I can pinpoint the exact day, exact hour and minute when
hockey
stopped being just a game for me. Something of the feeling I had
on the backyard rink was lost forever when one of the men in
suits, sitting at their big round tables at North York Centennial
Centre, stood up to make a declaration.
"The Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds pick Eric Lindros."
The 1989 Ontario Hockey League draft was underway on a hot
Saturday morning, May 27, but as far as I was concerned my season
was already over. For that matter, I figured my hopes of a pro career
were also gone forever. Whatever the future held, this much was
certain: hockey would never quite be the same fot me again.
It was clear well before the draft that Sault Ste. Marie wanted
to pick me first overall - my family and I had mad it just as
clear that I had no intention of playing there. I had recently turned
sixteen, and I just didn't feel ready to live nearly five hundred
miles away from home. We're a close-knit family, and that support
is very important to me. From the meetings we'd had with the
people from the Soo, there was also no doubt that my education
would suffer because of the team's heavy travel schedule. My par-
ents wanted me to get some more university courses under my belt
before I started pro hockey - something that would be impossible
if I were playing in Sault Ste. Marie. The hockey experts were pre-
dicting I'd be playing in the NHL at age eighteen. That left only
two years to get my high school diploma. At the time, I was still in
Grade 10 with a few extra credits from summer school. I was just a
kid; I didn't even have a driver's licence yet.
Under the rules of major junior hockey, I had no say in the
matter; the Ontario Hockey League officials hold all the power. If
you want to play in the OHL, they expect you to go to any team
that drafts you, no matter how far away from home it may be or
what your feelings are. So you have some players as young as fif-
teen selected in the OHL Priority Selection draft having no con-
trol at all over where they end up. The OHL rules have been
challenged in court - as far as the Ontario Supreme Court by one
hockey player's family - without success. The Supreme Court
judge who heard the case said young hockey players should not
be "dealt with as commercial commodities or a side of beef," but
he still decided in favor of the league, because he didn't want to
interfere with the "internal rules and regulations of clubs."
I was honest about the situation with Sault St. Marie. I could
have lied and told the Soo that I was packing my bags and going
off to college, or that I was going to stay in Junior B for another
year, but I didn't. I was upfront, but, as I would learn later, some
people don't respect you for that.
Before the draft we met with the people from Sault Ste.
Marie - including Phil Esposito, then one of the owners of the
team - and tried to explain our feelings about the situation. They
said they understood and we got the impression that they were
going to work something out, probably by trading my rights. But
the night before the draft, it became obvious that they had no
intention of trading me at all. There was money to be made from
my name, and it looked to me as though they weren't about to
squander the opportunity.
The Sault Ste. Marie franchise was in financial trouble at the
time, and the owners were negotiating to sell the team. One offer,
we later learned,, came from the Compuware organization in
Detroit, which offered $600,000 for the franchise on May 17. I
guess Esposito decided the team would be worth more with
me on it, so he went ahead and drafted me. Compuware later
upped its bid to $1 million, but the team stayed in the Soo,
because the city itself and local investors stepped in to match the
offer. Because the team had drafted me, Esposito and his partners
sold their interest in the club for what I thought was a much
better price than they otherwise could have.
The whole episode showed me that hockey is a bottom-line
business, even at the junior level. I felt like a piece of meat.
Hockey had been a game to me until then. When I was playing
Junior B for St. Mike's a year earlier, they kept talking about how
the organization was having financial problems and that they
might not have a team next season, because we weren't drawing
a lot of people to our games. That didn't affect me, because I
never thought of hockey in financial terms. I was thinking,
"Hockey is a game, it's for fun." But all that changed on the day
of the OHL draft.
I was devastated when the Soo drafted me; it was so disillu-
sining. All I wanted to do was play, and they were making it so
hard for me. I remember sitting in the kitchen, thinking my
hockey career was over. Where was I going to play? Paul Henry, a
scout with the Canadian Olympic team, came over that afternoon
to offer me a chance to join them, but I felt I was too young to go
out to live at their training base in Calgary. I could have done it, I
could have managed, but I wouldn't have been happy.
