by James Duthie
Nothing.
And so I'm here to officially announce I'm over Anna. She's dead to me. She will never again be referenced in this space.
Ditto tennis. I'm done with tennis, too. (Unless they invite me back next year to meet Sharapova.)
• • •
Postscript: The restraining order arrived in the mail a few weeks later. See, I knew you wouldn't forget me!
Chapter 75
This Dog's Life
March 2009
The greatest athlete I ever saw, pound for pound, slept beside my bed and drank out of my toilet.
I knew my dog was a little different the first time I took him to a park in Ottawa in the spring of 1997. His tale (tail) of the tape: 10 weeks old, five inches tall, maybe three pounds, with an already impressive two-foot vertical. He figured that was more than enough to match the Rottweiler and German shepherd he went after, grabbing onto some extra fur on the latter's neck with his teeth and not letting go. It resembled the young lion trying to take down the elephant on my Blue Planet DVD.
My dog defined runt. His size and spunk immediately reminding me of Tanner Boyle, the short-tempered shortstop from the original Bad News Bears movie. And so he would become Tanner, a.k.a., “The Wonder Dog.”
Tanner was a Jack Russell Terrier, the “smartest dog alive,” according to Gene Hackman's character in Crimson Tide. I believe that throwaway screenplay line was the reason I got a Jack, despite numerous canine publications that warned against it. “Extremely high maintenance,” “temperamental,” “not an appropriate breed for most families,” they wrote. But also, “full of character.” And that was the only quote I circled.
When Tanner was six months old, on a lark we took him to a Jack Russell “trial” in a small country town near our cottage. Trials are basically track and field meets for Jacks. He was too young to compete with the Big Dawgs, so to speak (Jacks don't get very big), but this particular trial had a puppy division for dogs under a year old. There were about 20 Jack pups there, most of them from serious breeders, looking for their next champion.
The trial consisted of four events: an obstacle course, a simulated underground maze (Jacks were bred to chase foxes out of holes), a hurdles race and a straight sprint. The last two have the Jacks chasing a fake rabbit's tail on a rope to a grapefruit-sized hole in a stack of hay. First dog through the hole wins. (I believe if the Olympics adopted this idea, it would make track events much more compelling.)
That day remains one of the most bizarre, head-scratching, wonderful afternoons of my life.
Tanner won them all. Four golds (sorry, blue ribbons), Usain Bolt with a tail.
Despite the urging of several breeders at the event, Tanner would not go into full-time training. We retired him on the spot. An undefeated champion. Rocky Marciano's canine kindred. While his competitive track career was over, Tanner's sporting life was just beginning.
We moved to Vancouver in late 1997 and discovered our otherwise macho little alpha dog was afraid of water. I'd jog on the beach with him every morning, and he wouldn't go near the ocean. When my soon-to-be-wife ran a bath (for her, not him), he'd hide under the bed. That all changed the day we went deep sea fishing off English Bay, and brought the dog along (before kids, you always bring the dog along). He mostly stayed inside the boat, cowering in fear, until we reeled in the first salmon. The moment that fish flew out of the water and flopped back and forth on the floor of the boat, a bell went off in Tanner's head: Water equals fish. Fish equals. . . something I must have in my mouth right now!
He spent virtually every moment of the next decade trying to catch one. The size of the body of water was irrelevant: ocean, lake, river, puddle, bathtub, sink. In Tanner's mind, all water must contain fish. Fish flop. Fish = fun.
No dog obsesses quite like a Jack. Every time I bathed the kids, he would sit on the edge of the tub, waiting for that salmon to leap out of the water and into his jaws. It would eventually happen, he figured. He'd seen it. He had proof.
He would sprint along the shoreline of our cottage lake for 14 hours a day, chasing schools of minnows. In recent years, as my son grew old enough to cast off our dock, Tanner would leap off after every cast, trying to beat the worm to the sunfish. He never did catch one. But he never stopped trying. Man could learn something about perseverance from a Jack.
