Mr. Hockey My Story (12 page)

Around the time I spotted Colleen in the bowling alley, I was hanging around in Detroit for a few weeks, waiting to go on a trip to Florida. Our season had ended in bitterly disappointing fashion. We’d had a great run in the regular season, finishing first overall with 101 points; it was the first time a club had topped the century mark. I led the league in scoring with 43 goals and 43 assists for 86 points, which was good enough for my first Art Ross Trophy. The total also put me 1 goal and 19 assists ahead of the Rocket, who finished second. He got his revenge in the playoffs, though, when Montreal eliminated us in six games in the semifinals. After steamrolling over everyone all season, it hurt to come up so short when it mattered most. In the Stanley Cup finals, Toronto ended up beating Montreal in a series that saw all five games go to overtime. Bill Barilko finally ended it on his famous flying goal. It was Toronto’s fourth Stanley Cup in five years. The Leafs had established a dynasty, but deep down we still believed that the Red Wings were the team to beat.

After our failure in the playoffs, Ted, Marty Pavelich, Red Kelly, and I decided to take a vacation to regroup and get some sun. I’d been looking forward to the trip, but after my first date with Colleen I started having doubts about going. I wanted to squeeze in as much time with her as possible and so we went out every night until I left for Florida. On one of those early dates, I remember leaning over and asking how old she thought a guy should be to get married. We’d only known each other a few weeks, so she told me later that she didn’t know what to make of the question. Was I serious, or was I just trying to score points? I’ll say this much: I never put the question to any other girl. I also may have figured she had one too many guys knocking on her door. If I gave her something to think about, I was hoping it might put the brakes on the competition. Whatever she thought at the time, the reason I asked that question is perfectly clear to me. I loved her from the beginning.

By the time we left for Florida, I was in a bad way. We’d met only a few weeks earlier, but I missed Colleen like I’d known her my whole life. I couldn’t tell any of this to my buddies, of course. Ted, in particular, would have been merciless if he’d known I was so lovestruck. I made time nearly every day to sneak away and write Colleen a quick note. The irony of seeing me struggle to share my feelings on paper wouldn’t have been lost on my teachers back in Saskatoon. Poetic or not, I needed to let her know how much she meant to me. In her typical sweet way, Colleen saved all of my letters from those early days. Here are a few excerpts:

April 15

Hollywood, Florida

Dear Colleen:

Hello honey, well we’re not there as yet but already I’ve found out you can miss someone even though you know them but for a few days.

Love, Gord

April 17

Hollywood, Florida

. . . as soon as we get our tans we all intend to catch a few big fish. I’m really looking forward to that as I love to fish. There’s only one thing I like more this last week and that’s a little girl in Detroit.

Love, Gordie

April 19

Hollywood Beach, Florida

Hello love,

. . . all I can think of right now is as I’ve always thought for the past few days and that is “I wish you were down here also.” Goodnight for now, dear.

Love, Gordon

April 20

Hollywood, Florida

. . . we intend leaving here the night of the 26th so we will be in Saturday sometime. I hope to stay awhile and spend a few days with you if I can. I would love to spend as many more nights with you as I can before heading for home. So how about telling everyone you are out some place starting the night of Saturday the 28th . . .

As always,
Love, Gordie

April 23

Hollywood Beach, Florida

. . . I really enjoyed my fish as we ate about 6:00 and I hadn’t anything to eat, and believe it or not all I had was one beer all day. So you and I seem to be in the same boat, but that’s the way I like it. ’Cause I think the world of the girl in my boat with me.

Love and stuff, Gordon

Some of that might be a bit sappy, but it still brings back a lot of good memories. I wasn’t exactly Shakespeare, but I wanted to let her know I’d be worth the wait. Unfortunately, we faced a number of hurdles in the early going that put a lot of pressure on my humble letter-writing skills. For one, I had to head back to Canada straight after returning from Florida. The government granted me only a temporary work visa, which barred me from spending any
more time in the U.S., other than for brief visits. The border rules meant that Colleen and I wouldn’t see each other until the team reconvened in the fall. I knew I was crazy about her, but since I was leaving she wasn’t quite ready to commit. She said we hadn’t known each other long enough to be exclusive, so I reluctantly agreed that we should date other people while I was gone. Being thousands of miles away from a girl you’re falling for is a hard situation. Added to which, the ballplayer was still in the picture, and I didn’t know what to think about that. Colleen was such a catch I also figured that Lord only knew how many other guys were lining up to ask her out while I was stuck in Saskatoon.

Young hockey players usually don’t struggle to find a date. Girls always seem to be around if you’re looking. Until that point, though, I’d never met anyone like Colleen. She had it all, as far as I was concerned. Not only was she smart and funny and beautiful, but I also felt completely comfortable around her from the first time we spoke. Any shy person can tell you that’s not always the case. When I was in Omaha, I remember being so spooked by a girl that I actually crawled out of a window to avoid taking her out. She’d been coming to games for a few weeks and it was pretty clear she was interested in me. I lived about six blocks from the rink and when I’d walk home from games, she was often waiting in ambush. The fellas started to tease me whenever she came around. One day she confronted me and asked why I wouldn’t take her out. I didn’t know what to say. In an attempt to avoid dealing with the question, I told her I only liked girls with gray hair. It was a silly answer, but it seemed to do the trick in the moment. You had to hand it to this girl, though. She was persistent. After the next game, I was in the dressing room when the door swung open. There she was standing in the hallway with
her hair dyed gray. The guys gave a big whoop when they saw her and started cracking up. I was so nervous I did the bravest thing I could think of. I pulled on the rest of my clothes and went out the back window. As soon as my feet touched the pavement outside, I took off in a dead sprint until I reached my front door. It goes without saying that meeting Colleen was an altogether different story. By the time I returned to Detroit after our first summer apart, she’d broken it off with the baseball player. Thank heavens for that small mercy. The road was clear for me to try to sweep her off her feet, but for a while I had trouble getting out of my own way.