My parents were really slammed in the press over the whole
issue, particularly in Sault Ste. Marie. It really upset me when one
reporter from the daily newspaper in the Soo started writing
all this negative stuff about my mother, and how she was interfer-
ing with the way things should go for a junior hockey player. He
sensationalized everything, and there was nothing we could do
about it.
I was told by some people before the draft that everything
would be taken care of and it would work out fine, but things
were not okay until my parrents stepped in and made things okay.
Then everyone started criticizing my parents for interfering,
when all they were doing was trying to help me out, to get me in
the position I wanted to be in. Nearly two years later, a radio
reporter from the Soo, after a lengthy interview with my Mom,
finally concluded, "You mean you were lookin' out for your
own." At least one person in the Soo understood.
OTHER VOICES:
CARL LINDROS The whole affair had so many twists and turns that it took a
real emotional toll on Eric. There was a lot of stress and a lot of
pain for a sixteen-year-old to deal with. He started having sponta-
neous nosebleeds a couple of weeks before the draft, and he
wasn't getting much sleep. On the eve of the draft, when he heard
the Soo was going to select him the following day, he sat by him-
self in our backyard and his nose began pouring blood. He spent
most of the next morning crying in his room. In fact, we all stayed
in our rooms; there wasn't a dry eye in the house.
I felt that the Soo owners played around with a kid's life for
their own financial gain and, to me, that was the most disturbing
thing. I'm sure, in Phil Esposito's mind, junior hockey is a busi-
ness, and drafting Eric made good sense from his perspective. But
it seemed to me that no one every really took Eric's feelings into
account. We had a very emotional conversation on the phone
with Phil Esposito the night before the draft. There was a series of
phone calls that evening, from ten o'clock to two in the morn-
ing, and we really thought that Phil was going to reconsider his
position. I still recall walking into the draft room about an hour after
Eric had been selected. There were all these junior hockey officials
sitting there like the Knights of the Round Table, determining the
immediate futures of all the available kids. I went up to the Sault
Ste. Marie table and exchanged a few words with Phil. I was
almost ready to pop him one, but that would only have made
things worse. I just thought the whole thing stank.
People said we were snubbing the Soo, but we would have
made the same decision regarding about two-thirds of the other
teams in the league. We were looking basically three things in
a team: that it be located in a community with a university; that it
be within a two-hour drive of home; and that the organization
place a strong emphasis on education. There were about half a
dozen teams that were a good fit. We would also have said no to
Windsor, which is close to our hometown of Chatham, and to
Ottawa, and a number of other places. It just wasn't the
Soo or the North.
We felt it was very important that Eric be exposed to univer-
sity before turning pro. Since that wasn't going to be possible in
the Soo, there was no question in Eric's mind that he had to play
somewhere else. When we met with the people from the Soo -
Esposito, coach Ted Nolan and part-owner Angelo Bumbacco -
they brought their education consultant. As the meeting went on,
the consultant came out and said it would be difficult for Eric to
complete high school, let alone get exposed to university, in a
two-year period. Once that was established, there was no sense in
talking about how nice people in the city were or what could
be done to minimize the travel.
To us, stressing education was a way of helping Eric build his
self-esteem and become a more well-rounded person who sees
there are other options in life. While you're at school, you see how
other people live and think, and it also takes you out of the locker
room and helps in building your social skills.
We wanted to be within two hours of where Eric was so that
we would be there for support when he needed us. It would have
been hard to travel to a place like the Soo regularly, particularly
when you have other children. You can't be devoting the whole
weekend to one kid and ignoring the rest. In Eric's case, that desire
to be close to him was even more important, because we knew
there was going to be a lot of media attention and high expecta-
tions, and whenever there are high expectations you end up with a
lot of ups and downs. I think family is really important when
someone is hitting a low, because they can help you bounce back.
