9: It's Fair to Say We're Not Morning People
FOR A HOCKEY-CRAZED FATHER AND SON, Mike and I were
livin' the dream that seven-year-old house-league/select season.
Mike was the captain of the select team (we didn't know
then he wouldn't wear the "C" again for another twelve years).
The schedule was hectic, nuts at times, and that was
fine
by us.
There were the obligatory house-league practices on Saturday
mornings and games on Sundays. There was at least one select
practice and one select game each week. We were pretty much
guaranteed four times on the ice each week.
The Whitby Select 7s were coached by John Velacich, who
was Mike's coach for the next two seasons after select. John,
whose son Jason played on the team, liked to win (that, by the
way, is not a criticism),
but
he
treated the kids well. They were
having fun.
The select team played in what was known as the North
York League, which basically meant all the games were played
in arenas in the expansive suburb/city that runs both east
and west of Yonge Street just north and south of Highway
401 across the top of Metro Toronto. But here's the kicker. In
the North York League, which wasn't so much a real league as
it was a clearinghouse for select-level exhibition games, you
never knew when you were playing until the night before you
played. Seriously.
So we'd be sitting around at home on a weekday night and
the phone would ring about 9 p.m.-Mike and Shawn were
long gone to bed-to
find
out that Mike had a game at 5 p.m.
or 6 p.m. the next day somewhere in North York. It was like a
fire
alarm going off, suddenly rushing to make arrangements
to get to the game the next afternoon. All that was missing was
the sliding down the pole, the siren and the
fl
ashing red lights,
and we could have used the
fl
ashing lights and siren. There's
no easy way to get to any arena in North York for 5 p.m. on a
weekday. Toronto rush-hour
traffic
was horrendous.
It wasn't all smooth sailing for the
McKenzie’s
in that select
season.
There was quite an ice-time crunch happening in Whitby
at the time and there were weeks when the Select 7s' assigned
practice time was from 7 to 8 a.m. on a weekday at Iroquois
Park. That's not ideal on a school day, but hockey parents tend
to resign themselves to their fate.
Besides, children who swim, for example, have long used
early-morning workouts before school as the standard training times, so one weekday morning hockey practice now and
again wasn't such a hardship, was it?
Uh, yeah, it was for us.
Cindy was never fully on board with the concept from the
beginning-she feared Mike would be too tired at school to
do well-and I didn't necessarily disagree with her, but what
choice did we have? Mike was the captain of the team; he
needed to be there. So he was.
He attended the
first
practice and we rushed him straight
from the rink to school. That wasn't so bad, was it?
Uh, yeah, it was for us.
Mike came home from school for lunch and he was a mess.
Tired and cranky, he was done like dinner. He was barely functioning. He was so out of sorts he fussed big time about going
back to school and once we
finally
got him back, which required
no small effort, Cindy said we couldn't go through this routine
every time there was a morning practice. We decided right then
that was that, no more weekday morning practices for Mike.
Still, I felt sheepish. I explained the circumstances to John
Velacich. He wasn't too thrilled, not that I expected him to be.
When these weekday morning practices were scheduled, they
were the only practice for the select team that week. So if Mike
the captain, refused to attend, it wouldn't be long before other
players on the team might follow suit and what's the point of
having a practice if only half the team is there?
John's concern was understandable. I knew we had put
him in a tough spot, but this one was for us non-negotiable.
Things were a little-or maybe even a lot-tense for a week or
two. I do recall this being the dominant issue in our lives for a
few days, but fortunately the weekday morning practices were
not an every-week occurrence and the whole issue eventually
blew over. If you have never been through the minor hockey
experience, this may seem like no big deal but it's one of those
issues that can snowball and cause major headaches on a team
and lots of hard feelings. Somehow, we avoided it ballooning
into a major problem, but that was Mike's
first
and last before-school practice that season.
Still, it would have been
difficult
for anyone to question
our commitment. I'll never forget the one weekend that season when Mike was on the ice six times, including
five
games,
on Saturday and Sunday alone. There was a house-league practice early Saturday morning and the house-league team was
entered into a tournament in Bowmanville. There were two
house-league tournament games on Saturday. There was the
r
egularly scheduled house-league game in Brooklin on Sunday
morning, followed by the tournament
finally
in Bowmanville
and then a select game all the way in Toronto at North York
Centennial Arena.
