Hockey Dad (22 page)

So we did two things. One, we started to encourage him
to be much more physically active, as best he could with the
headaches. Play tennis; ride his bike; work out; just try to be
as normally active (minus contact sports) as he would have
been. We even hooked him up with a personal trainer to get
his
fitness
level back. Two, we decided to pursue medical treatments on the premise this was a headache/migraine problem
as opposed to a concussion.

In September of 2004-a full nine months after the
fight
in Peterborough-Shawn saw a headache specialist who indicated it was entirely possible that Shawn's initial brain trauma
had at some point morphed into a migraine-headache condition. This was somewhat encouraging for us insofar as there
were many medications and other treatments that could be
used to break the cycle of constant headaches.

I have neither the time, the space nor the inclination to
detail all that went on in our efforts to help Shawn, but trust
me when I tell you that starting in September of 2004, Cindy
and I spent the better part of the next two years dedicated to
find
ing something or someone to give Shawn relief. He had
MRIs; CT scans; blood work. He tried homeopathic treatments;
acupuncture; massage therapy; active release therapy; pain
management; chiropractic treatment. He had balloons blown
up into his sinus cavities; he had Botox injections-sixty needles in one sitting, from his eyebrows, up his forehead, into his
scalp and skull and right down to the back of his neck. He took
more vitamins, supplements, remedies and prescription drugs
than you could possibly imagine. He was treated by some of
the best doctors in the world and foremost medical/health care
authorities in their respective
field
s and travelled near and far
to see them.

Still, the headaches remained. Over the course of our undying quest for a solution, Shawn's outlook on life-his
fi
tness
level and spirits-improved substantially and some degree of
normalcy-if you can call it that with the headaches-returned.

If we were unable to
find
an absolute solution to what ailed
Shawn, at least we found a name for it. In August of 2005,
Shawn and I paid a visit to the world-famous Mayo Clinic in
Rochester, Minn. It allowed a shopaholic like Shawn a chance
to savor the giant Mall of the Americas in the Twin Cities and
it gave me peace of mind we had tried absolutely everything
humanly possible to
find
a remedy.

The doctors at the Mayo Clinic weren't able to provide
us with anything to break Shawn's headache cycle, but they
identi
fi
ed his condition as Chronic Daily Headache Syndrome.

It wasn't altogether different from what Dr. Johnston and
Sunnybrook Hospital headache specialist Dr. John Edmeads
had initially hypothesized, but now it had a real name, and
super
fi
cial as that may be, it made us feel a little better.

The Mayo Clinic information sheets say Chronic Daily
Headache Syndrome can af
fl
ict up to four per cent of North
American young women and two per cent of young men and it
is migraine-related. It is often triggered by minor head trauma
or an infection such as mononucleosis. In addition to the headaches, other symptoms can include dizziness, sleep disturbance,
pain at other sites of the body, fatigue,
difficult
y in concentration, decreased mood and increased anxiety and Shawn has
experienced a number of them. It can last from months to years
and some teenagers simply grow out of it in time.

At least that's what we were hoping for. I suppose we still are.

30: On the Comeback Trail; This Is No-Contact Hockey?

THERE WAS NEVER A DEFINING MOMENT in time when a
doctor ever directly told Shawn he would never again play
high-level competitive contact sports such as hockey or box
lacrosse. It was certainly implied, though, and as long as Shawn
was suffering from headaches, it was really kind of a moot
point. With his concussion history, the absolute given was that
he would suffer another if he continued to play contact sports.

As bad as the headache condition was, we all knew it could be
much worse in terms of acquiring other post-concussive symptoms that could further jeopardize his quality of life.

So for the 2004-05 season, or what would have been
Shawn's minor midget "draft year," while Cindy and I were
on our quest to
find
a remedy for what ailed our boy, Shawn
was still a member of the Wildcats AAA team, in a manner of
speaking. We thought it was important for him to maintain
his ties to his team, and his friends. Louie Atkinson and the
coaching staff/management were
terrific
in that regard. Shawn
was treated as a full-
fl
edged member of the team in every way.

He just couldn't play in any games or take any contact drills
in practice. But he attended a lot of practices, did the skating
and
fl
ow drills, took stats during the games and took part in
a lot of team functions. If Shawn had something better to do,
he wasn't obliged to attend anything but more often than
not he did.