The thing that was really frustrating was the way we were
portrayed in the Soo newspaper. We gave numerous interviews
over the telephone because we thought if people understood our
rationale they might accept our stand. For several weeks we read
the Soo newspaper in the local library, and we were disappointed.
We were being painted as elitist - big city versus little town. It
really bothered us, especially since Bonnie and I are small-
town Chatham people at heart. Most of us aren't perfect, but I
don't think we like to be slammed without cause.
Bonnie in particular, became a target for one of the Soo
Reporters. I think he chose her because she caught him corner-
ing Eric behind a van in the parking lot on draft day. Eric had
asked us to take him to the arena after lunch, because he wanted
to have the fun of watching some of his friends get drafted.
Instead of approaching Eric in the arena, this reporter waited
until he went to the car to get his camera and then corralled
him outside and showed a tape recorder in his face. Bonnie
didn't feel this was an approptiate way for an adult to approach
a sixteen-year-old kid, peppering him with questions on such a
controversal issue, and she really let this reporter know it.
Shortly after that, he started doing a serious hatchet job on her
in his newspaper.
It got so bad that Bonnie's former classmates who were from
the Soo wouldn't even speak to her at their twenty-year reunion.
They read in the newspapers that the Lindroses didn't think the
Soo was good enough for their son, so you could understand why
they might have felt that way.
There were also a number of people who felt that to play in
the OHL was an honor and nobody should challenge it. I think
that's an issue that parents and league officials should look at
more carefully. While the needs of most new recruits are consid-
ered by the league, it just wasn't going to work out in Eric's
case. It's not that much different from graduating from high
school and deciding what university or college to attend -- you
want to go where you think you'll fit best. Because you've got a
desire to have some parity within the league, it's understand-
able that you just can't throw the draft wide open, but there's
got to be a degree of give and take -- there's no doubt of that in
my mind.
OTHER VOICES:
BONNIE LINDROS
There was never any discussion about the possibility of going
to the Soo after the draft; Eric knew playing there wouldn't work
for him. The OHL had it's set of rules. Rather than challenge them,
we just decided it wasn't going to work for us. We never dreamt
they would wind up changing the rules.
Carl and I had come up with a number of alternative plans, so
we moved on. The University of Michigan was a possible option,
since we had all visited the campus a few months earlier and met
with former NHLer Red Berenson and his coaching staff. But Eric
would not be eligible to enter university for almost a year, so he
needed a place to play in the meantime. Red Berenson had given
us the phone number of Andy Weidenbach, the coach of the
Detroit-based Compuware team that played in the Tier II league.
We called Andy and left a message on his answerring machine, and
he called us back within ten minutes. In the meantime, Andy had
already phoned Jimmy Rutherford, the head of Compuware's
hockey operations, because he wasn't sure what he should do.
"Eric Lindros's family has phoned to see about him playing
for me," Andy said.
"Well, phone them back," said Jimmy.
"But we've already got a full roster," Andy reminded him.
"Oh no we don't," Jimmy countered.
Jimmy Rutherford, realizing Eric would only be there until Jan-
uary, decided to expand the lineup for him. Eric felt better almost
immediately -- he now had a team and something to focus on.
Eric had to decide for himself where his priorities were, and
His priorities were with school. When he was growing up, we
always talked about how, with education, it would be easier to
make your own life decisions and life choices. Eric recognized
that right from the start, and he worked hard at school. He didn't
always do it because he loved it, but he is a person who feels he
has to do his best at whatever he does.
Not many kids would have done what he did that summer.
He finished his high school exams in Toronto on a Friday after-
noon, and he was in a new school in a new city in a new country
on Monday morning. He had signed up for summer school in
Detroit, because he was fast-tracking through the system so that
he could finish his high school by January 1990 and be ready to
start university more than a year before he would be entering
the pros.