There was a little breathing space between the Sunday
morning game in Brooklin and the midday tournament game
in Bowmanville. But there was, when you take into account
travel time, virtually no time between the Bowmanville game
and the select game in North York. I remember taking Mike off
the ice as soon as the game in Bowmanville was over, literally
tossing him over my shoulder in full equipment, including
skates and helmet, and putting him in the front seat of the
car that way for the
fifty
-mile drive to North York. When we
arrived there I just picked him up out of the car with his skates
on, threw him over my shoulder and dropped him on the ice
just in time for the select game.
When it was all over, we were driving home and Mike was
completely exhausted, hair matted down with sweat, cheeks
bright red but he was still smiling after being on the ice six
times, including
five
games, over two days and he said to me:
"That was a really fun weekend. I love to play hockey."
It's funny, but for all the things that happen over the years,
those are the moments you recall most fondly so many years
after the fact.
On the ice, Mike was doing well, scoring lots of goals in
house league and getting his fair share in select too, but there
were some caution
fl
ags being waved at us.
The more success Mike had, the more he expected it to
happen. On those occasions when maybe it didn't go as well
as Mike would have liked-sometimes it was just a shift,
sometimes it was a full game-he started to let his feelings be
known, and in a not-so-nice way. It might come in the form
of banging his stick if he missed a shot. And if he had a bad
game, failing to score or whatever, he could be a little brooding afterwards. I am not sure if I was alarmed or encouraged
by these emerging emotions. It's a sign of competitiveness
and what Hockey Dad doesn't want his kid to be competitive? Besides, what had I been preaching to him about going
as hard as he could every shift? Still, there's no excuse for acting like a spoiled brat when things don't go your way. So I
would try to explain to Mike that there's no place in the game
for banging his stick or getting mad or angry after a game is
over. But those things are sometimes easier said by Dad than
done by Mike.
The one game that epitomized this developing issue was one
I didn't even attend. It was a Sunday and I was in Sault Ste.
Marie to broadcast a Greyhound game on TSN that night. That
afternoon, Mike was playing in a very important select game
at North York Centennial Arena, which is now known as Herb
Carnegie Centennial Arena. If Mike's team won, it would qualify to play in the Timmy Tyke tournament semi-
finally
s at Maple
Leaf Gardens the next weekend. This was a big deal. In fact, it
doesn't get any bigger for Select 7s.
I remember phoning Cindy from Sault Memorial Gardens
just before we were getting ready to go on the air and I asked
her how Mike's game went that afternoon. Not very well, she
said. Whitby lost 4-3. I asked her where Mike was and she said
he was in his bed. Crying.
"Crying," I said. "Why is he crying?"
"Because he's upset they lost," she replied.
"The game was two hours ago," I said.
"I know," Cindy replied, "he's been up there since we got
home."
I got Mike onto the phone and asked him why he was so
upset. He said because they lost and they wouldn't get to play
at Maple Leaf Gardens. I told him that's the way it goes, someone has to win, someone has to lose, not to be upset and I
asked him if he did his best. He said yes, that he scored three
goals but some really big, good kid on the other team-and
Mike just butchered the kid's name trying to pronounce it-scored four goals to win the game. He also told me he was
upset because some of his teammates were "laughing" after the
game and he didn't understand how they could laugh after losing such an important game.
I consoled him a bit, told him to stop crying, gave him the
"be a big boy" speech and hung up. If I recall correctly, I kind
of liked the fact he was upset his team lost and he took it more
to heart than his teammates, but I didn't have any clue then
that harnessing emotions in hockey would be a long and winding road for my son, a road that he's still traveling.
Oh, by the way, that kid whose name Mike butchered on
the phone that day?
Wojtek Wolski of the Colorado Avalanche.
10: Breaking the Golden Rule: "Grab Your Sticks"
AS WONDERFUL AS the house-league/select scene was, the
first
season of AAA-the highest level of play in minor hockey-was
even better.
Whitby was, at that time, one of the smallest, if not the
smallest, AAA centers in Ontario. But with Liam Reddox, Steven
Seedhouse and Brandon Davis returning to their own age group
after a year of minor novice AA, plus Mike and others moving
up from the Select 7s, Coach Velacich's team was competitive
with most of the teams they faced. A big part of the reason was
Liam Reddox, who if he wasn't the most dominant eight-year-old in southern Ontario was awfully close to it.
