The Meaning of Hockey, Chapter 37

I am not the reason my son quit hockey.

The realization felt like that first breath after having the wind knocked out of you. It was a little painful but a huge relief as the panic finally subsided.

Mike quit hockey because he no longer cared to travel the road to fame and fortune. What were his words?

“I saw what it did to Sarah and I saw what it was doing to some of my teammates — how many guys take steroids because they think it might give them a better chance of making the NHL — then I realized what it would do to me. I couldn’t continue, can’t, because the desire is gone. Worse, I understand the desire is bad, anti-human, evil. So it will never come back. I want to be passionate about whatever I do in life and I know I can never be passionate about making it as a professional hockey player.”

Idealism made him quit hockey, not his pathetic old man. It’s the system, not me.

“Once I started thinking this way I just couldn’t accept all the bullshit any more. They make you put up with a lot.”

He understood, he truly did.

“I mean I had my best season ever, scoring wise after I lost my desire. Told everyone, even a reporter for the Free Press that I was an anarchist. It was like I didn’t care so I played better. But it wasn’t enough. The coaches in London, the owners, they’ll do anything to win. I mean anything.”

Bobby had played against the brothers who owned the London Knights and knew what they had been like as players.

“Truth, ethics, nothing but winning matters.”

That was the Fishers all right.

“You probably heard about our playoffs last season, the “anarchist revolution” they call it.”

Bobby nodded. Finally his son would tell him his side of the story.

“Well it didn’t just start in the playoffs. It began at trading deadline when they screwed my best friend, Billy Stemkowski, because he refused to bust a guy’s leg. It’s true, they sent him to Sault Ste. Marie for a draft pick even though they knew he couldn’t report because he had a month and a half to go on his aircraft mechanic diploma at Fanshawe College. Nineteen and on the fourth line, so how could he choose hockey over school?

Just business they said, but everyone on the team knew Billy had been strongly encouraged to go after Matt Stainsby’s bum left leg but refused. About five or six of us asked for a team meeting after it happened and the Fishers blew smoke up everyone’s ass. ‘Just a big misunderstanding.’ But of course three of us shit disturbers got benched or moved back a line. Not me of course, because I was leading the team in scoring, but I could see what was going on.

Then in the second round of the playoffs I get called into the owner’s office and he tells me a story about this guy he used to play against who perfected the art of biting a hunk off the inside of his cheek to get the blood spurting and turn a two-minute minor penalty into a five-minute major. Made it very clear that I should try something similar the next time one of Guelph’s goons got his stick up on me. First game of the series, about halfway through the third with the Storm up 4-2 I get a glove rubbed into my face right in front of our bench and the ref’s arm goes up. Coach starts screaming “five” and gives me this look like “you know what to do” but I can’t. It just didn’t seem right. The season before maybe, but somehow after telling everyone I was an anarchist it felt that like doing right was more important than winning.

Anyhow, coach is pissed and I get benched for the rest of the game. Guys ask me afterwards what the hell is going on and I tell them. Next game I’m benched for the whole first period. Second period I score twice and then a couple minutes into the third, I get crosschecked in the face. Again the coach starts screaming “five” and again I refuse his “bite me” order. Next thing I’m told to report to the dressing room because I’ve got to be checked for a concussion. Once again after the game I’m asked what’s going on and I tell the truth as I see it. Guys are fuming. Half the team at me and the other half at the coach. In game three, back at home, when it happens again and I’m sent to the dressing room, eight guys decide to leave the ice with me.”

“Did you organize it?” said Bobby.

“Never even knew about it. But when the shit hit the fan with the press and the league, what choice did I have? Rumors started flying about players being ordered to hurt other players and themselves and the league threatened to suspend all of us — coaches, owner and players — for a season. We had a meeting and I decided to take the heat. The official story became I was this big-time shit disturber, this anarchist who took advantage of his naïve teammates and I got benched for the last game of the season. Knights dropped me and no one else picked me up.”