The people at the Compuware organization in Detroit were
just great to us. There were about five lawyers and staff who met
Eric at the door when we arrived. It overwhelmed us because,
after all the grief we had been through with the OHL, we now
had somebody trying to help us make it work. It was certainly a
striking difference. Eric ended up at Bloomfield Hills Andover
High School for the summer, and the fellow at the guidance
department was terrific. He helped us arrange the proper courses
so Eric could graduate in January.
Eric went to a different high school in the fall, in Farmington,
Michigan. We didn't tell them Eric played hockey because we
wanted to keep everything low-key. The only person who knew
was the principal -- until Eric's picture appeared on the cover of
The Hockey News with the headline "Whiz Kid: Meet 16-year-old
Desined To Be An NHL Superstar." They just about died. Unlike
Canadians, Americans like to parade their heroes. They hung the
Article on the principal's wall and in the halls of the school.
Everything worked out much better than we had expected,
and the kids in the States were great. The coaching staff at Com-
puware taught Eric a lot. But perhaps the best thing about the
whole experience was that he boarded with the Vellucci family in
Farmington. The Velluccis and their next door neighbors, the Mac-
Dougalls, really looked after him and treated him just like one of
their kids. I remember Judy Vellucci asking me what Eric's
favorite foods were, and I said "Everything -- and lots of it." She
soon found out that I wasn't kidding.
OTHER VOICES:
JUDY VELLUCCI
(Eric's billet, Farmington, Michigan)
I had been hearing about this kid for months -- the word was
out about him -- but I thought his name was "Lynn Dross." The
move to Farmington was a tense situation for both Eric and his
family, because they had no idea what he was coming into. I saw
it as a great opportunity to meet someone special, and I wanted to
make his life with us as normal as possible. I was strongly aware
that this might be the last bit of normalcy he'd ever have. The
people in Michigan didn't know him yet; the people in Canada
were just learning about him.
It seemed at times he was down on humanity, just sort of dis-
couraged that people would do the things that they do. He's very
sensitive. People would never think that anyone that big and
strong would have so much heart, so much sensitivity, but he does.
He loves his sister and brother, truly adore his parents, and he's a
very grateful young man. But I think the experience with the OHL
draft changed him a lot. That was the real world. What I think he
learned was that when it comes down to it, your parents have
your best interests at heart and nobody else does. Everybody else
wants a piece of you. He was so young to have learned that. And it
was like he put on emotional armor in response. The first day Eric came to Detroit he was
scared to death, but I
didn't realize that. We live out in Farmington, which is a nice little
middle-class suburb where you don't have to lock the doors all
the time. All my kids were off golfing because it was a nice, hot
summer day, and I figured I had better go to the grocery store
because I heard he ate a lot. I said, "Eric, make yourself comfort-
able, put your clothes away, I'll be back in a little while."
I guess because of all the things he had heard about Detroit,
and being in a new place, he was really frightened to be left alone
in the house. As soon as I went out, he went upstairs and locked
himself in the bathroom. He later told me he was up there flush-
ing the toilet and counting the tiles to take his mind off his fear.
He was a nervous wrech. When I came home, he was sitting at the
top of the steps, his eyes scared like a rabbit's, because he had no
idea who was walking through the door. His concerns didn't end
there, though. For the longest time I couldn't find my big paring
knife, until I was cleaning in Eric's room one day and found it
under his mattress. He was really afraid.
As a family, we wanted to get to know Eric the person, not
Eric the hockey player. That was how we focused on him. He
doesn't act like he's anything special; he's unpretentious and
unassuming. There are so many people who are far less talented
who are so cocky. He was so different, and we really learned to
love him. He's just a great kid.
Bonnie had warned me about his appetite. Luckily, because I
have a large family, I was semi-prepared, but he could still pack
it away like no one I have ever seen. I was buying pounds and
pounds of lunch meat and tons of tuna fish. He could eat a six-
pound can of peanut butter in three weeks, and his idea of a
slice of watermelon was a quarter of the melon. One time he
came home from school at two-thirty in the afternoon after
having five sandwiches for lunch, and it smelled like he was
baking cookies in the oven. But it was actually the toaster going
full tilt, because he was toasting and devouring a whole loaf of
raisin bread as a snack.
