Wayne Gretzky's Ghost (33 page)

The following year, when the Senators reached the second round, they transferred their faith over to the dyed platinum-blond hair of goaltender Damian Rhodes, and rode this strange talisman for eleven games before losing to the Washington Capitals.

The modern Senators may never have gone that far in the playoffs, but they have proved to be one of the more superstitious groups over the years. They once began playing with Lego parts in the dressing room in the belief it would make them all better team-builders. They have in the past switched to their third jerseys for road games in the hopes that a change of cloth would bring them better fortune. The coaching staff once tried to bring an end to a regular-season slump by holding a seance in the trainers' room, complete with candles to help them call on the ghosts of One-Eyed Frank McGee, King Clancy, and Fearless Frank Finnigan. It didn't work. One goaltender—and we shall spare him the humiliation of using his name—refused to change his underwear during one playoff run that, perhaps fortunately, came to a quicker-than-expected end.

The greatest Senators superstition came about by accident. Forward Bruce Gardiner was once in such a terrible scoring slump that he dramatically marched his stick into the washroom and tried to flush the blade down the toilet. When he went back out on the ice and quickly scored a goal—and began scoring fairly regularly for a while—he never began a game without first going to the toilet. The stick flush has to rank among the great hockey superstitions of all time, right up there with the Philadelphia Flyers bringing in Kate Smith to sing “God Bless America” instead of the national anthem before must-win games. When Smith died in 1986, the team still brought her back—in video form singing from the scoreboard screen.

Back in 1952, a local seafood merchant carried an octopus into a Detroit Red Wings playoff game and tossed it onto the ice from the stands. He said the sea creature's eight arms stood for the eight victories then required to win the Stanley Cup. The tradition somehow survived expansion and the octopus, despite the sixteen victories now required to claim the Cup, remained an annual tradition.

Making sense is not a requirement in hockey superstitions, despite the reaction of the Pittsburgh reporter who took one look at Ottawa's carpet logo and rather appropriately growled: “If they don't want anyone to step on it, why didn't they put it on the wall?”

Former NHL head coach Fred Shero used to carry rosary beads during games, though he was not a Roman Catholic. Former Toronto Maple Leafs coach Red Kelly once convinced his players they would perform better with “pyramid power” and began placing small pyramids beneath the bench. Punch Imlach, another Leafs coach, once wore a hideous sports jacket throughout the 1967 playoffs and believed if he ever failed to wear it, the Leafs would lose. They won that year—but have not since. Perhaps now it is the curse of the ugly jacket.

We have barely touched on goaltenders: the late Jacques Plante
claiming he played better in underwear he himself had knitted, Patrick Roy talking to his posts and refusing to skate over any of the lines on the ice …

But if the Hockey Hall of Fame ever devotes a section to hockey superstitions, it will star a non-goaltender, Phil Esposito. The former Boston Bruins star used to flip out if someone accidentally crossed sticks in the dressing room. He had to wear an old turtleneck, inside out, every game. He would not stay in a hotel room that had the number 13 anywhere on the door. His game gum had to come from a brand-new pack. During the anthem he had to say the Lord's Prayer, as well as several Hail Marys. He once had so many lucky charms and rabbits' feet and four-leaf clover key chains hanging in his locker he had trouble finding his equipment.

The team that would be represented in that special section would be the Edmonton Oilers of the glory years back in the mid- to late 1980s. Gretzky was among the worst, always dressing in precisely the same order from shin pads to gloves. He had the equipment manager carry a supply of baby powder, which he would sprinkle on his taped sticks to “soften” the passes. He had to deliberately miss the net to the right in the warm-up and after the warm-up, have a Diet Coke, a glass of ice water, a Gatorade and a second Diet Coke before he was ready to play.

The Oilers would stand and “boo” the other team's starting lineup as head coach Glen Sather read out the names. They had to slam the butt ends of their sticks into a steel door that led to the video room as they passed it on the way to the ice. Equipment handlers Barry Stafford and Lyle (Sparky) Kulchisky used to have icemaker Trent Evans give them a bottle filled with water taken from the snow scraped off the Edmonton ice, and before playoff road games they would sprinkle some of this “holy water” on the ice surface of the enemy rink.