Tanner had more success with rocks. Some dogs fetch balls, some fetch sticks. He fetched rocks. Not little rocks. Rocks half his size. Boulders. One day at The Beaches in Toronto, after we'd moved back east, Tanner drew a crowd of 100, all stopping to watch him “rock-fetch.” He'd swim out 20 feet, dive under the water, disappear for 30 seconds, and emerge with a rock twice the size of his jaw. The crowd went nuts. I should have put a hat down and collected tips.
Tanner was a born performer. And pure clutch. We lived near Withrow Park in Toronto, which used to hold a Pet Trick Contest once a year. One summer, I discovered that along with rocks and fish, Tanner loved golf clubs. I have no idea why. Perhaps the feel of the metal against his teeth. Whatever it was, it made him nuts. I could throw him a pitching wedge and he would carry it, toss it, twirl it and generally be thrilled for hours at a time.
When I heard about the contest, I figured I'd try to teach him to hit a golf ball off a tee. We practised for a few days in the park. I'd drop the club a few feet in front of the tee, let him grab it and swing, hoping he'd make fluke contact. He might have hit the ball once in 100 tries.
I had to work the day of the contest so I gave my wife a quick tutorial on my plan and let her take over. She called me that afternoon, crying in laughter. Tanner, in front of a crowd of 500, had picked up the club, shaken it ferociously in his jaw, and knocked the ball six feet forward off the tee. Again, the crowd went ballistic. The contest was won. Tanner made page two of The Toronto Star, complete with a large photo of him with his pitching wedge.
Like he did with track and field, Tanner retired from golf that very day. The vet kept lecturing me that the steel was damaging his teeth (the rocks weren't helping either, but he refused to give them up).
He went out like a jock, too.
Last fall, a perfect late October Sunday, we went for a walk on a friend's farm. Tanner was in the zone, running through fields and woods, chasing squirrels and desperately hoping there might be some of that fish-infested-stuff called water around the next corner. Eleven-and-a-half years old, and still the energy of a pup.
And then he was gone.
Out of nowhere, he suffered some sort of seizure. . . stroke. . . heart attack. . . who knows. We never will. We raced him to the vet, holding him tight and bawling the whole way. But he was gone before we got there.
My two little girls were too young to understand. They immediately saw an opening for a hamster. My nine-year-old boy was crushed, but recovered quickly as nine-year-old boys do. My wife took it harder than expected, considering Tanner shed all over her couches and clothes, leapt on counters to steal the meals she'd cooked, and generally wreaked havoc on her house for a decade.
Me, I still miss the runt every day. He would have turned 12 this week. My youngest daughter asked me recently what dog heaven was like. I didn't have one of those eloquent answers the dads in Disney movies have. So I just told her it has tons of rocks, and the fish there are very, very slow.
• • •
Postscript: Thirteen months after Tanner's death, we decided we were finally ready for a new dog. We brought home a Boston Terrier, and named him Buddha. Buddha doesn't fetch rocks, or hit golf balls, or fish, but he's a hoot. And the kids love him. Our favourite photo of Tanner remains the screensaver on the family computer.
Chapter 76
The School of Robs
October 2010
Let's begin with a summer activity comparison.
Steven Stamkos spent his summer squatting 360 pounds in killer sets of five reps.
I occasionally squatted to pick up the remote if it slipped off the couch.
Steven Stamkos at
e carefully crafted meals consisting of superfoods like quinoa, sprouts, hemp, chia seeds and countless organic vegetables.
I ate Doritos off my navel while lying by the pool.
On his non-lifting days, Stamkos did intense interval running—600 metres, 800 metres, shorter sprints, sled pulls. . .over and over and over.
I would nap between walks to the fridge. Which, if you think about it, is kinda like intervals.
• • •
Sure, elite athletes are supposed to train hard in the off-season. But Stamkos and 24 other young hockey players took it to another level this summer. They enrolled in the School of Robs.
“It was tough,” says Stamkos. “You had to be totally dedicated to it. Every single day.”
