Hockey Confidential (23 page)

BM:
We went over that list of guys you've fought multiple times. Is there anybody in that group who falls into that category of someone you hated, where the fight was personal?

BP:
Nobody. I've seen most of those guys outside of the rink and had conversations with them. It's just business.

BM:
Is there anyone it is really personal with?

BP:
Hmmm . . . you know, coming up, I really hated David Clarkson. Our fights were personal. I think we've both matured now; we maybe don't have the same hatred. There's more respect now. But as teenagers in London and Kitchener, and when I fought him when I was in Phoenix and he was in New Jersey, it was personal.

BM:
You would never consider yourself a heavyweight, would you? How much do you weigh?

BP:
One hundred and ninety-five pounds.

BM:
How tall are you? Are you really six feet?

BP:
With sandals on, yes. Six feet with sandals on. [
He laughs.
]

BM:
Yet you've fought heavyweights, guys like Janssen, and even super heavyweights, you fought (six-foot-eight, 260-pound) John Scott in the minors.

BP:
I don't know what I was thinking there. I also fought Steve MacIntyre. Again, what was I thinking? I did pretty well against him, too. That was my first year up in Calgary, and after I did that, I remember [Flames coach] Mike Keenan came up to me after the period and hugged me. He gave me a big hug.

BM:
Has the fighting landscape changed much since you broke in? The size of the guys or the science of it?

BP:
I don't know . . . it's tough to say. I've fought the same way and for the same reasons: to make a stand for our team, to stand up for teammates, to continue to make a name for myself that I'm not going to back down. I think it's an important piece of the team. I know a lot of people are trying to get fighting out of hockey, but I think it's an important part of the game. I do believe if you take fighting out, there are going to be more injuries, more guys will take liberties if there are no consequences for your actions.

BM:
Do you really believe that? You've said yourself that some guys, no matter what, won't answer the bell, so how does fighting now prevent what you call the rats from being rats?

BP:
Well, there aren't many rats. I think a lot of guys still play with pride and honour. It's what makes our game unique in that sense. The fact that we can police our own game a bit, make people think twice about trying to take a run at and potentially hurt a top player. And if [the rat] doesn't answer the bell, eventually, if he continues, I'm just gonna start throwing punches and give him what he deserves.

BM:
Do you think the anti-fighting forces in hockey will eventually get their way?

BP:
I can see it eventually happening. The game has changed so much since the [2004] lockout. It's not the same game I grew up watching, that's for sure. And I think a lot of the changes were for the good. But you see some of the penalties that are being called nowadays. It's getting softer and softer every year, it seems. A little whack, a little tug, a little hold-up. Penalty. I laugh at calls that are called on the other team sometimes. It's a different game from that “tough, battle through everything, only the men survive” style. So I imagine they will eventually take out fighting. Hopefully, not in my day. And whenever they do it, it will be the biggest mistake hockey ever made.

BM:
When I hear you talking about fighting, it's as if I'm listening to Don Cherry. You're definitely his kind of player, but he went after you on “Coach's Corner” because you got into a little skirmish with a goalie [Tampa's Ben Bishop in 2013–14]. How did it feel to get called out by Grapes on
Hockey Night in Canada?

BP:
My dad and I actually happened to be watching it together when Don chirped me. My dad was more upset than I was. I didn't really care. We all know you have to discard about 50 per cent of what comes out of Mr. Cherry's mouth.

BM:
Your dad had always been a big fan of Don Cherry. I was looking, and your dad has a Twitter account (@kevinprust). He's only ever tweeted a few times, but two of them were directed at Cherry (@CoachsCornerCBC): “He plays exactly how ur rock em sock em's taught him . . . my son is 1 of the most honest players in the league . . . loved by every teammate he's ever had.”

BP:
My dad doesn't watch [“Coach's Corner”] anymore. [
He laughs.
] Seriously, Don will come on the TV now, and I guess my dad turns the channel. That's a direct quote from my mom. [
He laughs.
]

BM:
I think the fear some people have now with fighting is that, with the size of the guys fighting and how they train to punch, someone could die in a fight one day. Does that ever cross your mind?

BP:
[
Pauses.
] No, not really. I think the league does a good job of controlling things—the linesmen jump in if someone gets jerseyed; if a guy is down or hurt, the other guy backs off and is more respectful. You do see guys get knocked out sometimes. Kevin Westgarth [of the Calgary Flames] last month, unfortunately, he got it bad, and you don't like to see that. That's a scary situation. But [getting knocked unconscious] could happen anywhere, not just in a fight. It could happen in any [contact] sport.

