Still there but not bad. Like it moved into a back room of my brain.”
“Well, we don’t want to aggravate it, soooo,” Faith said, turning toward me and half rising from the bed. “I’m going to do something that will make this very easy for both of us.” And she did. She surely did.
It seemed strange to have a whole day to ourselves. No practice, game, or travel for me. No classes or meetings for Faith. “Let’s take a walk,” she said.
It was a warm day in mid-May and the morning air smelled of wet earth and new-mown grass. A
sprinkle of pink apple blossoms fell from the dwarf crab apple tree on Faith’s front lawn. We held hands as we wandered east toward Boston College, past the football stadium—“the House that Doug Flutie built,” Faith called it—past St. Ignatius Church, halfway around the Chestnut Hill Reservoir, across several acres of baseball fields, and into the village of Cleveland Circle.
“Got to have a slice of Pino’s Pizza. Best in the city,” Faith said, leading me toward an unpretentious restaurant with booths and benches and a lot of posters of Italy on the walls. We ordered from a counter at the back of the restaurant. “Have the plain tomato and cheese. No fancy add-ons. That’s the only way to tell how good a pizza really is,” Faith said.
“People, too,” I said.
We each got two slices and what was billed as a medium root beer but which, in keeping with modern drink sizes, was about the size of a trash barrel. Faith paid. We sat in a booth and talked about what a normal life in Vermont might be like.
“I want a hoop over the garage,” Faith said.
“And a driveway three or four cars wide. Great for street hockey,” I said. “And no windows in the garage doors. If the basketballs don’t break them the pucks and tennis balls will.”
“And a flat backyard for a skating rink,” Faith said.
“No swimming pool?”
“Everybody has a pool, JP. A rink is way funkier.”
“What do we do with it in the summer?”
“Arena football,” she said.
I was daydreaming out loud when I said it might be nice to take classes in the morning, then go to the rink and coach in the afternoon and be home for dinner. “And no more trips to Edmonton, Calgary, and Anaheim. A big road trip in college is to Boston for Northeastern on Friday night and BU on Saturday. And even if you go to the Frozen Four the season is still two months shorter than the NHL’s. It’ll be a good life in a few years,” I said.
Faith held up the forefinger on her right hand signaling that she’d have something important to say as soon as she swallowed a mouthful of pizza. “But Marco needs to name an assistant now,” is what she said. “And if you want to work with Rudy Evanston … well, Rudy’s got only one season left.”
“Can’t do it, Faith. I’m a player first. I think that old sportswriter Jim Murray had it right about pro players—we are what we do.”
She thought about that for a minute. “And if you don’t you’re nothing?” she said. It was a question but I couldn’t answer it.
* * *
We walked the two miles or so back to Faith’s house. “I’m tired,” I said.
“You’re a professional athlete, JP. How can you be tired from a walk?”
“Maybe it’s mental. This is the most relaxed I’ve been since training camp. No game to worry about.”
I slept through most of the late afternoon while Faith went grocery shopping. I awoke to the smell of grilled swordfish wafting up the stairs.
With no hockey game until the next day, we watched the Red Sox on TV after dinner. Just as I clicked on the game the announcer was reminding viewers that a week from Saturday would be a makeup game for the Sox versus Detroit and that the game would be “a day-night separate-admission doubleheader.” Faith giggled when she heard that.
“What so funny?” I said.
“We should do one of those,” she said.
“One of what?”
“A day-night separate-admission doubleheader.”
So we did. And this time I made it easy for her. I surely did.
I fell asleep thinking that I’d just had the best day of my life and I hadn’t played hockey or spent money.
* * *
Friday wasn’t the best day of anybody’s life if you played for Boston or Montreal although it was slightly better for Montreal because we won 8–7 in a game in which both starting goaltenders—Rinky Higgins in the Boston net and Ryan McDonough for us—played poorly. Montreal was down 7–6 going into the third period. Joe Latendresse tied it on the power play, then won it for us at 17:18 of overtime when he swept in from the right side, got Rinky going left to right, then shot back across the grain, putting the puck into the place Rinky had just left. It was—as the TV guys like to say—a goal scorer’s goal. Montreal held a 3–2 series lead going into Game 6 in Boston.
Cam’s father invited me to watch that game from his luxury suite. I thanked him but explained I was a Montreal Canadien, at least for the time being, and it was best if I stayed down by my team’s bench. Faith joined Cam’s parents, six or seven Carter & Peabody clients, Denny Moran, and my mother in the C&P box. I stood in the runway beside the Montreal bench. You can’t see the game very well from there. But you can feel it, sense its intensity, and glimpse its beauty. Skating is as close to elegance as a man can get.