My kids would cut him up about his appetite all the time. One
night, I left a great big piece of steak on the kitchen counter to
defrost because I was thinking of making a beef burgundy. But I
always told Eric, "Whatever's there is yours, just go get it," and
he took me at my word on this occasion. I came home and he had
cooked the steak on the grill and wolfed down the whole thing. "I
hope you don't mind," he said sheepishly. I got a real kick
out of that, because it could have fed a whole family. Unfortu-
nately, he ate it before his game and was sick at the rink.
The only area where Eric fell short was in keeping his room
clean. I don't think he ever hung up any of his clothes in the six
months he stayed with us. He just left them all in piles on the
floor. When Sports Illustrated came out to do an article on him, he
kept it pretty quiet because he didn't want to sound like he was
boasting, and he didn't tell me until two days before they came. I
told him that maybe he should clean his room just in case they
wanted to take some pictures in there. No response. I said to him,
"Eric, I think it would be a good idea." It was the only time he
ever got mad. He just said, "If they don't like me the way I am,
that's their problem." I couldn't argue with that. He's a great stu-
dent, a great hockey player, a great kid -- let him have his room
messy if he wants.
When the photographer from Sports Illustrated came, he said,
"What about Eric's room, can we take some pictures?" Eric was
behind him, shaking his head to signal "no." My son Mark, trying
to cover for him, said they could use his room instead. Unfortu-
nately, they had to pass Eric's room to get to Mark's room. As
they're going past, Eric slowly pulled the door shut. The photog-
rapher knew something was in there and peeked inside. I heard
them all howling.
As far as the hockey went, Eric looked like a man among these
little boys when he was out on the ice for Compuware. I know the
coach, Andy Weidenbach, was thrilled to have him, but it was
obvious he was too good for the league. You could tell there were
times when he could have been flying with the puck but he was
passing it to his linemates instead. He was always thinking of
their feelings, which I'm sure harmed him at times. But he didn't
see it that way, because his goal was to fit in with the other kids.
He's willing to set himself apart with his discipline and goals,
but I don't think he wants the outside world to set him apart.
OTHER VOICES:
ANDY WEIDENBACH
(head coach, Compuware)
Eric was really conscious that he didn't want to be singled out
and get any special treatment; he wanted to be one of the guys.
He did whatever it took to help the team, whether it was killing
penalties or playing a defensive role or whatever we needed.
There was no question that he was just too much for the other
teams to handle. When he wanted to go, he could. One game in
Detroit, he really turned it on and had six goals and four assists.
The opposition quickly learned not to get him agitated. One
time we were playing in Fraser, Michigan, against the Junior Red
Wings, and they were all trying to harass Eric by grabbing him,
banging him, sticking him. All of a sudden we saw one of the Red
Wings lying flat on the ice. Eric had got tired of this guy jabbing
him with his stick and he knocked him out cold with the right
hand -- all while Eric still had his glove on, and the guy was wear-
ing a full wire cage. The referee never saw it. They stopped the
game with a minute left in the period and decided to resurface
the ice, because the guy was stretched out and they had to revive
him. He was seeing stars as they dragged him off the ice.
Even then, Eric was really living in a fishbowl. All eyes were
on him, scrutinizing everything he did, and I was amazed at how
he handled it. The media came to all the practices and all the
games; never a day went by that somebody wasn't at the arena.
He tried to downplay it and get some of the other guys involved.
The media used to ask him, "Are you a Gretzky? Are you a
Lemieux? Or are you a Messier?" He wasn't comfortable
with that. I think he's different from Lemieux and Gretzky and
Messier, but he's got a little bit of all those players in him. He's
got the good reach and hands of Lemieux, he sees the ice like a
Gretzky, and he's tough like a Messier. When the press asked him
those questions, Eric always used to say, "I'm a Lindros." I guess
that's really the best way to describe him, because he really is his
own person.