BM:
Is fighting more difficult now because visors are mandatory?

BP:
Yeah, but when I fought in junior, I would punch to the bottom of the visor, and that would pop the helmet off. It would kind of blind them for a second. You can cut your hand, but my hands are taking a beating anyway—what's another cut? I don't mind [fighting a player wearing a visor]. I don't want a guy to take his helmet off. I'll try to punch their helmet off or just pull it off. I can use that visor to my advantage in a fight.

BM:
In the OHL now, if the helmet comes off, the fight is basically over. The linesmen jump in to break it up. Do you think that's a good thing?

BP:
At that age, in junior, yeah, but if you're fighting someone, you're trying to get their helmet off. Wait—you're saying in junior now, they stop the fight if the helmet comes off?

BM:
Yes, that's the rule in the OHL. After Don Sanderson died [in January 2008] during a fight where his helmet came off and he hit his head on the ice during a senior game, the OHL put in new rules about fighting without a helmet.

BP:
That's a good rule for kids at that age. They're not as experienced; they're more reckless in how they fight. It's not a bad thing. But not in the NHL, no. I don't agree with that. I mean, not if you're going to have visors on, too. If you don't have visors on, there's no need to take a helmet off. I don't think you can do that in the NHL, they should just let [fights] go in the NHL.

BM:
You've had 264 fights and, all things being equal, by the time you retire you're going to be well over 300 career fights. Knowing what we know now about head trauma and concussions, are you worried about what effect that could have on you for the rest of your life?

BP:
Knock on wood, I haven't had a lot of concussions or head trauma from fighting. That's why I fight the way I fight. I'm not a guy who stands in there and eats a lot of punches. I want to have a long career. It's not a punching-bag match. I try to use my brain. I want to play 15 years in the NHL. Guys are protecting themselves a lot more now. You see [in] the old days, guys would just stand in there and whale away on each other.

BM:
Yet you've seen a teammate go down. George Parros was knocked out a couple of times this season. How does that affect you?

BP:
That first game of the season, when he went down in the fight with Colton Orr, I was right beside him. I was trying to help him. It was definitely hard, it's something you definitely don't want to see happen to anyone. But when it hits so close to home, it's even worse. That's the fear we go into every game with. I could get hit into the boards and get my head smoked every time I go on the ice. A helmet only helps so much. That's the same fear [all hockey players] live with every day. Any of us could get [knocked unconscious or injured] in any game we play. It's a dangerous game.

BM:
How do you think the people close to you—your girlfriend, Maripier, and your parents—cope with the dangers of your job as a fighter?

BP:
They worry, for sure. But they don't make it visible to me, because they know I don't want to see or hear that. I think they trust the way I play and the way I fight.

BM:
[London Knights GM] Mark Hunter says that when you walk into a dressing room, you light it up, that you don't have any bad days and you're a really well-adjusted, happy guy who lives life to the fullest. Many would say being an NHL fighter has a really dark side to it, that doing this job creates demons. Can you separate those two worlds? Or do you feel like there's part of this job that could eat you up?

BP:
I'd be lying if I told you fighting doesn't worry me at times. But it's a healthy fear for me that helps to make me a good fighter. It's a job I've chosen. I don't let it mix me up. It's my job. It can be stressful at times. For sure. But it's something I don't ever regret. I don't plan to change my game. I'm the player I've always wanted to be ever since I was a kid and I watched Wendel Clark play. I wanted to be a leader, on and off the ice, and fighting is part of my game. That is stress I've chosen to accept. I'm good with it, I'm happy.

BM:
In the summer of 2011, there were three deaths in hockey, and one of those tragedies hit really close to home for you. Derek Boogaard was a friend, a roommate, a teammate. That must have been really difficult for you.

BP:
It was a really tough time. He was my roommate on the road for a month [before he got injured and subsequently died]. We were close. That was tough for our whole team. When we found out he had died, a lot of us were together, and that was really difficult. That whole summer was terrible, just awful, with the death of three fighters [Boogaard, Rick Rypien and Wade Belak]. I was so sad for all of them. I know it made people worry [that the deaths were fight-related]. I am sure fighting could have been a demon for them, but whether you're a fighter or not a fighter, everyone in this world has issues they have to deal with, and everyone deals with them differently. This is something I know for a fact. I know Boogaard could be a happy guy and loved coming to the rink. I didn't know Rypien or Belak. I had some wars with Rypien [four fights]. What a great competitor he was. What a sad story. Whether fighting was the reason or not for their deaths, exactly what part it played, I'm not sure we'll ever really know.