You know the Gary Roberts story by heart now. His NHL career was over at 30 after a broken neck. Then he discovered training, and proper eating, and became a physical beast who came back to play another dozen years in the league. His workout regimen and dietary discipline are legendary in Hockeynation. And now, just a year into retirement, he's found his second calling, playing Mr. Miyagi to young stars like Stamkos.
“Come, Steven-son! One more set of deadlifts . . . drink protein shake . . . wax on, wax off.”
Nineteen young hockey stars practically lived in Roberts' home gym in Uxbridge, Ontario, this summer. There was Stamkos, his Tampa teammate Steve Downie, the Canucks' Cody Hodgson, Florida forward Stephen Weiss, Pittsburgh forward James Neal, Rangers defenseman Michael Del Zotto, Carolina's seventh overall draft pick, Jeff Skinner, and a bunch of other top NHL and OHL draft picks.
“The best thing about Robs is that he knows what each individual needs to work on and he designs a specific program for each person,” says Stamkos.
Some needed to get leaner. Some needed to add muscle mass. Some, like Hodgson, needed to get over injuries. They were all in for a summer they will not soon forget.
I'll spare you the details of the workout regimen, because I lost seven pounds, pulled an oblique muscle, and threw up just trying to type it. Roberts drives the players as hard as he drove himself.
“It was one of the hardest things I've ever done,” says Cameron Gaunce, the second-round pick of the Colorado Avalanche in 2008. “Robs is very intense, but it is much more than the workouts. He teaches you an entire lifestyle change. Resting properly, eating the right things at the right times. He teaches you that hockey is a year-round job.”
Sure, everybody lifts. Everybody does cardio. But what really sets The School of Robs apart is the attention to diet. These kids have all heard about when to get their carbs and protein before. But never like this.
“Proper diet is the number-one thing NHL players and organizations don't pay enough attention to. It drives me crazy,” says Roberts. “When I was in Tampa, we had four dessert options on the airplane! There was the cheesecake tray, the cookie tray, the ice cream tray, the little Smartie-Tootsie Roll tray. I'm thinking, ‘Are we actually a professional hockey team?’ If you ate all those things, you wouldn't wake up for three days! The biggest thing I'm teaching these guys is that you don't recover without proper nutrition. You will never make the gains you can make if you don't eat right.”
So Roberts took his trainees grocery shopping, to a massive organic healthy food market/cafe called Nature's Emporium in Newmarket, Ontario. They went aisle by aisle, learning about foods they'd never heard of, let alone eaten. Roberts then worked with the chefs at Nature's Emporium to design a full summer menu for his troops. Every meal they ate had to meet his approval.
“It was a big adjustment,” says Stamkos. “The first two weeks we started the program, your body is not used to that type of food. You are used to laying on the mayo, the ranch dressing. It was depressing at first. But once my body got used to it, it was fine. The food was great. I didn't know what some of it was, but it was unbelievable. There was this mango parfait I still crave.”
Michael Del Zotto, a good Italian boy used to his lasagna and chicken parm, struggled the most.
“Michael was the pickiest,” says Roberts with a chuckle. “He'd text me and say, ‘Holy crap, what was that green stuff in my sandwich?’ I said, ‘Those are sprouts, Michael.’ One time I got him excited telling him he was getting spaghetti. I didn't tell him it was actually zucchini, shredded like spaghetti.”
Downie loved the food so much, he sent his girlfriend to Nature's Emporium for a two-day training course with the chefs. He wanted her to be able to make it all season in Tampa.
The results, for many, were stunning. Gaunce lost 15 pounds in the first five weeks. When he did his fitness testing at the beginning of training camp in Colorado, his body fat had dropped six percent, and he had added three pounds of muscle mass. His won the Wingate anaerobic test and the long jump. He is, literally, a new man.
“I just feel so much stronger, so much quicker on the ice, it's amazing,” says Gaunce.
Ditto for Stamkos, who blew his fellow trainees away with his strength.