I'll never forget Eric's performance in the exhibition game we
played in early September against the Windsor Spitfires of the
OHL. The rest of the teams we played weren't close to the size and
toughness of the Spitfire team. We were playing up a level, being a
Tier II team, but you would never have known it. Eric was so fired
up for that game, because of what happened with the OHL
draft, that he singlehandedly took on the whole Spitfire team. He
scored two goals and two assists, and he was deliviring hit after
hit. When the Spitfires tried to get tough because they were losing
and they were frustrated, Eric just started manhandling guys all
over the ice. I wouldn't say he had the entire Spitfire team intimi-
dated, but he certainly stood up to them. Nobody on that team
could handle him. That's when I knew this guy was special. He
wasn't afraid of anything. I've never seen any one player do what
he did that night -- ever -- and I've been coaching for fourteen
years. We whipped them 8-0, and Eric was a one-man show, no
question about it. It was a sellout crowd, and they were certainly
impressed. Most fans walked away talking to themselves.
I had a mission that night against the Spitfires. The way I
looked at it, the Spitfires represented the OHL, and I represented
my side of the story. I was the plaintiff; they were the defendant. I
was my own lawyer; the Spitfires were the OHL's lawyer. I had to
prove to the judge, jury and the defendant that I was right. It was
my own chance to show them that they needed me in the league.
You only get so many opportunities, and that was one I wasn't
about to squader.
A few months later, on November 13, the OHL Board of Gover-
nors changed it's rule regarding the trading of the first-round draft
picks. Teams had to wait a year before trading their first-round
picks previously, but now they were allowed to deal them from
January 1 to January 10 of each season, giving the Sault Ste. Marie the
opportunity to trade me, something they wouldn't have had the
chance to do under the previous regulations. A lot of people
dubbed it "the Lindros Rule," and my family and I took a lot of flak
again. But they didn't change the rule just to help me; they changed
it to benefit themselves. In me, they saw a potential drawing card
and a chance to make a lot of money. If the opportunity to cash in
on my name and reputation hadn't been there, that rule would
never have been changed.
The experience in Detroit made me mature quickly. It's differ-
ent when your Mom's not there to take care of everything for you.
I think I gained a lot of independence while I was there, and it
helped me get used to living away from home.
The Velluccis were great; they really made me feel at home.
They're such a family unit. They have a softball team they
sponsor every year, Vellucci Incorporated. The whole family
plays on the team, and they all have the name Vellucci printed
across their backs. There was always something going on.
I experienced "Devil's Night" for the first time with the Vel-
Luccis. Devil's Night, the night before Hallowe'en, is a great time
for pranks, and Mark Vellucci and I made sure we took full
advantage of the occasion. We decided to decorate the house of
their next-door neighbors, a fun-loving bunch called the Mac-
Dougalls. We went up on their roof and wrapped their house in
toilet paper, from the weather vane at one end to the TV antenna
at the other. The MacDougalls thought there were bears on their
roof when they heard our footsteps -- Mark, at six-foot-five and
230 pounds, was bigger than me by about an inch and a couple of
pounds. The MacDougalls got their revenge, though, by wrap-
ping my Jeep in toilet paper at Christmas time. We always had a
lot of fun. It was a nice change, because it was so far removed
from the Sault Ste. Marie fiasco.
