Hockey Dad (5 page)

7: Crossing the Line; Giving Mike the "Tap"

IF MY EXPERIENCES IN THE SUMMER OF 1992 were any indication, I was more part of the problem than the solution.

There was never any doubt we were going to register Mike
for another year of house-league lacrosse. He played Junior
Paperweight the
first
year; this would be the summer of Senior
Paperweight. And it wasn't long into his Senior Paperweight
House League season that we discovered there was going to be
a rep team chosen from the house league.
Rep? Did someone say rep? Rep is, of course, short for representative or all-star. Well, whatever you call it, I was certainly
game to kick things up a notch and Mike was, too. He quite
enjoyed lacrosse. It really is a wonderful game. The kids run
hard, work up a sweat and for those of us who appreciate the
physical and competitive elements of sport, it has those, too,
even at the youngest ages.

In Paperweight lacrosse, the kids are taught to knock the ball
out of another player's stick by using their stick. Aggression is
by all means rewarded-and encouraged. And unlike hockey-where kids starting out have a tough time mastering skating,
so puck control is but a pipe dream for most-kids playing
lacrosse are stable on their feet and able to scoop up a ball and
really run with it, maybe even throw it to a teammate, with all
the other kids chasing after it, trying either to knock the ball
out of the stick or knock down the ball carrier. Team play, the
ability to complete passes and get some
fl
ow to the game, is so
much greater in little kids' lacrosse than in little kids' hockey.

Mike could run fast, had a good stick, loved to get involved,
was one of the better kids in the house league and, well, I needed
details on this whole rep thing. I was given the name and number of the fellow who would be coaching the rep team. His
name was Kevin O'Brien. I recognized his name only because
his son, Kyle, a little red-haired kid, was known as one of the
really big scorers in the Senior Paperweight league. I gave this
Kevin O'Brien a call and told him I had a son who was interested
in trying out for the rep team, did he have any information?

This guy was very noncommittal, very cool to my request,
almost to the point of being aloof. He asked me what team
Mike played on and what number he wore. Then he said he was
coaching the yellow team, their next game was against Mike's
white team: "I'll have a look at him and see how he does."

I hung up the phone and recall thinking, "Yeah, we'll see
all right…"

Do you remember in the prologue, when I tried to make a
case that I'm not really crazy? Well, this is the point where it
gets hard to do that.

On the way to Mike's next game, which was against Kevin
O'Brien's yellow team, I was giving Mike the pregame pep
talk in the car. I told him about the rep team, explained the
concept-trying out for a team of the best players in his
league
who
would get to go in tournaments against all-star teams from
other towns and cities-which he seemed to like a lot. I told him
the coach of the yellow team was going to be the coach of the
rep team and if Mike wanted to be on this rep team, this would
be a good night to play a really good game to show the coach
that he was a good player. Then I crossed the line, although
that never really occurred to me at the time. I told Mike the best
player on the other team was the coach's son, a red-haired kid
with a big white Cooper helmet, and that he was maybe the best
player in the league. I told Mike that every time this red-haired
kid got the ball, Mike should do everything possible to prevent
him from scoring a goal-check him, hit him, whack his stick,
chase him down, run him over, whatever, but try to stop him
from scoring a goal-and that every time Mike got the ball Mike
should do everything possible to score a goal.

I didn't think of it as telling Mike to "goon" this other
kid. But here I was, taking my bespectacled little six-year-old
to his house-league lacrosse game, and I was pumping him
up to go mano-a-mano against some other six-year-old, all in
the name of making a good impression to make a rep team?

It was ridiculous and shameful, although I obviously didn't
think that at the time.
In any case, Mike proved to be a good listener. He played
a very good game that night. Scored some goals. Worked
extra hard to prevent the red-haired kid on the yellow team
from scoring too many goals, although anyone who knows
anything about lacrosse knows good players always get their
goals, even in Paperweight house league, and little Kyle
O'Brien did that night.

After the game, Kevin O'Brien told me he had taken a look
at Mike and, yes, Mike would be invited to play for the rep
team. Yeah, baby.

We, Kevin O'Brien and me, can laugh about it now because
the kicker to this story is that the O'Briens-Kevin, his wife,
Wendy, son Kyle and daughter Katie-are amongst our very
best friends and you will get to know them all too well in the
pages that follow. Mike and Kyle played their entire Whitby
rep hockey and rep lacrosse careers together on the same team
and became great friends and teammates. Within a couple of
years of that day I told Mike to take it to Kyle O'Brien, we
convinced the O'Briens to move from Oshawa to our street in
Whitby. When Kevin coached the boys in lacrosse, I was his
manager and/or assistant coach. When I, or anyone else for
that matter, coached the boys in hockey, Kevin was always
there as the team trainer. Together whatever the weather.
But still, the moral of the story is you don't tell your
six-year-old to "target" another six-year-old in the hopes of
making a rep team. You just don't.

