The Meaning of Hockey, Chapter 6

Bobby stood behind the home players bench looking up and around him while over 14,000 fans roared as the puck was dropped for the Totems’ season opener at the Pacific Coliseum. He had been correct in his assessment of Vancouver’s interest in junior hockey — the crowd was bigger than his most optimistic predictions — but knew, from experience, the city’s fans were notoriously lacking in loyalty to losing teams. Unlike his associate coach Brad, his assistant Troy, Max the trainer, and Bo the assistant trainer/equipment manager, Bobby was outwardly calm.

Brad was hyper, patting players on the back and exhorting them to score, hit and check hard.

“Fuck the fucking bastards up fucking good,” Troy screamed in order to be heard above the crowd’s barrage.

Bo and Max, along with most of the fans, waved white towels that were part of a promotion by a local radio station.

The play moved into Prince George’s end for the first time. The Totems’ 19-year-old Czech right winger Vaclav Chedomensky, a third round draft pick of the Montreal Canadiens, skated across the blue line and near the top of the circle dropped the puck back to Blair Kiniski, as left winger Peter Barnes headed to the net. Chedomensky had the knack of taking up the maximum space when a screen was needed and Kiniski took advantage of this to send a snap shot toward the goal.

The Cougars goalie never saw the puck, but it hit his left blocker before falling to the ice right in front of Barnes. The 19-year-old assistant captain tapped in the rebound for the Totems’ first goal just forty-seven seconds into their franchise opener.

The fans, the players and the coaches, except for Bobby, screamed with excitement.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, a fucking goal,” bellowed Troy. “Fucking eh!”

The players on the bench stood to congratulate the goal scorer and each other.

Bobby’s thoughts were elsewhere. Even as Barnes skated by the bench to touch gloves with each of his teammates, his head coach and general manager was thinking that it was the first time in months he was wearing something other than a tracksuit.

Thirty-three tracksuits for the team had cost the same as two dress suits for him and Troy. Nine hundred dollars for his new suit and seven hundred for fucking Troy’s.

Brad was patting Barnes, Kiniski and Chedomensky on their backs, as Bobby’s thoughts turned to Frida and Mike. The seats he had reserved for them a few rows up from the home players’ bench were empty. The dorky phone messages he had left two days earlier probably killed any chance the seats would ever be taken.

“Hello. This is a message for Mike from Bobby Benoit, your father. When we talked yesterday you said you might come to Vancouver, so I’ve made arrangements. In case you are interested there will be a ticket under your name for every Totems game. Just ask at the Pacific Coliseum box office. I hope to see you soon.”

‘Bobby Benoit, your father.’ What was that? And I should have asked him to call and offered a place to stay.

He could feel drops of sweat develop between his fingers as he thought about talking to his son.

“Hello Doctor Rodriguez, Frida, this is Bobby Benoit. I know you are busy, but I just wanted to tell you that I’ve left you a ticket for the Totems home opener at the Coliseum box office. I … I’m … You might enjoy it. Hope you can come. So … um … Oh, ya, it’s two tickets, just in case you want to bring a friend. Good-bye.”

Even more dorky.

Bobby looked up again at the still empty seats.

I should have apologized. Asked if we could talk.

Will Mike come to Vancouver? Maybe he said it just to get me off the phone.

Bobby had gone over every moment of the conversation to look for hidden meaning.

“Hello. Mike?”

“Yes?”

“It’s Bobby, your father.”

Silence cut deeper than a freshly sharpened skate blade. What was he thinking? Was he mad? Sad? Indifferent? Embarrassed?

“I heard that you got cut in London and I was wondering how you were doing.”

Silence was a tool women used very effectively. Their version of yelling or maybe it was their version of needling. The truth was he didn’t have a clue what women meant by it. Mike had grown up with lesbians, so was it any surprise that he sometimes acted like a dame?

“I’m okay.”

“You sure?”

Geez, the nerves and the silence even had Bobby talking like a dame.

“You called because you wanted to know how I was?” said Mike.

“Ya.”

“You were worried?”

“Yes,” he had spoken before realizing that might be the wrong answer. “Well, no. I mean, I know you’re going to survive and all. You’re tough, of course you are, but it can be a little hard to get over. Getting cut, I mean.”

He had sounded like a blithering idiot.

“I mean, you get to know a thing or two about being cut when you’ve been around the game as long as I have.”

“Were you ever cut?”

The question had taken him off guard. It shouldn’t have, but it did.

“Ya, I was cut. Once.”

And it wasn’t a pretty sight. He should have told his son the truth, but he couldn’t.

“I survived. You’ll survive.”

What the hell was that supposed to mean? He must think I’m a complete fucking idiot.

“Fuck Bobby.”

Bobby’s thoughts were interrupted by Troy, who was putting an arm around his shoulder. There was a game going on and he was a coach. He needed to concentrate.

“Fuck Bobby, we’re going to be fucking great,” Troy said. “I fucking love this fucking game.”

Bobby made himself pay attention to the ice. The Cougars had won the faceoff at center ice and dumped the puck into the Totems’ corner to the left of goalie B.J. Brisco. Seventeen-year-old defenceman Al Jones picked it up and fired a pass across the ice right onto the stick of the Prince George right winger. A second later the red light above the Vancouver net flashed the news of a tie game. The 14,000 cheers quickly turned into a few thousand boos aimed at the rookie defender.