Five Stanley Cups later, who could argue? And Evans, remember, was the icemaker who buried the “Lucky Loonie” at centre
ice in Salt Lake City at the 2002 Olympics, thereby initiating one of the game's most enduring superstitions.

Most of today's players have their own, though some are reluctant to speak of personal superstitions. “I have lots,” Ottawa fifty-goal-scorer Dany Heatley said, “but none I'm going to let you know about.”

“I have habits but no superstitions,” Ottawa captain Daniel Alfredsson said. “If I feel I'm getting superstitious, I'll change. So I guess I'm superstitious about not getting superstitious.”

Armstrong, on the other hand, has them and has no fear of talking about them. When the players leave the dressing room, he says, he can't move until Penguins teammate Ryan Whitney gets to where Armstrong stands waiting. “We don't even do anything,” Armstrong said with a laugh. “I just wait for him. That's all. That's it. It's stupid.”

Maybe so—but just maybe as well …

T
his column must be written, but it is hoped that, at least until January 1, its contents will be banned from the nation's maternity wards.

The idea of some highly ambitious hockey nut sitting around with the paper while he waits for the doctor to announce “It's a boy!” is just too much to bear. If he reads what Roger Barnsley has to say, he'll find out he completely blew it. The chances of having a November or December baby boy make the National Hockey League aren't all that much better than the chances of having a November or December girl make it.

In fact, according to Barnsley, the most important contribution Canadian parents can make to their child's hockey career has
nothing to do with the top line of skates, the best equipment or even power-skating classes.

It's to mess around on April Fool's Day and pray for a New Year's Day baby.

Dr. Roger Barnsley is the dean of education at St. Mary's University in Halifax, and he's been fascinated by the relationship between date of birth and performance since that evening in 1983 when he talked his wife, Paula, into going off to a Broncos junior game while both were at the University of Lethbridge. Growing rather bored with the game, Paula Barnsley began reading the program for something to do, and it struck her as curious that the vast majority of the players from both teams had been born in the early months of the year. The Barnsleys' own two sons, both born late in the year, were involved in hockey but hardly succeeding, and it struck the mother, a psychologist, and the father, an educator, that there just might be a connection here.

There was. It has now been five years since the Barnsleys and Dr. Gus Thompson published their first scientific paper on the phenomenon. Their hunch is now irrefutable fact: approximately four times as many junior and professional hockey players are born in the first quarter of each year than in the last quarter.

Just for the record, Wayne Gretzky's birthday is fast approaching: January 26. In the years since, the Barnsley-Thompson argument has been further refined. By studying minor hockey they have been able to demonstrate how those children born in the early months of the hockey year (beginning January 1) are the ones who remain as participants, while those born in later months tend to be the ones who drop out.

It is highly disturbing news for all parents, for Roger Barnsley has grown increasingly fascinated with the thought that his “relative age effect” may be showing up in another childhood endeavour that also uses January 1 as the cut-off date. School. In fact, the longer Barnsley looks at school, the more it takes on all the obvious flaws of the minor hockey system. Schools stream children
according to ability—or apparent ability. Both have tier levels tied to advancement.

Here's how he sees it working: children are judged less bright when the reason they are progressing more slowly is that they are younger, and so they end up in the slow kids' class where no one expects much of them, whereas older, more developmentally advanced children are put into the bright kids' class, where they receive praise and are expected to do well.

Barnsley has been thinking of solutions. In hockey, he talks about altering the cut-off dates each year and working in new measures like height and weight. In school he pines for the one-room “open” classroom that showed a far greater tolerance for differences among students. But don't look for changes to come quickly. Hockey, in fact, has gotten worse since Paula Barnsley opened her Broncos program back in 1983. And schools are only now becoming aware of how long a year is to a six-year-old.

In fact, maybe this column should be kept from everyone—not just hockey loonies—who find themselves racing off to the maternity wards so late in the year. They obviously don't understand the first thing about family planning in the newly competitive world.