“Everyone marks themselves against him,” says Roberts. “They all want to know what he is squatting, how high he is jumping. You had guys like Del Zotto and Downie, who are no slouches, watching him, and just looking at each other, going “Holy s---!”
And then there's Hodgson, who seems to have finally overcome those back problems.
“We were very cautious with him until the beginning of August,” says Roberts. “He would train all day if I told him to. He's just a wonderful young man who is going to be a great pro.”
Now Professor Roberts gets to sit back and watch his first graduating class put their new bodies to work for a full NHL season.
“I have 25 guys that I can't wait to watch play this year,” he says. “It would be nice to say every guy I deal with will be a star in the NHL, but I know they all can't light it up. What I try to teach them is that what they learned this summer, they will have for the rest of their lives. Whether that means being a star in the NHL, or being a really healthy fireman, it still means something.
“I was lucky enough to meet four guys along the way who taught me all this. Charles Poliquin, who saved my career in Calgary when I thought I was done; Lorne Goldenberg, who has been my strength coach since I was an Ottawa 67, I just didn't listen to him until I was 30; Matty Nichol, the former Toronto Maple Leafs strength coach; and Andy O'Brien, who has been training Sidney Crosby since he was 14. I took all the information they gave me, and tried to piece it together—what worked and didn't work for me—to help give hockey players the best chance at longevity. Hopefully, I can do for these kids what those guys did for me.”
For now, class is dismissed. But careful, boys: Big Brother is always watching.
“The other night I wasn't playing in Edmonton and you guys showed me on TSN wolfing down popcorn,” says Stamkos. “Right away I get a text from Robs: ‘Stammer, lay off the popcorn!’ I told him, ‘Don't worry, it's organic.”
• • •
Postscript: Many of the students at The School of Robs had career years. Jeff Skinner, in particular, became an instant superstar with a brilliant rookie season, winning the Calder Trophy. Roberts' biggest problem now is deciding which players to train, after being inundated with requests from pro, junior, and college players, desperately wanting to join his summer program.
Chapter 77
The Legend of the Albino Torpedo
September 2007
It was about halfway down “The Leap of Faith,” a near-vertical waterslide through a shark tank, that I started to regret the third helping of banana–chocolate chip pancakes I had at breakfast an hour earlier.
Remember every Mom's mythical warning about not swimming for an hour after lunch? I can promise you “Do not plunge 50 feet straight down past large hungry-looking fish with sharp teeth within an hour of gorging oneself at the buffet” is no myth.
Shark 1: “Hey, Larry, there goes another one. Hey, I think I smell his fear!”
Shark 2: “Ah, Earl. That's bananas and maple syrup you s
mell. I think he threw up in his mouth.”
We are at the Atlantis resort on Paradise Island in the Bahamas, or as my three-year-old will refer to it the entire trip: “Parasite Island in the Pajamas.”
My Kirstie Alley act at the buffet was surely not proper pre- competition preparation for a world-class professional water-slider, which I consider myself. But it matters not. The slide is flawless. My technique is that good.
I have come to realize during this summer vacation that water-sliding is my athletic gift. If it were an Olympic event in Beijing, I'd be a lock for the podium.
And come to think of it, it should be an Olympic event! Water-sliding is basically summer luge, without the annoying cold, ice, and likely head trauma.
What was that, you scoffing naysayers? Waterslides are merely for the amusement of children? No one actually competes on a waterslide?
Then why does Atlantis have a 50-foot, two-lane racing slide called The Challenger with motion-detector timers that clock sliders to the hundredth of a second? Huh? Huh?
I make the mistake of asking a lifeguard what the all-time record is.
“3.78,” he replies.
I don't buy it. 3.78 is a cruel Bahamian myth.
I would chase that record for the entire week, and it would take me 30 runs just to break five seconds. On the last day of the trip I nail a magical, technically perfect 4.93. It is a Roger Bannister–like moment of sliding perfection that earns me a fist-bump from the 10-year-old kid I was racing. Fellow sliders applaud greatness, even in defeat.