As much as I wanted it to be smooth sailing, the first few months after I got back into town were choppy. I tried to spend as much time with Colleen as possible, but sometimes my team duties threw a wrench into that plan. For instance, the Red Wings would often schedule players to appear at functions or banquets. Sometimes the requests were last minute, but it didn’t matter. When Mr. Adams told you to go somewhere, you went. We’d just come off the season’s first big road trip and Colleen and I hadn’t seen much of each other. We had a big date planned for after the team’s first game back. It was on a Friday and Colleen was excited that she didn’t have to worry about working the next day. Then disaster hit. The club decided to send me to a banquet that night. When I called Colleen to cancel, it’s fair to say she wasn’t at all happy and she let me know it.

After the banquet ended that night, a few of us decided to go out. One of my teammates wanted to swing by a concert to see a girl he was dating. We walked in toward the end of the show—the Four Freshmen were playing—and sat down with the girl and her friends. I looked over, and who was in the next booth? Colleen.
And she wasn’t alone. I was crushed. I tried not to show it, but I’m sure the hangdog expression on my face was clear enough. After I broke off our plans that afternoon, an old boyfriend called her up and asked her to the show. She was so angry with me for canceling that she went. Here I was falling in love with this girl, and there she was in a booth cozying up to some other guy. It was a terrible moment.

We had a game the next night. Normally I would have called Colleen and told her there was a ticket waiting for her at the gate. I always sat her next to Ma Shaw, who came to all of our games. That day, I didn’t call. Late in the afternoon, though, the phone rang and it was Colleen on the other end. It was a pretty brazen move for a girl in the early 1950s, but that was Colleen. She never had much use for convention if it didn’t suit her. She had bought her own ticket for the game and wanted to know if we could meet up afterward. I said that would be fine, except that I had a date. I figured that two could play at whatever game she was up to. As it turned out, my date was a bust. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but years later I found out that Colleen had a hand in muddying the waters. Once at the game, apparently she marched down the aisle to her regular seat and, in a loud voice, asked Ma Shaw to apologize to me for breaking our date that night, but something had come up. I’m sure Ma Shaw was mortified. One seat over, my date heard the message loud and clear. I’m sure it would have made Colleen happy to see how frosty she was to me later that night. I have to admit it was a clever trick. Colleen said it ate at her conscience for years until she finally confessed. I can’t say I was upset when I heard the story. Colleen said she knew we’d make up and she wanted to make sure there weren’t any complications when that happened. Turns out she was exactly right and we made up
shortly after. I forgave her for not knowing about banquets and she forgave me for not knowing about women.

By the time I had to leave the country again the next spring, our relationship was on firmer footing, but there were still some uncertainties. Not seeing each other for months at a time would once again be tough. While insecurity had plagued me the previous summer, our second summer apart was harder for Colleen. Part of that was my fault. As much as I was falling in love, I was still shy when it came to writing letters. I kept a dictionary beside me to make sure my spelling didn’t make me look like a donkey in her eyes. A few months into the off-season I went north to Waskesiu Lake to do some fishing and golfing, but I didn’t have a dictionary there so my letters dried up. Sometimes absence can play funny tricks on the mind. When Colleen stopped hearing from me, she thought it was over. She even met someone else who fell pretty hard for her in a hurry. Lucky for me, I returned from the lake in time to head that nonsense off at the pass. I was shocked when she told me she thought I’d moved on. To fix the situation, I needed to do some fast talking. I told her I would have written more, but we had been in such a remote spot there wasn’t a post office around. She accepted my explanation and we managed to put things back on the rails. Of course, when we went up to Waskesiu Lake years later, what was the first thing she saw? A post office. She said, “Oh look, they have a post office now.” Naturally, I’d forgotten about my little white lie and I told her it had been there forever. She gave me a pretty hard whack on the shoulder and I wasn’t even sure why. I probably deserved it.

In my defense, when I wasn’t at the lake I did write to her that summer. Colleen, of course, saved the letters.

(I sent this one to Miami Beach, where she was on vacation.)

May 9, 1952

Dearest Colleen,

Hi love. Sorry I haven’t written long before this and while I’m at it, I better say I’m double sorry because we go into the woods tomorrow and seeing as we have to walk six miles carrying food and all, I won’t be coming out each day to mail a letter. So this short note will let you know that I received your two wonderful letters which I was very happy to receive as I too have missed you more than you’ll know.

. . . Well love it’s getting on and we’re due out of here at 4:30 in the morning. So I’ll leave you with the thought in your mind that there’s a fisherman up north who is missing you like crazy.

As ever,
Love and all, Gord

June 14, 1952

Hi dear,

Once again I have heard three sweet words from you which I should use more often and that is, “I miss you.” They sound awful good to me coming from such a sweet young lady as you and again I say I should use them much more often. But the truth is I don’t know too much of sweet words so just give me time as I am a comer.

Love, Gordie

June 16, 1952

Hello dear,

Guess what—little Gord received not one but two very nice letters from you today which is setting a pace I really can’t hold up to, but believe me it is awful nice.

It sounds like you’re having yourself one wonderful time this summer which is very nice. I only wish I were there with you to enjoy your company and to see all the nice places and also to enjoy the sun as it’s something we haven’t seen out here for the last week.