Bobby squirmed free from Troy’s embrace.

“Fuck,” said Troy. “Stupid fucking turnover.”

“Shake it off boys, shake it off,” shouted Brad. “Green line, your turn.” The Totems’ third line, which featured 19-year-old Neal Marshall, a six-foot, three-inch, 230-pound tough guy, hopped over the boards.

Troy also sent a new defensive pairing onto the ice and looked at Bobby to see if he wanted to speak to Jones when he cam off. But Bobby was not even thinking about the game going on in front of him.

I’ll call Frida tomorrow and ask her to see me. The worst that can happen is she’ll refuse. What if she refuses?

Bobby had never dealt very well with rejection. In fact, he very seldom had to deal with it, but when he did, his response had usually been to get violently and even spectacularly ill. The only time he had ever been cut from a team he threw up all over the assistant coach who had informed him of his fate. Then there was the time he had used a Chicago O’Hare airport telephone to get the message that he had been passed over for the Las Vegas head-coaching job. The cleaning bill for three suits on those ball-bearing salesmen from Milwaukee had been over two hundred dollars.

What if he phoned Frida and asked her out and she refused? What if she refused to speak to him at all? Bobby was beginning to feel nauseous.

Once again, the Cougars won the face-off, but this time their center neatly sidestepped the Totems face-off man, Arvind Baines, and picked up the puck behind him.

Frida, it’s Bobby. I was wondering if you might be interested in going out to dinner with me? She’d laugh.

A nice backhand pass went to the left winger, who pulled Vancouver right side D-man Alphonse Picard wide.

Go out with you? That’s a good one.

The Cougars center drove to the net and tied up left defender Joe Penny, just as the puck came out to Prince George’s right winger, who slapped it past Brisco. It was 2-1 Prince George barely two minutes into the game.

Just as the boo-birds were beginning to assert themselves in the crowd and as most of the Totems slumped their heads on the bench, Bobby puked. Up came his entire pre-game meal of spaghetti, which had been delivered piping hot from one of the team’s sponsors, Nick’s on Commercial Drive.

Troy was the first to notice.

“Fuck Bobby,” he said.

The team turned to stare at their coach. Then the fans around the home team bench rose in amazement. Troy, Brad, the entire Totems’ roster and hundreds of fans watched in wonder as Bobby gagged again and spewed the remainder of his dinner all over Max, who was attempting to hand him a towel.

As Bobby’s nausea subsided it was replaced by an out-of-body experience. It was as if he were up in the stands with the fans enjoying the entertainment.

Max was backing off from Vomitman, the trainer’s countenance one of absolute disgust. The players, assistant coaches, the fans and even the out-of-body Bobby shared his expression of profound distaste.

No one, except for Troy, made any movement to assist Bobby. Instead, a deep-seated barf repulsion caused everyone within a 100-foot radius to move at least a step back from the scene of the grime.

It’s times like these when you learn who you can count on, thought the out-of-body Bobby as he watched Troy grab a clean towel and rush to his head coach’s aid.

“Fuck Bobby,” said Troy. “It’s only a fucking game and it’s only fucking 2-1.”

***

The headline in the Vancouver Sun read “Coach sickened by team’s performance.” The tabloid Province splashed “Make Me Gag.”

The final score was 8-2 for Prince George. A few of the younger Totems had played well and the crowd was bigger than anyone could have predicted, but the media focused exclusively on Bobby’s projectile heave-ho. A camera had caught upchuck Number 2 and BCTV played the tape on the late night and early morning sports.

When Bobby arrived at his Coliseum office, Marge the secretary handed him a pile of messages.

“Television stations in Toronto, New York, Los Angeles and Muskegon have called and would like to set up interviews,” Marge said.

Bobby grunted.

“Los Angeles said they just needed a few minutes of your time. They need a sentence or two to go with, and I’m quoting, ‘the wonderful barfing footage.’”

Bobby grunted again.

“And at the top of the pile is a message from the league commissioner. He’d like you to call him in Calgary as soon as possible. Apparently your little accident played across the country on Canada AM.”

Bobby slowly shook his head and grunted one last time before entering his office and closing the door. He sat and stared at the pile of messages spread across his desk. A tsunami of embarrassment battered his emotional seawall until the shame broke through and filled every emotional crevice.

Bobby put his hands over his face and began to sob. The only thought that managed to intrude into his crying time was an inverted bit of a hymn. An invisible choir sang a round, repeating over and over, “I once was found, but now am lost.”

But then, just as quickly as it struck him, the wave of humiliation departed. He didn’t feel good; he just didn’t feel.

Like an automaton Bobby began to sort through his messages, placing them in three piles. One was urgent, another “sometime today” and the last one “if I feel like it later.” Near the bottom of the very large stack was a message that read simply: “Frida, 254-1622. 10:15 a.m.”

The seven letters, eleven numbers and assorted punctuation marks filled his hollowness with hope. He picked up the telephone and dialed.

Next Chapter: Wednesday

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