On one hand, it was great. Shawn desperately needed to
be part of a team and stay busy and physically active. On the
other hand, it was obviously
difficult
. Being that close to game
action and not being able to play was torture for Shawn. But
it was either that or totally divorce himself from the minor
hockey lifestyle and neither Shawn nor I could see any huge
upside to that. And I am sure Shawn was still holding out hope
he might one day play again.

I would have been thrilled if Shawn had come to me and
said he didn't want to do this anymore in order to go in a
completely different direction, say, take up skiing or whatever.

But if Shawn were ever going to do a snow sport, it wouldn't
be skiing; it would be snowboarding. Anyone who knows anything about that activity understands his chances of getting
concussed would be as great on the slopes as on the ice in a
hockey game.

Shawn always had recreational interests outside of hockey.

He played volleyball. He liked to golf. He loved playing tennis. He enjoyed riding his mountain bike. He dabbled with
road biking. He liked all of them and did them, from time to
time, but was never as passionate about any of them as he was
hockey and lacrosse, especially hockey. He just wasn't going to
do those others things consistently or competitively.

I wanted to protect Shawn from anything that might
worsen his condition so I was pretty vigilant in what he could
or couldn't do, but I also recognized we couldn't put the poor
kid in a bubble either.

So when I saw an advertising brochure for a noncontact
three-on-three summer hockey league at Oshawa Ice Sports,
I asked Shawn if he would be interested in giving it a shot.

He was all for it and was able to recruit enough of his former
teammates and friends to put in a team entry. He was making a
comeback of sorts and I was going back behind the bench, too.

I wasn't about to ask any of Shawn's doctors if it was okay
to do this because, quite honestly, I didn't want them saying
he couldn't. Some might think that makes me negligent, running that type of risk. I think it's all about what I, for lack of
a better term, call "acceptable/manageable risk." Sure, Shawn
could lose an edge and slide into the boards or collide at high
speed with another player, but he was probably as likely to
bang heads with his brother when they played "hall ball" at
home (it was a game they created, using the palms of their
hands like hockey sticks to try to shoot a small spongy ball
through their facing bedroom-door openings as they tried to
make like a goalie). And getting to play this type of hockey
would do wonders for his heart and soul and that was important, too.

I have never been a big believer in kids playing summer
hockey. My personal philosophy is that kids, even those who
are intensely passionate about the game, need a break from
it. That's why we always put the skates away as soon as the
hockey season ended.

But my
first
experience with three-on-three summer
hockey made me understand how easy it would have been
to be seduced by it. It was
terrific
. The lack of structure was
refreshing. As the name implies, it's three skaters versus
three
skaters
. The only face-off that takes place is to start the game
or the period. There are no offsides. It's played wide open and
when a goal is scored, the team that is scored on
fish
es the
puck out of the net and begins attacking immediately. There's
no time to even celebrate a goal or you're likely to get burned
for one against. There are no penalties, only penalty shots.

There are no whistles of any kind for line changes, so everything is done on the
fly
. No one overstays their shift because
it's too damn tiring. Shawn loved it and so did I.
Incidentally, I don't understand why all minor hockey
organizations in Canada don't use this as a developmental
blueprint for any leagues involving kids aged
five
to seven.

They could play it four-on-four-go with four units of four
skaters per team-but the key is getting rid of all face-offs,
offsides, penalties and just letting the kids air it out in a less
structured environment. It would make better use of the limited ice time and the kids would have more fun, become more
creative. There would still be plenty of time to teach kids eight
and older how to play the
five
-on-
five
game and the rules/structure that go with it.

Of course, the noncontact part of Shawn's three-on-three
experience was an issue sometimes. And that's just hockey,
isn't it? You can have all the noncontact rules in the world,
but if one player, and this is true of any level from little kids
to old-timers, does a little something to another player, it can
set off a chain reaction that goes like nuclear
fi
ssion. Which is
another way of saying things can get stupid in a hurry.

