The Meaning of Hockey, Chapter 3

“Maybe I’ve always been an asshole, but I wasn’t aware of it,” said Bobby, blaming himself for the argument with his son. “Maybe the only thing that changed is, at the age of 49, I’m finally taking a good look at myself.”

“An asshole?” said Frida.

He avoided looking at her because she was too attractive. It couldn’t be a good thing to think about a psychologist like that. She’d probably be offended to know he had imagined her performing a lap dance.

“Self-centered. That was what you called it?”

Why did he find her sexy?

She nodded.

“That’s me, self-centered,” said Bobby. “Forty years of it and then my behavior finally caught up and bit me.”

A plaid skirt like the convent girls. Is it called a kilt when women wear it? Large buttons, ready to be undone, hand reaching in to touch … Feels good — young, virile — to stimulate myself through mental images.

“Bit you?”

When he was young he could give himself an erection just by letting the image of a breast or the sensation of pelvic thrusting sneak into his consciousness. Those days…

“Mr. Benoit?”

Those days he was not a scatterbrain. Those days he had possessed mental discipline and could control when and where he allowed sexual thoughts to stimulate. What had he been saying?

“How did it bite you?”

As Bobby watched the psychologist speak these words, her look changed. She suddenly seemed different. It was like he had donned shades, but instead of filtering out the bright sun, her sexiness disappeared. Stimulation was replaced by a single thought: She is my age.

“Mr. Benoit?”

My age. Fifty. Almost fifty. That’s not sexy.

“Mr. Benoit?”

It was necessary to concentrate on the conversation.

“You were explaining the consequences of being self-centered.”

Yes. Back on track.

“All those years of being a star, always taking and never giving, being a puck hog, what did it get me?”

She wrote something in her notebook. He wasn’t the only person who said or did things for effect.

What effect was she after? The professional look, on top of everything, in control. What was he after? Pity? Her mothering instinct? A way into her life? A way into her pants?

“What did it get you?” she said.

“Loneliness,” the word just popped out, but then Bobby realized it was true. He was completely and utterly alone.

“You’re alone?”

“Alone and out of place. Just like Maggie the cow. They should put me out of my misery too.”

Forlorn. That’s the word. That’s what I want her to see.

The psychologist didn’t respond. Not verbally or even with a twitch of her eyebrows.

She’d make a great poker player, thought Bobby. I can see her in a Vegas card parlor playing no-limit hold-em.

Better yet, in my living room, playing strip poker. There she is in her bra and panties. What kind of bra is she wearing? White. Definitely not padded. Cotton or silk? Clip on the front or back?

Where was he going with this?

She’s a psychologist, not some groupie sex object. Are psychologist and sex object mutually exclusive? Why didn’t I go to a male psychologist? Soft cotton sports bra with clip on the front and bikini briefs. Get control of yourself. Your thoughts are ridiculous.

“What are you thinking?” said Frida. “Why did you stop?”

His promise of complete honesty to Frida seemed oppressive, but he was determined, more or less, to keep his word.

“I was thinking how ridiculous I am.”

“Ridiculous?”

“I’m almost 50-years old and my reason for existence is a game where people with sticks and skates smack a small piece of rubber around a sheet of ice.”

“You exist for hockey?”

“It’s all I have,” Bobby said. “Most of my life the game gave me meaning. Three periods, win, lose, sometimes tie. Good season, bad season. Try to make the playoffs. Dream of the Stanley Cup. Off-season you spend a little time in Vegas and then get ready for training camp. Get hurt, then you rehabbed. That was my life. Never had to think outside the game. Since I was five I’ve played hockey, coached hockey, thought hockey, lived hockey. That plus poker, blackjack and craps, which I swore off of last year, so hockey is all I know and I’m not sure anymore about the depth of my understanding even there.”

“Don’t you know about relationships?” said Frida. “About being a friend? About family? About children? About working hard? About love? About sex?”

He shook his head as he thought about each.

“I don’t think I do, not about any of that,” said Bobby. “Or maybe I know a little, but only through hockey. And I’ve come to realize that doesn’t count.”

He stared into space for a moment as he continued to feel sorry for himself. Was he feeling sorry for himself or trying to look like he was feeling sorry for himself?

“Tell me a story about why you play hockey,” said Frida.

Bobby glanced at her professional smile and wondered what she was getting at. He disliked the feeling of another person being in control of a conversation. It was like an interview when some jerk reporter sticks a tape recorder in your face. Respond, respond, respond to the same stupid questions over and over. Stupid questions deserve stupid answers.

“You must have a story about how you came to be a hockey player,” she said.

Of course he had a story. Many stories. Which one was she after?

“Have you always wanted to be a hockey player?”

That one. Okay. Easy.

“When did hockey start to be my life?” said Bobby. “And why did I love the game?”

She nodded.

How many times had he told this one? Five hundred? Card signings, banquets, interviews — he had told this story so many times he was no longer certain any of it was authentic — pretty much like his life.