BM:
Well, there's no doubt being a fighter is hockey's most difficult job. It certainly seems as if there's a real bond or brotherhood amongst those who do it.

BP:
There is mutual respect. If you're fighting another guy who fights, you can't hate him. You're doing the same role. It's a tough job. We know what we go through to do it. We know it's business.

BM:
Would you rather be known as a good player or a good fighter?

BP:
Can you do both? That's the goal. I want to be both. I want to be looked at as a great fighter. I want to be remembered as a great player, a leader, a guy who helped lead his team to a championship, to a Stanley Cup.

BM:
Would you rather score a goal or win a fight?

BP:
Score a goal. [
He breaks out in a big smile.
] I love scoring goals. There are different days, though. Today, it's a goal. Tomorrow, it might be a fight. I love scoring, but there's something about being at the Bell Centre in front of 20,000 people, or at Madison Square Garden, squaring off at centre ice, people cheering you on. There's something about that experience that you can't touch.

BM:
Would you change anything about your life in hockey?

BP:
No, I'm not a guy who looks back and dwells on decisions. You can't change what has happened. I have no regrets. I'd do it all over again exactly the same if given the chance.

BM:
If you were to have a son and he grows up and says, “Dad, I want to do exactly what you did, I want to fight in the NHL,” what would you say to him?

BP:
Get training. Get working. If he wants to be a warrior, all the power to him. I like that mindset.

The photograph, taken in the winter of 1970, was meant to
be a family postcard of sorts. Just a little something to mail back home to the relatives in Jamaica, to show them the marvel of this thing called snow, this entirely new and oh-so-foreign experience of a first Canadian winter at the family's rented duplex on Peter Street in the hard-rock northern Ontario city of Sudbury.

There was the matriarch of the family, Fay, stepping outside for a quick snapshot, in her pretty pink dress and matching hairband and, funnily enough, wearing furry blue slippers, smiling, with her arms around three of her sons in the picture: nine-year-old Markel, on the left; 10-year-old Patrick, on the far right; and 12-year-old Karl, between his mother and Patrick. The snow was piled up high—midwinter high—against the house behind them. Each of the boys was grinning, holding snowballs in their bare hands, Markel and Karl pretending to be eating them like snow cones. All three were decked out in matching dark green winter coats and boots.

No one, certainly not any of those actually in the photo, or anyone back home in Jamaica who would have seen the picture—or another similar snapshot in which young Karl was in front of the house, proudly clutching his first hockey stick, given to him by their landlord's hockey-playing son—could have possibly dreamed what it would foreshadow: that the unusually tall 12-year-old Jamaican immigrant boy was about to embark on a Canadian hockey odyssey that, one day, could be talked about in the same tones of wonderment usually reserved for a Viking, Alberta, rancher who fathered six sons who would play in the NHL or a Thunder Bay, Ontario, sod farmer with four boys playing professionally, three of them in the NHL.

Karl Subban's school community retirement celebration was
June 25, 2013, at Claireville Junior School, where he had most recently been the principal. It's just a four-mile hop, skip and jump from the Subban family's six-bedroom home (two in the basement, four upstairs) in the Humberwood neighbourhood of Rexdale, in northwest Toronto, where the family resided for 20-plus years.

The celebration of his 30 years as an educator—teacher, administrator and principal—came 10 days after his eldest son, Montreal Canadien star P.K., was in Chicago during the Stanley Cup final to win the Norris Trophy as the NHL's best defenceman. It was just five days before the NHL draft in Newark, New Jersey, where the baby of the family, Jordan, another defenceman, would be chosen in the fourth round by the Vancouver Canucks. And about two weeks before goalie Malcolm (in the middle, naturally), a 2011 first-round pick of the Boston Bruins and a blue-chip netminding prospect, would head off to the NHL team's summer development camp, in preparation for what would be his first professional season.

On the occasion of Karl's retirement, the whole family was there to celebrate it. Karl's wife and partner of more than 30 years, Maria, herself already retired from the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce; eldest daughter and schoolteacher Nastasia, with her three little boys, two-year-old Legacy and his four-month-old twin brothers, Epic and Honor; second-oldest daughter Natasha, an artist turned teacher; and, of course, the three hockey-playing Subban brothers, who gave the event an air of celebrity as students and parents scrambled to get autographs and pictures with the bona fide NHL star and two more bound and determined to follow in P.K.'s footsteps.