“You took the blame to protect your teammates, your coach and the owners?”

“Being an anarchist means being a good teammate.”

Bobby stared at his.

“It was no big deal,” said Mike. “I was planning to quit anyway.”

“Still …”

“It was the best thing I ever did,” said Mike, interrupting him. “All the people I care about know the truth, now that I told you.”

Bobby felt a weird combination of teary, angry and a strong desire to hug his son. Instead he asked a question. “You think that’s what being an anarchist means? Being a good teammate?”

Mike nodded.

“So anarchist hockey would mean hockey that stressed the importance of team?”

Mike nodded again.

Bobby knew he should say something else, something more fatherly, but all he could think to do was talk philosophy. Being able to think about, to discuss the ethics of hockey — as an abstract system suddenly seemed safer than the alternative.

“So, what’s the difference between democracy and anarchism?” said Wickermasinghe.

“Ya, what’s the difference?” said Chang.

“Some people say anarchism is real democracy,” said Bobby. “Some people say anarchism is the only philosophy that starts from the idea that all human beings are autonomous individuals who must live and work together.”

“But anarchism means no government,” said Vicente. “That’s what my grandfather told me. His father was an anarchist in Italy.”

“Well, I’m not an expert, but my understanding is that anarchists were against the state because the state made rules without consulting the people and then used the police and the army to enforce those rules,” Bobby said.

“My grandfather says socialists believe in government and anarchists don’t,” said Vicente.

“That’s more or less what I read,” said Bobby. “Back in the 1800s the left wing was sort of divided between two guys named Marx and Bakunin. Marx and the socialists thought the way to change the world was to first capture the government and use it, but Bakunin and the anarchists thought the way to change the world was to destroy the government.”

“Isn’t what you’re describing about us and this team, more like socialism then?” said Wickermasinghe. “I mean, we’re not going to destroy the team to change it.”

Bobby shrugged. The kid had a point. There was some kind of gray area between socialism and anarchism that he definitely must talk some more to Mike and Frida about.

“What I don’t understand is what this all has to do with hockey,” said Chedomensky.

A few other players nodded in agreement.

“It has to do with organizing those parts of your life where you interact with other people,” said Bobby. “For us, that’s hockey.”

Good answer.

“So why are you an anarchist and not a Marxist?” asked Bobby, interrupting his son’s description of an idea for a new ad campaign that played on the theme of anarchist hockey.

“I don’t know,” said Mike.

“And what’s the difference? I’ve been reading the books that Frida gave me, but I still can’t quite figure it out.”

“I think the Marxists put a lot more emphasis on capturing the state, you know through elections or revolution or whatever,” said Mike. “Like Lenin and the Russian revolution.”

“Okay, but the anarchists want to make a revolution as well, right?”

“Sure,” said his son. “But we want to do it through transforming society from below not through imposing the revolution from above.”

“Through mutual aid?” asked Bobby.

“Through people getting together and building their own democratic structures to run the economy and their lives.”

“But what I don’t understand is why you wouldn’t want to use the government, make it really democratic and use it to transform society,” said Bobby. “You know, pass laws to make the economy democratic, pass laws to loan money to cooperatives, change the constitution to give power to ordinary people.”

“Anarchists don’t trust the state or any people to make the revolution for them. We have to do it for ourselves.”

“Seems an awful lot like what the capitalists say. Seems like you’re taking the same side as big corporations who are always trying to weaken the government so they have all the power,” said Bobby. “You know, like through NAFTA and the other free trade agreements. Seems to me like the real choice nowadays is power for governments, which you get to elect or power to big companies, which no one gets to vote for.”

“I sort of agree with that,” said Mike.

“So you side with the government, try to use it to help the people, which makes you a Marxist, not an anarchist,” said Bobby.

“Whatever,” said Mike. “I’m not really big on labels anyway.”

Very confusing, thought Bobby. I like to know what team I’m playing for. On the other hand, so long as we’re all playing the same sport.

Next Chapter: Friday

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