Hockey Dreams (19 page)

“Who is this?”

(long pause)

“Taff.”

“Stafford?”

“Yes.”

“Canada.”

“I suppose you’ve seen all the games so far?”

“Yes I have — why? Have you missed any?”

“Them all — ya.”

“You
missed
them all?”

“Ya — I’m into different things now — you know.”

“No — I don’t know — what do you mean different things?”

There was another longer pause. There was static on the line. “Melanie — you know Melanie — we’ve moved in together, you know so I don’t watch it.”

Stafford had fallen head over heels in love. The woman did not love him. But Stafford didn’t see this side of things. He only knew that he himself was in love.

The Summit Series occurred in the midst of the flow of radicalism in the universities. It was a strange phenomenon
that gave the series a peculiarity, of left–right, competitive-non-competitive polarization. That this was a part of the nation at this time might not seem important when speaking of hockey. But it was important, because you could gauge the absolute grain of a person in how they reacted to Canada’s initial losses, and final victory.

In the seventies during the back-to-the-land movement we, living in the rural communities, were the ones who witnessed this phenomenon first-hand. Many of the people coming from the cities of Toronto or Chicago or Montreal brought with them all the attitudes of their cities. It was a very strange phenomenon — one that was borne out of and relied upon a kind of cynical naivety about the world.

Stafford was in love with a woman who had come from Newcastle but who had adopted everything that was trendy about the world. She was a vegetarian, and a non-violent human being. It was to this regimen that Stafford had now strait-jacketed himself. He was wiggling about, and banging his head against the padded cell during the greatest series that would ever take place.

Stafford did her laundry — two pillowcases full at a time. He would make sure he separated the whites from the colours, and use non-static sheets in the dryer. Then he would fold all of her clothes in neat little piles, whistling as he did.

But I had the feeling that for her Stafford was some kind of intellectual investment, some strange little experiment. The way he reacted at that time to her was like a child
continually being sent out on an egg hunt — and never quite finding the egg.

She moved to live in a farmhouse with a group — there were other farmhouses with other groups. And Stafford went with her in the hot summer of 1972 — which of course was not as hot as the summer of 1975.

They worked the land — or said they worked the land. I saw a chicken once, four pigs. There was a horse and, as far as I can tell, a goat.

This was as much a part of Stafford’s life as anything so I mention it now. He tried to do all the right things. He had brought Melanie home to meet his family — asked her to go on dates. All of which she didn’t respond to. Over that desperate spring of 1972 he had had a huge flower painted on the trunk of his father’s car — he didn’t drive himself, but had his father drive him about. A huge daisy with a peace sign. Stafford and Melanie sitting in the back seat.

He began to talk to his parents about the inevitability of class warfare — and his personal struggle against the establishment which his parents belonged to.

They would sit in their modest living room while Stafford would elaborate on his destiny to reshape the political and economic landscapes of Canada.

“Yes — I can see that — I can understand —” Mrs. Foley would say, looking nervously at her husband.

This was the problem, over that dry September, with the game of hockey. It was pro-establishment.

He couldn’t believe that Melanie did not want him to watch it. This is true. It is also why I took her attachment to him as a kind of experiment for her.

Stafford had left everything behind to live with his girl. But he was not the leader of the group. A man named Malcolm was head of the group. Malcolm was older, and said he was a draft-dodger — although I never fully believed that he was. He strummed a guitar and sang Woody Guthrie. And he decided, in their group, what was to be said and not said, done and not done. (That this kind of virulent authoritarian strain was in the back-to-the-land movement does not bode well for even the simplest of human endeavours.)

“Staff,” I said kindly, “this is the life-and-death struggle of Canadian hockey — you
have
to watch it. You have to be a part of it. It’s
no good
without you.”

“Listen,” Stafford said, after the fourth game, “their backboards are funny, and their ice is large — besides it’s their referees from now on — I don’t know. You have to watch them — they’ll be able to move much freer down along the wings — but of course so will we — so will we.”

