34: Crazy Hockey Dad's Magical Mystery Tour
AS WELL AS MIKE played at various times in his life,
whether
he was seven or nineteen, I was never one of those Hockey
Dads who took anything for granted. I always wondered, and
worried a little, how he would fare at the "next level."
He and I developed a little routine. When he was
fi
fteen,
and a year away from perhaps playing junior, I took him to a
Junior A playoff game between Wexford and Pickering to get
a sense of what it was like.
"Think you can play this next year?" I asked him.
"I don't know," Mike said. "I think so. I'm not sure."
Neither was I, to be honest.
When Mike was seventeen, and desperately seeking a
scholarship, we used the downtime during the dark days of
his concussion to visit Clarkson and St. Lawrence. It was probably as much to keep up Mike's spirits because he wasn't sure
when he would play hockey again, but it also gave us both a
chance to see our
first
ever U.S. college hockey game. Mike
saw Cornell play at Clarkson on Friday night (I was working).
I joined him to see Cornell play SLU on Saturday night.
Cornell, as is Big Red tradition, was huge. The hockey was fast,
unbelievably so. Many of the players were as old as twenty-four and twenty-
five
. I was totally blown away by the whole
experience.
So there I was looking at Mike-seventeen years old; a little pencil neck, all of 160-odd pounds; not quite sure when he
would play again because of the concussion; a bit of a tough
skater to begin with-sitting there, him looking at me through
his glasses. (That, by the way, was the only time I've ever seen
Mike angry with Cindy-she accidentally threw out his last set
of contact lenses, forcing him to wear his glasses for his one
and only U.S. college "
official
visit.")
Then I was looking out onto the ice at SLU and the behemoths from Cornell and then back again at Mike. I am not
going to lie; he was looking very much like a boy in the presence of men.
"Think you can play this in a couple of years?" I said.
"I don't know," he said. "I think so. I'm not sure."
Neither was I.
But a little less than three years later, a twenty-year-old
freshman, wearing No. 27 in the scarlet and brown of St.
Lawrence University, stepped onto the ice at Appleton Arena
against the Rochester Institute of Technology for his
first
-ever
NCAA Division One college hockey game. I didn't shed a tear at
that moment but it wouldn't have been
difficult
to work one up.
After all Mike had been through in his hockey-playing days-the ups, the downs, all that time and effort-to say nothing
of the trials and tribulations of his brother-I truly thought it
was all quite remarkable Mike had made it to the "next level."
That night kicked off Crazy Hockey Dad's version of a four-year Magical Mystery Tour.
Thanks to some very understanding folks at TSN-a big
shout out to my very good friends and colleagues Steve Dryden
and Darren Dreger, among many others-to say nothing of
some really inspired juggling on my part, as well as ridiculous
amounts of driving, expense and Aeroplan reward miles, not
to mention an all-world wife and son, I haven't missed much.
If Joe Marsh's St. Lawrence University Skating Saints
were playing a game between the fall of 2006 to the spring
of 2010-pretty much anywhere, anytime-chances are I was
there. So, on many occasions, were Cindy and Shawn, because
hockey has always been nothing if not a family affair for the
McKenzies. Shawn, for all he has been through, has never
begrudged his brother's success and has supported him every
step of the way. For all the
sacrifices
everyone in our family
had to make because of the demands of my career, sneaking away on so many weekends with Cindy and/or Shawn to
watch Mike play was a
terrific
payback for the many times and
opportunities missed in the past.
Personally, I love college hockey. It's fast and entertaining,
played at an incredibly high level most nights. The games are
usually
finished
in a shade over two hours. There's little or no
nonsense or goo
fine
ss, virtually no
fight
ing but lots of contact.
I had been warned the college game was chippy and dirty with
rampant stickwork and hits from behind because the players
wear full cages and can't self-police the game due to the anti
fight
ing measures (
fight
and you're out of that game, plus two
more). But I saw little or none of that most nights. All levels of
hockey, college included, have incidents or problems at times,
but I would submit college hockey has fewer than most. The
vast majority of nights I walked out of Mike's games thinking
what a
terrific
athletic spectacle I had just witnessed.
For a Crazy Hockey Dad living in southern Ontario, there's
no better place to have a son playing than at St. Lawrence,
because it's so easy to get to. It is thirty minutes off Highway
401 and the Prescott-Ogdensburg international bridge crossing. SLU is a small but quite lovely liberal arts college that
reminded Mike very much of Trinity College School. When
he was seventeen and we drove onto St. Lawrence campus for
the
first
time, and visited Appleton Arena, with its traditional
wooden church-style pew seating, Mike said: "This is where I
want to play; this is where I want to go to school."
It would be a toss-up to say who enjoyed it more-me
or Mike.