Education and hockey; hockey and education. Teachers and hockey players; hockey players and teachers. Really, that's the interwoven story of Karl Subban's life since coming to Canada from Jamaica in July 1970, but if you don't make some distinction between the two, he'll be sure to let you know you should.

“People always believe it's my sons playing hockey, them playing or getting drafted into the NHL, that is my passion in life, but they don't understand that teaching is
my
real passion,” Karl Subban said. “I'm not going to kid you. Am I proud and thrilled to have one son in the NHL and two more drafted to play there? Of course I am. My boys love what they are doing, and I'm thankful for that and the journeys they're on. And, like any parents and family, we all do whatever we can to support and help them reach their goals. But their hockey, that defines them. It doesn't define me.”

Or as his son P.K. put it: “My dad will often say, ‘I'm not living their [hockey] dream; that's their dream, not mine.' My dad has his own dreams he still wants to fulfill.”

Karl Subban is a big man, six foot three and 260 pounds, if
you're measuring, but there's a presence about him that makes him seem even bigger. He has a strong, deep voice that fairly resonates; an easy, big smile; a loud, hearty laugh; a twinkle in his eye; and a natural curiosity that has him asking as many questions as he's being asked.

In mid-August 2013, a couple of months after his retirement party, he was in a Tim Hortons coffee shop not too far from the family home, talking about life. His life, his kids' lives, where they've been and where they're going. It's obvious from the get-go that this “retirement” status is a misnomer, because Karl Subban has just reached one destination on his long and winding road; now he's moving on to other places. As the voice on the GPS says: “Recalculating.” And that's not the last time you'll hear the GPS analogy.

“I see my life story as a challenge,” Subban said. “I love that feeling of taking on something. As life goes on, you constantly learn about yourself, and what I've learned—and it's true for everyone
—my potential lies inside me.
We all have the ability to reach and become something. I feel like all my life I've been reaching. I'm 55 now and I'm still finding my passion, and for me, that's helping people to be better, helping children to be better. I want to write a book. I already have a title:
Saving Lives in Inner City Schools.
”

Much of what Subban plans to do in his so-called retirement years has been shaped by his career in education, specifically an eight-year stint as principal of Brookview Middle School on Jane Street in the Jane-Finch Corridor, a job he took on late in his educational career because he felt he needed some grand, new challenge. He was comfortable in his job at other schools—maybe too comfortable.

From the outside looking in, Jane-Finch is stereotyped as a notorious high-crime/low-income development in northwest Toronto. For example, a story in the
Toronto Star
on August 31, 2013, called it Toronto's “most dangerous place to be a kid” after four friends, aged 15 and 16, were gunned down within blocks of each other. While Jane-Finch residents often bristle at the stereotype and maintain there is a real community beyond the crime statistics and racial profiling, it is clearly one of Toronto's most ethnically and racially diverse neighbourhoods (a story in the
National Post
in 2011, for example, said half the student population at Brookview was black, with the majority of the rest either Asian or South Asian). By any standards, though, it's a tough part of the city. A poor part, too. The socioeconomic issues facing Jane-Finch residents, especially the children, are much more plentiful and significant than in any of the many other school districts where Subban has taught or administered in his 30 years in education.

“Jane-Finch, what it's really like?” Subban said, pausing to consider the question. “Well, I saw children who needed a lot more support, a lot more kindness and caring from adults around them, children who needed guidance and love. The staff would go home to our nice, comfortable homes at night and you didn't want to know what some of those kids were going home to . . .”

For eight years, Subban said he “gave it my heart, my soul, my money, my life.” So much so, his son P.K. said, that P.K. thought it was taking too much of a physical, emotional and mental toll on his father.

“I knew as he got closer to retirement, he wanted that last big challenge in his profession,” P.K. said. “I told him, ‘I don't think you should go to Brookview . . . at this stage of your life you don't need to come home with grey hair every night.' You know, I talk to my mom and dad every day—not a day goes by that I don't speak to them—and back then, when my dad was at Brookview, he would be falling asleep on the phone while I was talking to him, he was that tired and drained. But that's my dad. He's so committed to teaching, and for his personal fulfillment, that's what he needed to do, that's where he needed to be.”

