The Meaning of Hockey, Chapter 8

Impotent.

Am I? One time doesn’t mean anything. One time?

Don’t think about it.

Bobby lay on the couch in his office staring at an old Vancouver Canucks’ poster that had been mounted on cardboard and stuck to the wall by some invisible means. The honest truth was he understood very little of how the world — or even he — worked. Yet another form of impotence.

The poster featured a much younger version of him celebrating a goal with the words “Feed the Dream” across the top.

Where had his dreams gone? Did he ever really have any, aside from the one of becoming a star? And he was not certain that had ever really been his dream. Sure wanted to play in the NHL, but stardom? He couldn’t remember.

Sex, that’s something I used to dream about. Nightmares now.

Scoring goals. Imagining moves. Head fake, shoulder fake, puck back to the heel, burst of speed. What do those sports psychologists call that now? Visualization. Wonder who thought up that term?

Remember what Babe McNally used to call it?

“The better sort of off-ice stick handling.”

Bobby smiled as the memory of a long ago conversation entered his consciousness.

Babe was the wise old man of the Moose Jaw Civic Centre. A jack of all trades. The handiest man, the best iceman ever, the finest skate sharpener, a champion of equipment repair and the sort of lecher who would never be tolerated in the modern world of hockey.

Babe liked to sneak peeks. That’s what he used to call it. Sneak peeks into shower rooms — girls, boys, it didn’t really matter — sneak peeks of girl’s crotches as they pulled off their skates, sneak peaks over or under toilet partitions as he pretended to do some repair or other in the washroom.

That’s how Babe had discovered Bobby’s dirty secret. One day, during his second junior season, Bobby was in his favorite end stall. He liked to go there when he was feeling particularly horny and just couldn’t wait until after school to relieve himself.

There he was beating the meat while fantasizing about the breasts of Ursula Andress who had had a particularly hot scene in Dr. No, the recent James Bond movie, when he was startled to see Babe’s grey hair, then eyes appear over the partition wall. Scared Bobby so bad that he woke up in a panic every time he had a wet dream for the next two months.

Babe said nothing that day or the next. But two days later, the morning after a 7-1 home-ice loss to Regina, when Bobby handed him his skates for sharpening, the old man looked at him through a shower of sparks and said, as nonchalantly as asking about the weather, “So you like polishing your pole in the corner stall?”

Bobby felt his face turn hot and red. He mumbled something that included the words “what do you mean” and tried to turn away.

“A little stick work,” Babe said with a smile as he smoothed the edge of a blade with a stone. “No need to be embarrassed. A guy’s got to do what he’s got to do. Perfectly natural.”

Despite the words, Bobby could not look him in the eye.

“Don’t worry about it kid. I won’t tell anybody,” said Babe. “Besides, that’s not what I want to talk about.”

Bobby finally looked up.

“You’re struggling this season and I think I know why.”

Eye contact.

“Your moves are stale. Defencemen have read the book on you. ‘Fakes outside and goes in or makes a move inside and tries to cut back around.’”

This was not news. Coach had said the same thing a week earlier.

“You got the foot speed and hand/eye to double, triple, quadruple fake those guys. Working on it during practice might help, but I got a feeling you could surprise everyone and just do it in a game with a little trick I could tell you about.”

“Trick?” Bobby was interested.

“Something that works if you got the right sort of imagination,” said Babe. “Which, based on your demonstration of one-on-one stick handling , you most definitely possess.”

Bobby’s look betrayed his incomprehension.

“I’m talking about another sort of off-ice stick handling,” said Babe. “Instead of dreaming about soft furry little mounds and tight wet holes to get off, you imagine the moves you’re going to put on that big lug of a defenceman. Practise the play in your mind, just like you imagine fucking Jane Mansfield. See it, feel it, smell it, touch it. You understand?”

Bobby thought he did.

“The masturbation muse,” said Babe. “You got the ability, don’t waste it. Use it to play the game before the game plays you.”

Bobby smiled at the memory. It was the first time he heard an adult use that M word. “Masturbation muse” — a much more descriptive term than “visualization.” Channel the impulse.

Bobby had lost the ability to do this. It was one of the effects of his mental breakdown. Random historic moments, even entire conversations, would haphazardly pop into his brain, especially when he closed his eyes and tried to concentrate. Or tried to fall asleep, which for Bobby had always been another form of concentration. Instead of focusing on the work at hand he found himself analyzing some insignificant event from the past. Why had he done that? What was the implication of this or that choice? Sometimes the memory was from his youth; sometimes it was from a day or two earlier.

Thoughts, ideas, remembrances passed through his consciousness like floats in a small town parade. Some part of Bobby stood on the sidewalk viewing the passing panorama, while another was up there on the flatbed trailer waving at the crowd.

This time, when he closed his eyes to try for a few minutes of precious rest, it was a scene from a few weeks earlier, a few days before the season opener.

Bobby and Brad sat in the stands, about ten rows up from center ice as Troy ran practice.

“What do you think?” said Brad.

The Totem’s newest additions to camp were Blair Kiniski and Alphonse Picard. Kiniski was an 18-year-old forward, a late cut from the Prince Albert Raiders who had been taken in the first round of the bantam draft three years earlier but had never managed to stick with the team. Picard was a huge 19-year old defenceman who had played parts of two seasons in Quebec Junior, but had been recently waived through the league.

“Kiniski can skate. He might be the fastest player out there,” said Bobby. “And Picard’s wheels aren’t bad either, for a big guy. You find out why Moncton cut him?”

“You see his hair?” said Brad.

“What’s your point?”

“Dreadlocks? Fake Jamaican accent? Ganja? Nickname is Bob Marley.”