There was one game where I was going to be late. Mike
said he would
fill
in as coach. I got there halfway through the
game and had fully intended to just watch from the stands,
let Mike coach his
first
full game, but it was all-out war by the
time I arrived. The kids on both teams were hitting each other
all over the ice. The threat of
fight
s, and a brawl, was very real.

I was absolutely morti
fi
ed because of Shawn's situation.

I could see one of the reasons things were as they were-the guy coaching the other team was a capital-A A-hole, who
was up on the bench, yelling and screaming and swearing
at everybody, including his own players, my players and the
referees.

Once I got a quick sense of it, I immediately went to the
bench and took over for Mike, who was trying his best to keep
a lid on things. I walked onto the bench and the other coach
instantly recognized me. He stopped going nuts for a moment,
put on a big smile and said, "Hey, Bob McKenzie, the Hockey
Insider, awesome, nice to meet you." I thought he was going to
ask me for my autograph, so you can only imagine how crushed
he appeared when I said: "Shut the %$#& up, don't talk to me,
don't talk to my players, quit being such an asshole."

Somehow we got through the game-I brie
fly
considered
pulling the team off the ice and forfeiting to avoid any serious
injuries. If I came back from Shawn's noncontact hockey game
and he'd been in a
fight
, Cindy would have been playing full-contact divorce with me and there would have been injuries
for sure.
If only that were the end of the story.

One of the fathers from the other team had been well overserved in the arena bar during the game. As we came off the
ice and were headed to our dressing room, he came down to
ice level and accosted me, swearing and going on about the
Hockey Insider this and the Hockey Insider that. I was trying
to ignore him but Mike was getting incensed with this guy. I
couldn't have that. I told Mike to go to the dressing room with
the team. Then, I lit into this guy-verbally.

Understand one thing-I knew this was a
fight
I couldn't
even start, never mind win. No matter what he said or did,
I couldn't get physically involved with him in any way, as
tempting as that was. Regardless of how it started or who was
at fault, two things would happen and neither of them was
good. One, I would end up as a front-page headline in the
Toronto Sun (HOCKEY INSIDER IN RINK RAGE EPISODE).

Two, I would likely lose my job at TSN. That, unfortunately, is
what it means to be a public
figure
. You can't always act like
other people, which maybe isn't such a bad thing because it
forces you to engage in a little common sense when emotion
may otherwise take over (although I must add, on at least one
occasion you will soon hear about, I forgot to apply this logic).

So even when this SOB faked like he was going to punch
me in the face, I didn't
fl
inch or react, other than to explain
how foolish he was acting and that if he really wanted to hit
me, I would be happy to call the police, my lawyer and anyone
else I could think of to help me ruin his life. I mean, I charged
Phil Esposito with assault; I would not think twice about taking down this lout.

Common sense ultimately prevailed-in fact, the guy apologized to me a week later when he was sober-but it was a
reminder, as if I needed it, of how hockey can really make people lose their minds. Leave it to Shawn, of course, to put a great

big bow on the day on the way home.

"That," he said, laughing, "was wild."

Shawn and I were encouraged by how his return to somewhat
competitive (supposed noncontact) sports had gone. Other
than that one game, the three-on-three hockey was outstanding. It had allowed Shawn to experience competition again
and to be part of a team, playing a sport he loved. Now, Shawn
and I were prepared to consider something else.

Shawn wanted to play for the Oshawa Blue Knights in the
Ontario U-19
field
lacrosse league. Technically,
field
lacrosse is
a contact sport-when the ball ends up on the ground there
can be some very big hits-but if a player plays the attack position, contact can be fairly limited. Was there risk involved?

Absolutely. But Shawn was well aware of his unique situation
and
confident
he could play
field
lacrosse and play it well without exposing himself to a great degree of risk. He was right on
that count. He played in the fall of 2005 and 2006, winning his
first
-ever provincial championship in '06, and he also played
high school
field
lacrosse for those years.

I was thrilled Shawn was playing (
field
) lacrosse again, but
I was a little
conflict
ed heading into an October weekend when
Shawn and Mike both had big-time events on their respective 2006 calendars. Shawn's provincial tournament was in
Hamilton on Saturday and Sunday. Mike, in his freshman season at St. Lawrence, was playing Michigan State at Munn Ice
Arena on Friday night in East Lansing, Mich.