So for eight years, Karl Subban was fully immersed in trying to make a difference for the kids at Brookview, and he did it with the zeal of a missionary, recognizing the stakes couldn't have been any higher.

“I called it saving lives more than teaching,” Subban said. “That's how you have to look at it. It wasn't teaching reading and writing so much as saving lives. I told the staff, it's like being in an emergency room: kids are wheeled in and lives are hanging by a thread, and you have to do what you can to save that life . . . you can't convince me it's not emergency room work. I've been at other schools and observed the kids as they walk in each morning, and they enter that school ready to learn, work and cooperate. Those [teaching] jobs, they're a lot easier. Many of the kids [at Brookview], you have to get them ready to learn before they can learn. We're dealing with 11-to-13-year-olds—those are the critical years, the troublesome years. We have kids who come in and they don't know why they are there at school. It's a simple thing, but they just don't know why.

“If you don't get them going down the right path, they're taking the wrong road, and there's a consequence, a cost to society, for failure. And it's a major, major cost when a child doesn't do well or does nothing at school. If they're failing middle school, they're going to fail high school. If they fail high school, they're going to be on the street. This is very costly to society . . . children headed for the unemployment line, children being incarcerated, children being dead.”

Subban experienced some moments of incredible angst and heartbreak at Brookview, like the time the school had to call 911 for an out-of-control boy who ultimately had to be sedated against his will by EMS personnel while he screamed, “Please, Mr. Subban, don't let them do this to me.” Subban was so distraught by it all, he punched a wall and cried.

But many days, as challenging as it was, the immediate goals were relatively simple.

“At this school, students smoking or drinking or taking drugs were not a big problem,” he said. “Coming late was the big problem. Getting them to focus and pay attention once they were there, that was the big problem. You can't learn to read or write if you're not there on time, if you're not focused when you're there.”

Like all good teaching situations, the teacher often ends up learning as much as, or more than, the students. From the students. And so it was for Subban at Brookview. And the revelation for him, what those kids taught him, was that when children come to school and they're tired or hungry or scared or even scarred by their lives outside of school, a much broader reprogramming is required before there's any chance to begin the teaching process.

“Every child, regardless of their situation in life, comes with a built-in GPS,” Subban said. “P.K., for example, told me when he was very young, ‘Daddy, I want to be like those guys on TV playing hockey.' His GPS was programmed to be a hockey player. That just happened naturally for him. So it was our job, as parents, to do the things to allow him to try to be like those guys on TV. That's how it's supposed to work. Every kid has that GPS in him or her, but these kids in the priority neighbourhoods like Brookview, their GPS is there, but it isn't always loaded. They've had to deal with so many other things in their lives, they can't see any destination. Our job, as educators, is to load their GPS. And until we can come up with something better, their GPS has to be loaded to simply be a better student and a better person every day. Every child must have a pledge. That's what I learned at Brookview. As teachers, we can make a case to them why it's important to be a better person, a better student. Most parents do this naturally for their children. But if there's no role model of a mom or dad going to work, if parents are not able to do that for their children because of whatever circumstances at home, well, the school needs to step up.”

So Principal Subban instituted the Brookview Pledge, a daily reminder for students, said aloud, of why they're in school and how they're going about it.

“I come to school to save my life,” the pledge reads, “by working hard to be a better person and a better student.”

In addition to the pledge, there were also the 4 Ts, the tools necessary to fulfil the pledge:
time
—be on time for school and make time to do your schoolwork;
task
—complete the assigned work;
training
—practice makes us better;
team
—cooperate with peers and adults.

Subban remembers one little boy in particular. The principal would see him every morning and ask him, “Why are you coming to school?”

“And this little boy, he would say to me, ‘I'm coming to school to be a better person and a better student.' Then I would ask him how he's going to do that. And he would tell me. And by the end of the year, that little boy had really turned it around. His GPS was loaded. I'm very big on telling kids, ‘You have greatness inside of you, and you can develop it.' There's no timetable here; it takes time and we have to work at it.”

Subban also utilized his own love of hockey, even traded on some of P.K.'s burgeoning celebrity status, to implement the Vancouver-based HEROS (Hockey Education Reaching Out Society) hockey program at Brookview. HEROS is a charitable foundation, founded in 2000 by former Western Hockey League player Norm Flynn, that solicits corporate support and charitable donations to “use the game of hockey as a catalyst to attract youth to a program offering support for education, self-esteem building and life-skills training . . . focusing on boys and girls of diverse ethnicity from economically challenged neighbourhoods.”