“I asked if you found out why Moncton cut him,” said Bobby, whose earlier tired-but-decent mood had been steadily worn down by boring administrative tasks and by Brad Bower’s stick-up-the-ass demeanor.

“I called a few friends back east,” said Brad, a methodically coifed 32-year-old up-and-comer who had arrived with the team from the Prairies, as a condition of sale. “Picard is a head case. Same with Kiniski. That’s why PA and Moncton dropped them.”

“We went through this already,” said Bobby. “What does ‘head case’ mean? You were supposed to find out why, specifically, these guys were dropped from their previous teams. I mean, they both look pretty damn good to me.”

“I hear Picard became a Rastafarian near the end of last season.”

“You’re saying Moncton cut a six-foot-five, 230-pound defenceman who is a decent skater, because of his religion?”

Brad had this annoying habit of turning up his pug nose and rolling his beady eyes whenever he felt superior to the person he was talking to. Bobby felt like drilling him into the boards, but that would have been difficult since they were not on the ice, so instead he maintained his head-coach-as-god, nothing-ruffles-me pose.

“His religion is smoking dope,” Brad said with a sarcasm that revealed his New England prep school background.

“And mine used to be drinking scotch,” said Bobby, who felt, in his sleep-deprived state, like arguing the opposite opinion to this jerk sitting beside him, whatever the words that spewed from his too pretty lips. “You’re saying he got caught smoking dope?”

“Not that I heard of.”

“Any charges outstanding?”

“No.”

“So the bottom line is that Moncton dropped him because he’s a 19-year-old going through some I-love-reggae-music phase?”

Brad nodded assent, but his body language spoke of contempt for Bobby.

“Good. That’s solid, useful information. Now, how about Kiniski? What’s his story?”

“Like I said, he’s a head case too,” said Brad.

“Also a dope-smoking Rastaman?”

“Much worse.”

“What?” He had piqued Bobby’s curiosity. “He’s a vodka-swilling Russian Orthodox?”

“He’s queer.”

Bobby rolled his eyes and waited for the rest of the story.

“The word has been out in Saskatchewan for the last couple of years. That’s why PA never brought him up even though the kid was the leading scorer in midget Triple-A since he was 15.”

Bobby raised his right eyebrow, as if to say “get to the point.”

“Apparently two days ago Turner, the GM, called Kiniski into his office and asked him straight out, you know, about his sexual orientation and the kid admitted it.”

“That he was gay?” said Bobby.

“Ya,” said Brad. “Well, to be exact, apparently the kid said he ‘thought’ he was gay. So then Turner says, ‘I can live with that, but you got to pretend to have a girlfriend. I’ll fix you up.’ Kiniski says no way. Says ‘he hasn’t been brought up to pretend’ and that if someone asks he’ll tell them the truth. So Turner goes to the dad and asks him to straighten out the kid, but the old man is some kind of hippie, socialist, tree-hugging, 1960s-back-to-the-land retread and he tells Turner to fuck himself, that he’s proud of his son.

“So Turner and the kid’s old man call you up here in the gay haven of Vancouver and ask if you’re interested. You make some kind of deal that you won’t tell me about and we’ve given this head case a spot on our list.”

Bobby studied Brad’s face for a moment as he considered how to respond to yet another provocation from this supposedly loyal assistant.

Either the guy has a fake mustache or he clips it a couple of times a day, because every hair is the same damn length all the time.

The image of Brad standing in front of a mirror and pasting on a fake mustache made Bobby smile.

“I assume you want me to cut them after the practice?” said Brad.

“Cut who?” said Bobby.

“Picard and Kiniski.”

“Why? They look pretty good to me. Kiniski might be the best player on the ice and we could sure use someone with Picard’s size to keep the front of the net clear,” said Bobby, smiling.

“You realize they’ll be bad influences on team morale,” said Brad, putting on a pout.

“You think so?” said Bobby.

Playing dumb with this guy was entertaining.

“The key to successful junior hockey is maintaining discipline,” said Brad, who sounded like he was repeating something heard at a coaching seminar. “How can you maintain discipline with two guys like that?”

“You’re saying all gay people and everyone who likes reggae music can’t follow rules?” Bobby said, as he realized baiting Brad was the most fun he had had in weeks.

“It’s not just about following rules. The kind of discipline I’m talking about is team discipline,” said Brad. “Otherwise you just have a bunch of anarchists on ice, not a team. Every member of a winning team must think the same, act the same, have the same goals, and be prepared to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the team. Each and every player must respect each and every one of their teammates.”

Anarchists on ice, I like that, thought Bobby. Mike would like that.

“Are you saying the players currently on this team couldn’t respect a queer or a Rastaman? Or that you couldn’t?” said Bobby.

Coach and his assistant glared at each other like two buck caribou in rutting season.

“I’m not a bigot, if that’s what you’re saying,” said Brad. “I’m being realistic. I know these kids better than you. I rode the bus with them. I think I’m more than qualified to say these two guys will not fit in.”

“Even though you don’t really know these two guys? Just what you’ve been told about them?” said Bobby.

“This business is all about trusting what people say about other people,” said Brad. “It’s called scouting.”

Brad had a point there. Bobby had never really thought about scouting in that way before. But it was true; you needed to rely on what people said about other people. Scouting was an essential part of the game. Especially at the junior level, a good coach or GM could not possibly see thousands of players, so they trusted the judgments of their scouting staff. How else could the system work? But what if scouts were judging more than hockey skills? What if personal prejudices clouded their judgments? The scouting system and the idea that everyone on a winning team had to think the same would be powerful tools to ensure conformity.

After forty years in hockey, Bobby realized he was tired of conformity. And he realized what his son Mike had meant. “Shallow fascism.” Exactly.

Next Chapter: Monday

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