“I guess it was outside in Ponteix, a French-Canadian town in southwestern Saskatchewan, where I grew up. They put up boards on the schoolyard and flooded the ground in between. I must have been five or six and I remember being out there every day over Christmas holidays. I’d skate and stickhandle and dream. Stickhandle and dream and skate. Dream of being Jean Beliveau, or Boom Boom Geffrion, or Henri Richard, or Gordie Howe or Jacques Plante. But mostly Jean Beliveau taking the puck in the Canadiens’ end off a pass from Doug Harvey. I’d skate fast up the boards past George Armstrong and the other Maple Leaf forwards and cut into the middle to make a move on Tim Horton. I’d fake outside and then cut back inside and split the Toronto defence to go in on Johnny Bower. I’d make a move to my forehand, but put the puck on my backhand as I cut to the right and lift it over a diving Bower to score the winning goal in Game Seven of the Stanley Cup. My 20 teammates would jump over the boards to hug me and I’d skate around the ice as 15,000 silent fans in Maple Leaf Gardens slowly filed out of the rink.”

Bobby was certain this part was made up, because, in reality, he had been a Chicago Blackhawks fan at that age. Bobby Hull and Stan Makita, especially. It was just that, as a French-Canadian, he was supposed to cheer for the Habs — the whole Toronto-Montreal rivalry thing — and at some point in his career the story had been altered to fit the stereotype.

“It’s funny, but I never remember being cold even when it was thirty below. I remember going into the little shed with the oil-fired stove and taking off my skates and rubbing my feet, but I don’t remember ever being cold out on the ice.”

This was true.

“The freedom is what we liked best. Out there, on the ice, we played by our rules, not adult rules. We learned to treat people right, not because some parent or teacher told us, but because next game anyone might be our teammate. We learned our place in the world, who was picked first and who was picked last. We learned to deal with rejection because every one of us, playing with the older boys, was the last person picked. We learned how to fight and how to make up. We learned about puck hogs and about passers. We learned about bullies and about people who stood up to bullies.”

Close enough to the truth.

“I learned that I was destined to be a hockey player those Christmas holidays. New Year’s I’d spent the whole day playing pick-up games, mostly against older boys and not once had I got past the opposition’s blueline, because this older kid, Louis Stringer, always stopped me. I’d carry the puck out of our end, across centre ice and smack, Louis would hit me or poke-check me — the blueline was like this invisible barrier I could not cross.

“I’d been playing so much I guess I was getting better and better and last game of the day, before it got too dark, I stole the puck off one of the 10-year olds by bumping him up against the boards in our own corner. I wove in and out past a line of other guys my age and then, once more, I came up against Louis guarding the blueline. I skated hard at him and just as I was going to cut left around him I lost control of the puck and it slipped through his skates. At first Louis was playing the body and going for me, but then the puck distracted him. As he twisted to turn he caught his blade in a crack and stumbled just long enough for me to scoot around him and I was clear. Damned if I didn’t end up going in alone on Charles the goalie, who was only five and could barely stand up on skates. Well, it was a lucky goal, but it was also pretty enough to get me a pat on the back from Louis.

“I felt content. I felt like I had found my place in the world. I felt that I could do it again. I felt that if I could beat Louis, I could beat anybody. I felt like I was a hockey player. I felt like a hero and I liked it.

“Funny about life. If that crack in the ice hadn’t been there or if I hadn’t lost the puck when I did, maybe everything would have turned out different.

“Once it got too dark everyone went home except for me and I remember skating around and around enjoying that feeling of accomplishment. I can still see the stars, so close in the prairie sky that you think, if you raise your stick just a little higher, you could pull one of them down. And I can hear my skates cutting into the ice and feel the bite of the January air.

“I wanted to play forever.”

Bobby studied the psychologist’s face as he finished his story. She bought it all. Why shouldn’t she? His sincerity was well practiced.

But she said nothing. She just stared.

“What?” said Bobby.

Her stare now looked like a challenge. Maybe she knew. Maybe he should tell her.

“Okay, it’s all bullshit,” he finally admitted. “I have no memory, only stories that may or may not be true. I don’t know anymore.”

Still she said nothing, but looked down at her pad of paper and scribbled some words.

“What are you writing?”

She looked up.

“You’re saying you don’t know about relationships?” said Frida. “About being a friend? About love? About sex?”

“I know about teammates. Is that the same as friends or family? I know about keeping in shape and preparing for a game. Is that working hard? I know about groupies. Is that love or sex? I made a woman pregnant almost twenty years ago but does that mean I know about children?”

“Is the world of hockey really that much different from any other world?” said Frida. “Maybe I could make the same argument. Except for me it would be psychology or academia instead of hockey.”

“No,” said Bobby, “you went to school, learned about other things. You probably didn’t even want to be a psychologist until you’d spent a few years at university.

“You don’t understand the kind of life I’ve had.”

This time Bobby caught what in a card room would be called Frida’s tell. It was a very slight furrowing of her forehead. It was an involuntary movement made when something engaged or bothered her. She probably had other tells and Bobby was interested in learning about them.

“Can anyone really know about someone else’s life?” Bobby said in response to Frida’s last statement.

Those eyes. Sexy, powerful and insightful.

They seemed to pull him towards her.

Where was he going with this? She was supposed to help him clear his mind, not other parts of his anatomy.

Next Chapter: Wednesday

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