Once we were fully settled into Whitby, we were looking forward to Mike playing hockey there for the
first
time.

Cindy's brother John, a '61 who had retired from pro hockey
following a six-year career in the minors after being a star in the
OHL, lived not too far from us in Whitby. He had two boys-Mathew and Thomas-the same ages as Mike and Shawn and
would later add a daughter, Kathryn, who would go on to play
girls' hockey. So we requested Mike and his cousin Mathew to
be on the same team. John put on his registration form that he
would help out with coaching. I helped out when I could, too.

Outside of the fact practices often took place as early as
6 a.m. on Saturday at the very chilly but character-laden Luther
Vipond Arena in Brooklin, Ontario, it was an enjoyable and
largely uneventful year.

You will be happy to know I behaved myself, for the most
part. Some of those 6 a.m. practices were hell on wheels,
though, especially when Cindy and I might have friends over
on a Friday night and, well, there might have been a few times
I had a few cocktails and didn't get to bed until 2 or 3 a.m.
Mike wasn't
difficult
to get up at 5 a.m. if it was for hockey.

Me? That depended on Friday night. When practice was over,
like all good Canadians, my brother-in-law John and me and
the boys would hit Tim Hortons on the way home. There's
another one of the simple pleasures in life on a cold morning after practice-hot chocolate at Tim's with the kids. It just
doesn't get much better than that.

Games, of course, were a much different story than practices, played on Sunday mornings (at respectable hours too).

Just going to the arena as a family was a great feeling. There's
still something really special about walking into a cold rink on
the weekend, taking in all the sights and sounds of so many
families there off the ice and the kids out there on the ice, the
sounds of sticks and pucks echoing throughout the arena. It
was wonderful, the highlight of my week. Mind you, I was still
allowing myself at times to be highly agitated by teenage refs
with no sense of urgency, but now that Mike was six, and playing against kids his own age, he was scoring a little more often.

It's funny how less agitated I was about the shift being lost
with the ref at the timekeeper's bench reporting a goal when
it was my kid who scored the goal. But it was still one heck of
a lot of wasted time.

I really only tried to impart one piece of wisdom to Mike
that season-play hard every shift. And I imparted that message morning, noon and night. On the way there. On the
way home. When I tucked him into bed at night. When I had
breakfast with him in the morning. It's the mantra for the
McKenzies in all things we do, then and now. Don't let up.

Don't worry about the score. Just play as hard as you can every
time you hit the ice. Give it your all, all of the time. That's
how my dad raised me in everything I did and that's how I was
going to try to raise my boys, not just in sports either, but in
life. No excuses. Work hard. Hard work. On the ice. At school.

At work. One hundred percent effort one hundred percent of
the time.

All of that can get a little old or clichéd sometimes but,
hey, it's just how I'm wired. It's in the genes. No sense
fight
ing it and of all the things I might consider apologizing for,
going overboard on extolling the virtues of hard work isn't
one of them.

8: The Straight Poop on Playing Up

IF YOU ARE FULLY COMMITTED to and entirely engaged in
the minor hockey experience, there is nothing quite like the
seven-year-old season. That's because it is, without question,
the busiest hockey season a player or parent can have. It is all
so new to you. In addition to playing house league, a player can
play select level at the same time. For the uninitiated, select is
when they take the best kids from house league and play them
together on a select team that competes against other towns
or organizations. The net effect is your kid is really playing
on two teams at the same time. One practice and one game
in house league; usually one practice and at least one game in
select, sometimes more. The player is on the ice at least four
times a week, often more than once a day on the weekends. It's
awesome. It's also nuts, although nuts in a good, what-would-you-rather-be-doing kind of way.

For those parents whose kids play select and house league
for their entire minor hockey careers, not just the seven-year-old
season, I applaud you. You deserve a medal because it's even
more demanding and time-consuming than the AAA, AA or
A levels.

But for the truly ambitious hockey parent-and yes, that
would be me-it was possible to bypass the seven-year-old
house-league/select year and go directly to rep, which did not
normally commence until the eight-year-old, or minor novice, season.

The Brooklin-Whitby Minor Hockey Association had a
policy that allowed seven-year-olds to try out for the minor
novice AA team, that is, "play up" a year, but not all the way
up to the minor novice AAA team. The seven-year-olds had to
be very good players, beat out some eight-year-olds to make
the minor novice AA team on merit, and no more than three
seven-year-olds could play on the AA team.

In Whitby, in Mike's age group of '86s, the
first
two spots
were spoken for. The best player in Whitby at that age was
Liam Reddox, and he was head and shoulders better than any
other '86. Steven Seedhouse was clearly the next best.

That left just one potential opening and I was, to put it
mildly, eager for Mike to get it. But there was competition from
some other talented seven-year-olds, as well as the eight-year-olds, so it was far from a slam dunk. It all came down to the
finally
tryout. It looked to me like the third seven-year-old spot
was going to go to either Mike or a boy named Brandon Davis.