Gaston was skating to space, his arrival magically timed to coincide with the puck’s arrival. Cam was hammering guys. Flipside—his shirt billowing, back-checkers scrambling helplessly in his wake—was a one-man breakout play, sometimes carrying the puck the length of the ice like a fourth forward. Kevin Quigley was banging along the walls. And if that wasn’t enough, Boston had three power plays to our one and scored on all of them for a 3–0 first-period lead. We were back on our heels.
I went into the dressing room between periods. The first thing I saw as I entered was Ryan McDonough taking off his goalie equipment. “Going somewhere, Ry? Doctor’s appointment?” I asked.
“I always do this when I suck. Change everything. Underwear. Jock. Everything. Fresh start, eh?” he said, snapping off his words like a man badly shaken.
I felt I had to do some freelance coaching. “Don’t attribute your ability to outside things,” I told him. “You played well enough to make it to the NHL. You’re going to have to slam the door now. Resilience is part of ability. Nothing to do with a dry jock. Hey, if we get the next goal…” I didn’t think I had to explain what everyone in the NHL knows—3–1 is the most dangerous lead in hockey. But my advice didn’t do any good. McDonough gave up a softy in the first minute of the second period. That was it. With the game all but officially lost, Packy pulled McDonough and put in Demetre Fontaine. The kid played half the game on his knees or stomach diving around like a circus seal but stopping everything Boston shot at him. “What the hell’s he doing?” said Marc Wilson, who was standing in the runway with me. “Stopping the puck,” I said. “It’s the job description.”
Fontaine was named third star of the game even though we lost. Alvin “Captain Baritone” Crouch caught the kid in the runway as he came off the ice. “Demetre … Demetre Fontaine … Nineteen years old and you’re third star in your first NHL game. How do you feel?”
In his French accent the kid said, “I radder win dan be turd star.”
“Turd star. Got to love live TV,” I said to Marc, who was bent over laughing.
Faith and I met my mother and Denny Moran at the Copley Plaza bar after the game. Denny told me Montreal was hot to sign me for two years “and I think I can push it to three or four if you want.”
“No. Two is good. No more,” I said.
“Well, this Fontaine kid will be ready by then,” Denny said. “His style, if that’s what you want to call it, reminds me of the Dominator’s.” “The Dominator” was the nickname of the great Dominik Hasek. We didn’t know it then but in her story the next morning Lynne Abbott would give Demetre Fontaine his own nickname—the Demonator.
We speculated on which goalie Montreal would start in Game 7; the psychologically fragile Ryan McDonough or a teenager with thirty-nine minutes of NHL experience.
“Nasty choice,” Faith said.
“They won’t dare start a teenage rookie in a Game Seven,” Denny said. I said I wasn’t so sure. “The kid’s cocky and cold-blooded—good things for a goalie in a money game.”
* * *
“Relieved you’re not playing?” Faith asked on the ride back to her place.
“No. I don’t miss the nervousness. But I feel…” I was going
to say “useless” but changed it to “unimportant.”
“Someday you’re going to have to learn you’re more than a goalie,” she said.
“I’ll take that course in two years.”
She gunned the Ferrari past the IHOP on Soldiers Field Road.
Eleven
I thought Faith would give me an argument about driving to Montreal on Monday so I could be at Tuesday’s Game 7. She didn’t. She understood. And came with me.
“My father had a team rule that a player had to travel both ways on the team bus. No driving home with parents after an away game,” she said.
“Had a rule? Doesn’t he still?”
“Naw. Parents beat him down.”
We talked briefly about my taking a pass on the Vermont coaching job.
“If you don’t when you can, then maybe you can’t when you want to,” she said. “Whoever takes the job next could be there a long time.”
“It’s worth the risk to play another two seasons. I’d give my left one to get my name on that Cup.”
“Hey. Careful what you wish for.”
I said that if I coached I’d rather be a goalie coach than a head coach.
“Hah. A goalie coach is a head coach,” she said.
“How you feeling?” she asked as we drove off I-93 onto I-89 in New Hampshire.
“Great,” I said. “No headaches. No nausea. I could go.”
“Stay like that for a week and if Montreal makes it to the finals maybe you’ll be ready to play in Game Four or Five. I wouldn’t recommend it but I know how you feel. You wouldn’t even have to play. All you have to do is be on the roster to get your name on the Cup, right?”
“Technically. But I don’t want to back into it that way. I want to matter.”
“If you can dress you’ll play. Who else have they got? The Demonator? Stay symptom-free and if the Canadiens win tomorrow you might get your chance.”
I decided to tell her what I’d been telling myself since I woke up. “I don’t mean I want to play in a couple of weeks. I want to play tomorrow,” I said, bracing myself for what I thought would be a tsunami of bewildered anger.