Everything Liam did was at a higher level than everyone
else. He was a very strong skater, extremely athletic, and his
puck-handling skills, his shot and his competitive instincts
were off the charts. It was
difficult
to imagine Liam not growing up to be a professional hockey player and that is, in fact,
what he is. A fourth-round pick of the Edmonton Oilers
in 2004, Liam scored his
first
NHL goal for the Oilers on
November 15, 2008. Unlike some of the stories you hear about
kids who dominate when they're very young and are never
heard of by the time they get to peewee, well, that's not Liam.
There were many games back in minor novice AAA when
Liam was a veritable one-man band. He was that good.
John Velacich decided a position change was in store for
Mike, moving him from center to left wing. Were we thrilled
about that? At the time, no. We had just sort of presumed center was the position Mike would always play. But the coach
wanted him to try left wing on a line with Liam. So that was
that. Mike, by the way, didn't have any problem with it.
As an aside, more minor hockey blood,
fi
guratively speaking (for the most part) has been spilled over position changes
than any other issue. I've seen players drop down a level,
change teams, move out of town or quit hockey altogether,
all in the name of combating a position shift. In rep hockey,
especially AAA, every coach reserves the right to determine
which position a player will play. While center to wing isn't
a seismic shift, watch the
fire
works when a coach takes a forward and makes him a defenseman or vice versa. It can get
ugly and, in fairness, some kids simply don't enjoy playing a
different position. But it's also amazing how many kids will
give anything a try even though their parents
fight
it every
step of the way.
So Mike became a left winger and John Velacich must have
been on to something-Mike never played anything but left
wing after that.
As for playing on Liam's wing, it had its obvious bene
fi
ts
but there was one signi
fi
cant drawback. Liam was such a good
player, he would often just take off. Because he could skate
right through the other team, he would do exactly that. Mike
and the other Whitby Wildcats on the ice might as well have
stood and watched Liam. And some games, they did.
In one particular game, Liam scored a bucketful of goals
and the Wildcats won big. I couldn't have been angrier. The
way I saw it, Mike might as well have sat in the stands and
watched the game with me because that's all he was doing
while Liam went end to end.
I was steamed. It was then I committed my second big
minor sports parenting faux pas-you will recall the
first
one
was revving up Mike to rough up Kyle O'Brien to make the rep
lacrosse team-and this was probably worse than the
first
.
I went into the dressing room after the game to untie
Mike's skates and he was sitting right beside Liam. Liam's dad,
John, a ginger-haired Glaswegian who is an ardent member
of the Glasgow Rangers Supporters Club, was untying Liam's
skates beside me. I was seething and not saying anything when
Mike asked me a question: "How did I play, Dad?"
"Great, Mike, you played great. It's not your fault if no one
will pass you the puck."
Unlike the targeting incident in lacrosse, where it took me
years to realize what an ass I was, I knew I had made a big mistake the second the words came out of my mouth. Mike just
looked at me. Liam looked at me. John Reddox, a good guy but
every bit as much a Crazy Hockey Dad as me, just looked at
me. No one said a word, which was good because it died right
then and there. Under different circumstances, it could have
evolved into quite a scene.
I was immediately embarrassed. These were eight-year-old
kids, after all. Completely innocent. Liam was just playing on
instinct, doing what he could do because he could do it, exactly
the same as Mike did in the house league the season before.
And John Reddox had nothing to do with it either. He was up
there in the stands with the rest of us parents.
A valuable lesson or two was learned that day as I waited
for the embarrassment to drain out of my face in that dressing room.
One, no matter how upset you are, regardless of how justi
fi
ed you think you are, hold your tongue. There needs to be
an emergency brake between the brain and the mouth. The
dressing room right after the game is no place for an airing of
grievances, not in front of kids and parents.
Two, and this I found out from personal experience of
being on the other side of it, the parent of a player should
not necessarily be held accountable for what his kid does or
doesn't do on the ice.
But the bottom line is when you're bent out of shape about
something in kids' hockey, just shut the hell up and get home
without making a fool of yourself.
One of the great aspects of the
first
AAA year is the newness
or novelty of virtually everything. The caliber of play is
terrific
and while Mike's team was competitive most of the time, it
was far from the elite squads from the Greater Toronto Hockey
League (GTHL) or the Detroit area.
Cindy, however, was not quite as impressed with every part
of the minor hockey culture. Don't get the wrong idea. She was
an extremely supportive mom who was there for her kids and
recognized there is much wonderful family time to be spent
as part of the minor hockey experience. But she didn't blindly
accept every part of it without question. One of Cindy's favorite lines over the years was "Minor hockey would be a lot better if it were run by the Moms instead of the Dads."