To visit campuses like Cornell and Colgate, Yale and
Brown, Dartmouth and Harvard and Princeton-well, that was
the only way I was ever going to get to any of those Ivy League
schools. I don't know that there's a better college hockey experience anywhere than watching the Cornell Big Red at the
Lynah Skating Rink. To get to places like Boston University,
Yost Arena at the University of Michigan (and slip in a visit,
tailgating and all, to the Big House to watch the University of
Toledo upset the Wolverines in football), Munn Ice Arena at
Michigan State, the Whittemore Center at the University of
New Hampshire or The Gut at the University of Vermont…I
tried hard not to take a single minute of it for granted.
I marveled every time I went into Princeton's Hobey Baker
Arena, a hockey rink that used to be a church; I was always
awed by the unique design of the Whale at Yale, from the same
architect who gave us the famous St. Louis Arch and managed
to incorporate an element of that into a hockey arena. There
was always something a little special about walking by an
empty and frigid Harvard Stadium en route to Bright Arena; getting to know the lovely little town of Hanover, N.H., home
of Dartmouth College; or feeling the air of hostility on any
visit to Cheel Arena and that "other" school just down Route
11 from SLU and Canton, N.Y.
Mostly, though, I will never forget the special feeling of
walking into Appleton Arena, my hockey home away from
home for four years, so bright and inviting and traditional
with its small-town, North Country charm and sensibilities.
It certainly didn't hurt that Mike demonstrated, in spite
of my fears, he could actually play the game at this level, and
play it quite well. He scored the game-winning goal in his very
first
college game against Rochester Institute of Technology
though he would be the
first
to tell you he didn't even realize
he had tipped the puck in and played like he was in a fog most
of that night. He
finished
his freshman season with very good
numbers-twelve goals, including seven game-winners (tied
for second in the country), and twenty-
five
points in thirty-one games.
The only two freshmen games he played that I missed-damn the World Junior Championships-were in the
Dartmouth tournament at Christmas, when he scored on a
penalty shot in overtime to beat Boston University. I was back
at TSN working, watching the SLU-BU game on TV. Mike was
interviewed after scoring the winning goal and was asked why
he chose to attend St. Lawrence. I could see him pause and
think about how he was going to answer and I mouthed it just
as he said it.
"Well, actually, it was the only school that offered me a
scholarship," he said.
That's my boy.
But as idyllic as a lot of it was, it's still hockey; you're still
subjected to the volatile ups and downs of the game.
Mike missed the
finally
eight games of the regular season his
freshman year with a sports hernia, but when the doctors told
him he was going to need off-season surgery whether he continued to play or not, he took a cortisone shot, got taped up
and gutted out the playoffs with his groin all torn up.
The Saints were predicted to be a middle-of-the-pack team
in the regular season, but
finished
in
first
place in Mike's
freshman season. Though they lost in the ECAC tournament semi-
finally
s against Quinnipiac, Mike scored two goals,
including the game winner, in a come-from-behind win over
Dartmouth in the ECAC consolation
finally
. That win propelled
SLU into the NCAA tournament (
finally
sixteen teams in the
country) only to lose to Frozen Four
final
ist Boston College in
the
first
round. That
first
year was fantastic.
Mike's sophomore season was as
difficult
as his freshman
year was wonderful. Coming off his sports hernia surgery, Mike
went fourteen games to start the season without a goal, managed only seven goals and twenty points in thirty games. He
lost his
confidence
; he lost his focus; he didn't get as much ice
time and there were occasions when he was just plain miserable. Ditto for me. And the Saints
finished
a disappointing ninth
before meekly bowing out in the
first
round of the playoffs.
Mike did, however, bounce back to have a
terrific
junior
season. The Saints played well and
finished
in fourth place,
earning a
first
-round playoff bye. For the second time in three
years, SLU made it to Albany, home of the ECAC tournament,
but lost a heartbreaker in the semi-
finally
to Yale. The Saints just
missed qualifying for the 16-team NCAA tournament, but all in all it was a good year of hockey for the team and Mike, who
scored a team-leading 16 goals and 34 points in 38 games.
I wrote this book before Mike's senior year. So who knows
what's in store for Mike and his team, but I feel safe in saying
Mike's four years at St. Lawrence will be something that stays
with both of us for the rest of our lives. I have no doubt he'll
come out of it a better player and a better man, with a degree
to boot, and it's hard to beat that.
I am well aware not every parent of a college hockey player
feels as positive about the experience as me. It's not some
sort of Utopian paradise. It's the next level, after all. There's
not enough games for my sensibilities (if you play forty,
that's a big year), but that, I suppose, is why they call them
student-athletes.
I am not here to tell anyone how much better the college
hockey experience is than major junior. There are OHL organizations to which I would never entrust the care of my son,
but there are some college coaches or programs I would put in
the same category.