I kind of thought Mike had the edge going into the
finally
try-out, just as I'm sure Brandon's dad, Scott,
figure
d his son would
get it.

On the day of the
finally
tryout, which was scheduled for
5 p.m. at Iroquois Park Arena, Mike came home from school
at lunch and complained of a tummy ache. Before long, it was
worse than that. Diarrhea. He had really bad stomach cramps.
Poop. Literally.

Mike said he didn't think he could go back to school
because he was afraid he might get caught short, if you know
what I mean. I didn't like where this was headed.

"But you'll be okay for hockey tryouts, won't you, Mike?"
I said plaintively.

"No," he said. "I can't go. My tummy hurts. I might have
to go to the bathroom."

Aw, crap.

"Oh, you'll be
fine
," I said, but he wasn't.

It was all over but the crying. And it was me who felt like
crying.

So while Liam Reddox, Steven Seedhouse and Brandon
Davis were the three '86s who played up on the minor novice
AA team that season, Mike was left to play house league and
select. Whatever my initial disappointment at Mike not being
on the AA team, it passed quickly, because for all my faults,
and I have many, I tend to believe everything happens for a
reason. And besides, I do
firm
ly believe that kids
find
their own
level and, generally speaking, it's better to play and play well
against kids your own age than to be less of a factor against
older kids. Now, if the powers that be had come along and said
Mike could play up on the AA team, we'd have been gone so
fast it would make your head spin.

This was the season when Mike actually started to wear glasses
when he played hockey. Up until then, even though he had been wearing glasses for almost three years, he hadn't been
wearing them for sports, but the truth is he couldn't see very
well without them. I'm not sure why we allowed him to not
wear glasses when he played hockey or lacrosse as a six-year-old, but it probably had a little to do with vanity-we, I mean
I, didn't like how it would look under his face mask-and a lot
to do with safety. We weren't keen on him wearing his conventional gold, wire-rimmed glasses with glass lenses-think
Harry Potter-in a contact sport and we had not yet found
sport glasses that would
fi
t a boy that young.

I
finally
located a pair of sport glasses that looked as
though they might do the trick. They were a little on the
large side, rather heavy looking but with thick, clear plastic
frames with large and fairly thick plastic lenses, the same sort
of shape as aviator sunglasses. I think they were designed for
racquetball or squash. I'm not sure words do this picture justice. Just think of a seven-year-old Kurt Rambis. Or maybe
even a young Bubbles from Trailer Park Boys. (Sorry about that
one, Mike.)

Hey, he could see. They were safe. They
fi
t, barely, under
his cage, it's not a frickin' beauty contest. He may have looked
a little, or a lot, like a nerd that season but he didn't play like
one.

With his uncle Johnny as the head coach and me helping
out, Mike ripped it up in the seven-year-old house league. He
would score more games than not and it wasn't unusual for
him to get two, three, four, or sometimes even
five
or six goals
a game. Regardless of how many he did or didn't score, I was
preaching to him the value of consistency-play hard every
shift, don't take shifts off, give it your all, all the time. Lest you
get the wrong idea, I was also stressing to him the importance
of passing the puck, helping his teammates score goals. And I
was also telling him he should skate as hard on the backcheck
as he did to score a goal.

Honestly, even now, I'm a little
conflict
ed about how to
handle a situation like this one. But only a little. I suppose a
good sport, or a more easygoing guy than me, might instruct
his son who is scoring a lot of goals to back it off at some point,
but my attitude then, and I suppose not much has changed
now, is how do you tell a seven-year-old kid not to try? I mean,
in a forty-
five
-minute running-time house-league game, there
were a total of
fi
fteen three-minute shifts. So with three lines
of skaters, that's no more than
five
shifts per game per player.
Five shifts. Think about that.
And now you're telling a kid to back it off or take it easy on
some of those
five
shifts? I don't think so.

I know there are many Hockey Dads who just take their
kids to the game and tell them nothing more than to have
fun. Nothing wrong with that. Heck, I told Mike that every
game he played-I still do now-because if you're not having
fun when you play, hockey is way too much like work. But
I'm not going to apologize for the way I am either. My dad,
who had an absolutely voracious work ethic, preached to me
every chance he got the value of hard work. I've tried to do
the same with my kids, even when they were seven years old.

I know there were some parents who weren't too thrilled to
have a player score as often as Mike did that season. But most
took it for what it was, the same as I took it when little Darryl
Lloyd was making a shambles of the squirt house league in
Pickering. But one mother was so incensed that she phoned
and complained to the league about Mike. There was some
talk she was going to start a petition to get Mike kicked out
of
the
house league, although I'm not sure where exactly he was
supposed to go.

All I knew is that if it was the minor novice AA team with
Liam Reddox, Steven Seedhouse and Brandon Davis, I'd have
been the
first
one to sign that petition.
Diarrhea, pfffft.