She never understood or embraced the concept of kids having to miss a day of school (Friday) to play in a minor hockey
tournament because all tournaments are three-day affairs that
start early Friday morning. (Neither did my TSN colleague
Gord Miller, who was astonished that it happened with great
frequency.) Oh, Cindy understood the ice-time issue, but the
basic premise that kids have to take off a day of school to play
hockey? And the fact most teams start with two tournaments
in the
first
three weeks of the new school year? She was not
impressed.
Me and Mike? We loved it. There's nothing quite as
fine
as playing a little hooky, from school or work, to drive to, say,
Kitchener, on a crisp autumn morning and have the
first
game
over before noon. Then grab lunch as a team, check into the
hotel, let the kids run wild for a bit while the dads hash out the
morning game over a couple of adult beverages before gearing
up for the second game of the day.
As much fun as out-of-town tournaments were, that isn't
to say there weren't dangerous pitfalls to be wary of. Like the
postgame hospitality suite, especially on the Friday or Saturday
night, when all the parents and sometimes the coach would be
together in a social setting in the hotel.
Alcohol, minor hockey parents and the coach in the same
room after a couple of tournament games and with another
one the next morning is not always the wisest of recipes. It
can be nitro. The hospitality suite can turn into the hostility
suite in no time.
Smart coaches avoid them or are wise enough to get out
while the going is good, before the alcohol-inspired courage/stupidity has bubbled to the surface. In Mike's minor novice
year in Kitchener, one of the moms on the team was overly
refreshed late in the evening and launched into a very public
tirade outlining
s
pecific
shortcomings of this player and that
player. Suf
fi
ce to say, that didn't go over too well with the
other well-oiled parents in the room. The tension meter was
on high; the fun meter on low. Had the words been delivered
by a dad instead of a mom, I don't doubt for a moment there
would have been
fi
sticuffs. As it was, it was still ugly and raw
and nasty. Some tears were shed, angry words were exchanged
and there was residual bitterness that never fully went away.
The other thing about minor hockey Cindy could never
understand was why they had young kids play games on
Halloween night. Outside of Christmas, there is no day of the
year that means more to kids of virtually all ages. When Mike
and Shawn were young and of the trick-or-treating age, they
would invariably have games scheduled on Halloween. This
always caused major problems. It was the one night of the
year when the kids, every one of them, would choose not to
play hockey if they could. The funny thing was that when the
kids were older and not trick-or-treating, there were no games
scheduled. A mom, Cindy always maintained, would take care
of this.
Alas, common sense is nice in theory but often
difficult
to
achieve in the real minor hockey world.
Example.
Once Mike started to play rep hockey, the golden rule was
that if he didn't go to school that day, he would not be permitted to play hockey that night. It's a sensible approach. Lots of
families do it. We did, although what is it they say-rules are
made to be broken?
There was a day in Mike's minor novice season when he
had to miss school because of a nasty ear infection, although
he had already started on antibiotics. Cindy was out with
Shawn for a few hours, so it was just me and Mike at home.
Mike's team was playing at Northcrest Arena in Peterborough at 6 p.m. It was around 4 p.m., Mike was in his
pajamas, lying on the couch, looking a little worse for wear.
"How you feeling, buddy?" I asked him.
"Okay, I guess," he replied.
"Hey, I've got a great idea," I said to him. "Why don't you
get dressed and we'll take a drive and go watch your team play."
"Can we?" Mike asked. "I didn't go to school today."
"Sure," I said, "but we're just going to watch. A little fresh
air will do you good."
Mike got dressed and we were about to leave. "Hey, Mike,
why don't you grab your sticks and your hockey bag?"
"Why?" Mike said. "I can't play, I'm sick, I didn't go to
school today."
"Well, you never know, maybe you'll feel well enough to
sit on the bench, maybe you can serve a bench penalty or
something."
So we took the one-hour drive from Whitby along the 401
and up Highway 115 into the Borough, as we like to call it, and
pulled into the parking lot of Northcrest.
"How you feeling, buddy?" I asked Mike.
"I think I feel a little better," he said.
"Great," I said, "grab your bag."
Well, I don't have to tell you what happened after that.
Mike played. That was the good part. Then reality set in. Once
the game was over, I had two major concerns. One, I was now
afraid Mike might get even sicker because he played when he
really shouldn't have. (Thankfully, he didn't.) Two, how was I
going to explain this to Cindy? (Sheepishly, if you must know.)