He sounded like an old soldier sadly giving advice, even though he’d been ordered to stay out of the action.

When the Russians scored off those funny backboards — twice that I saw, but especially Shadrin’s goal in the eighth game — I remembered Stafford’s advice.

I believe that the ’72 hockey series, as great and as nation-building as it was, broke up more than one relationship in this
country of ours. It polarized people. Friends of mine, a few of them well-known Canadians, I have never had the same respect for.

Stafford was an emotional wreck. He knew when every game started and ended. He almost knew by osmosis who had won.

Melanie would send him on errands all over the property. Tell him to go down to the brook for water, or into the shed and slop the pig.

“Someone has to go out and muck out the barn,” Malcolm would say, and he would look about the kitchen, his eyes resting on all their childlike faces. “And someone has to come with me in to town, get the groceries and stop off at the Black Horse for a draft.” Malcolm would take a drink of tea and honey, and clear his throat. “Stafford — you go and muck out the stall — Melanie — you come with me into town.”

Hockey was imperialism run riot for Malcolm, who came from the mid-western United States, and had belonged at one time to a writer’s group.

So during the fifth game, Stafford had to go sit in the barn with the horse. He was allergic to horses. His eyes watered, and he could barely breathe. He would try to lead the huge workhorse about, and the horse would simply drag him all over the lawn. If he had not loved Melanie he would never have done this.

This sounds exaggerated, but it is not. As a matter of fact I have toned it down. I could not mention all the things
Stafford went through for this thin and nervous young woman who always dropped acid when she and Malcolm went out to watch the fireflies, because you certainly would not believe me.

As Yeats has said, poor Stafford only managed “to flatter beauty’s ignorant ear.”

It didn’t matter to her then. I remembered this all when I saw her picture in his little room in 1989, the day he was having the chess game against himself. Perhaps in later years, somewhere — on some rainy sidewalk in some city — she looked at her reflection and remembered him also.

This happened right at the moment of a Super Series. It happened in the dazzling brilliance of some of the greatest hockey games that were ever played. It happened when the only player on Team Canada to wear a helmet was number 19.

During the entire fifth game Stafford stayed in the barn and watched his pocket watch. He would think about how the line changes were going, who was on the ice at that moment. He said terrible things to the horse, abusive things. He called the horse Vic Hadfield.

Stafford’s naivety was enhanced by bravery. One would never have worked so well without the other. I supposed he embodied the best our nation has to offer in this regard. And it was during the sixth game where his naivety gave way, and his bravery took over.

He decided to leave Melanie for a hockey game.

She accused him of not understanding her, or caring about her finer feelings — that unlike himself, she and Malcolm
were feelinged individuals. This crisis in Stafford’s life was just a blip on the radar screen back then.

It had nothing very much to do with me, for I had lost track of Stafford at that time, as I had lost track of so many.

The Russians were brilliant. If they were not so, it would not have been a Summit Series. If they were not so, there never would have been any argument over who was better.

Some of the greatest players I have ever seen have been Russian — Yakushev, Kharlamov, Maltsev, Shadrin, Petrov — from the ’72 series. The list is substantial. But let me tell you something. We threw a team together in three or four weeks as always — in between our regular season as always. The Russians practised for a year, as always, to get ready for this.

My friends, we were, and are better. We
were
and we
are
better, as long as we wish to be. The Soviets had two hundred million souls, we had twenty million.

Nor did we just do this on our
will
though our players embodied our country’s
will
at that time. Nor did we just do it on our
guts
though our players exhibited plenty of that.

We had finesse, balance and brilliance to match anything the Russians, or the Russian referees did. Yakushev was absolutely great in front of the net, Esposito was better. Our defence playing, often two men short, was nothing less than spectacular.

So in this way I am answering what Stafford asked me years ago to answer. I am answering the
Sports Illustrated
article on Team Canada of 1987. I am answering the
Miracle on Ice
movie of 1981. I am answering the
Knight Ryder
article on Fetisov printed in our sports section of the paper in September of 1995.

I am answering it for Canadians in a country that doesn’t even seem to exist anymore.

I am answering the article that said hockey was born on the lakes and rivers to the North, in Canada, and perfected in the far off Soviet Union. And Fetisov was the greatest defenceman who ever lived. That my friends is a lie. It is a lie born out of misinformation and unobservance. It is a lie manufactured for the times we live in. Orr was far greater.

On any given day, I would put my money on Coffey. The rest is simply blather.

I am answering these things for Ginette and Tobias and Michael. During the ’72 series we began to get to know the Russians. And we gave them credit for doing things we supposedly did not know how to do. Like pass and stickhandle. But it is useless to measure these things, because I do not want to nor should I take anything away from the greatness of the Soviet players. Certain people will always make more excuses about why we won that series, than they would have if we lost. But I will tell you — we were and are better, then and now. It is everyone’s game — yet it is
ours
.

If that’s nationalism in sport, don’t ever forgive me.

I
CAME BACK HOME
, from Boston, in early April of 1961. I would not see Boston again until I went down to a conference on writing in 1989.

It was snowing when we got home and let the other boys off at their houses. Big, droopy, wet flakes fell over our dark little streets. My father had made it back — which was always a celebratory affair for us.

Because of my name (not anglicized but actually English) I had sometimes considered myself a long distant cousin of Rocket and Henri Richard — and told people that perhaps in the fourteenth or fifteenth century we had the same mother or father.

But Montreal and Toronto were gone from these playoffs. It would be a Detroit and Blackhawks final. It was an
American
final. There was a picture of the Golden Jet in our paper the morning of the first game. He looked a bit like Tab Hunter.

I did not know who to go for. It didn’t matter much to
me, nor to most of us who were either Toronto or Montreal fans. But it mattered to Stafford.

It was a Detroit final and Stafford was back wearing his shoulder pads and Detroit sweater to school. He was, of course, insufferable. He would look over at me, his nose in the air and say, “Montreal? Was it Montreal you were cheering for — Les Habitants?” He would shake his head at my lack of insight.

“It takes time to build a real team,” he would say to me on the way home, “You can’t expect Montreal to be good overnight.”

In reality in Canada, there are two kinds of hockey fans — Montreal fans, and everyone else. The Montreal fan is, by and large, gracious, kind and magnanimous in victory. There is no real dispute about this. The other fan,
everyone else
, is a peculiar kind of individual — vindictive, mean and spiteful. They are generally vindictive, mean and spiteful against the Montreal fans, who they envy continually, who they see in a kind of glowing light, who they cannot approach without trepidation. Yet the Montreal fans have no need, no
desire
to really be worshipped. They have never demanded this.

This is what Stafford was going through with me. It was payback time, and he could not help but gloat. He wondered why no-one could see Montreal’s failure coming.

Whenever Montreal lost it was as if a plague had been put upon my house. It was as if I had boils, or locusts. The whole house seemed doomed. That April my youngest brother had an entire snout full of chicken pox, and wore black mittens
taped to his wrists so he wouldn’t scratch himself silly. He lay in his crib looking up at us, chicken pox sticking out of his hair and his ears, and in his throat, patting at his cheeks with his big mittens and crying, “Mitt — ttreeealllll.”
Or so it seemed
.

My father almost always dressed in a blackish kind of suit. My sister wore a dark blue convent uniform, and a Inquisitorial cross as she walked silently about the house, passing in the hallway without speaking.

We sat in the dark — of course, this will
seem
exaggerated to
some
— but this was Stafford’s hour. Stafford’s moment to shine. And he did such an exacerbating job of it that he made enemies everywhere. He was like the grasshopper who teased the little industrious ant in summer. He did not know that the wind would ever blow again.