Throughout my stay in Detroit, there was a lot of speculation
about where I might end up in the Ontario Hockey League. After
the rule about trading first-round draft picks was changed, seven
teams were reportedly trying to strike a deal with Sault Ste. Marie
for my rights. I finally learned my destination just before leaving for
the World Junior Championships in Finland with the national team:
I had been traded to the Oshawa Generals, the same junior team
Bobby Orr once played for. I knew the deal was done the night the
junior team was playing in Belleville, Ontario, but I couldn't say
anything because it hadn't yet been announced publicly. I had never
seen the Oshawa Generals play before and I didn't even know what
their uniforms looked like, but at least it was close to home. Sault
Ste. Marie would wind up getting a hefty package in return: three
players, two top draft choices and $80,000 cash right away, and
another two players in the form of "future considerations" over the
next two years. Greyhounds general manager Sherry Bassin figures
the deal -- which included NHL draft money they later picked up --
was worth $500,000 to his team. The press called it "the biggest
trade in junior hockey history."
After finishing up at school in Detroit following the World
Junior Championships in January, it was off to Oshawa to finally get
my shot in the OHL. I was a little apprehensive about how I would
be accepted by the team. The guys on the Generals were pretty
good right from day one, but still, I had to prove myself to the boys,
and one night in Belleville I was presented with my chance.
I was out on a line wiht Dale Craigwell late in the game
against the Belleville Bulls. We both had two goals, and our
coach, Rick Cornacchia, had sent us out there to give us a chance
at a hat trick. Well, some of the Belleville players started slinging
racial slurs at Dale, who is black, and they were trying to start a
fight with him. I grabbed the player who was going after Dale,
and Scott Boston of Belleville grabbed me. The three of us were
tangled together. I told Boston, "I don't need to fight you. We're
going to get suspended. There's no sense." He obviously didn't
agree -- he punched me in the face. I just lost it. I started pummel-
ing Boston until the referee mercifully stepped in to pull me off
him, and a huge brawl erupted. Boston wasn't in very good shape
afterwards. A few minutes after he left the ice, an announcement
came over the loudspeaker:
"Would the team doctor please report to the Belleville dressing room."
The boys spent a lot of time watching the replay of the game
video on the bus ride home, and I think they realized then that I
was more than willing to stick up for my teammates when the need arose.
Bill Armstrong and Iain Fraser, two of the veterans on the
team, really looked after me that first year in Oshawa. I was
young, I was agressive and I was crazy in some ways. I did
some things I wouldn't normally have done as a rookie, but I
didn't care. The other teams all knew that if they hit me, they
would have to deal with Bill Armstrong. "Army" used to wear
this black mouthguard, and he was the meanest-looking guy I've
ever seen. He was crazy, but he's the guy you want on your
team. Iain Fraser didn't fight that much, but he didn't need to,
because he was the captain and had the opposition's respect.
Somebody would start up with me and "Fraz" would come
along and say, "Leave him alone. Just let him play -- because he'll
kick your butt!" Team sport is one of the best sensations in the world. No
matter how hard things get or how down you feel, there are
always people out there who understand. And those people who
understand are your teammates. There are certain things that take
place in the dressing room, that take place on the road, that take
place on the bench -- and that's right where they stay. We tell each
other everything. Everything. We know all the dirt about each
other, and there are certain things guys are trusting you not to tell
anyone else. Certain things take place during the year, good and
bad, but it's all part of being on a team, and we all grow with it.
The coach might ream a couple of players out, but no one goes
out and tells the reporters about it.
It's the same thing if one of your teammates gets into a scrap
and doesn't fare so well. The next shift, someone goes out there,
and if he's fighting, he's not fighting just for himself, he's fighting
for redemption. It's like he's representing his family.
That Oshawa team was so confident, so cocky -- we felt we
were the best club in Canadian junior hockey, and we were deter-
mined to prove it. We ended up in the 1990 Memorial Cup cham-
pionship game against our OHL rivals, the Kitchener Rangers.
The game went into double-overtime, but we always knew we
would win. We just knew it was going to happen. I remember
Cory Banika sitting at the end of the bench saying, "Will you guys
hurry up and score here because I'm getting a little bored with
this game." He was serious. That's the kind of guy he was, a real
character, but someone who came to play every game.
It was Billy Armstrong who came through for us, though.
He'd had only two goals the entire season, but he turned sniper in
that second overtime when he sailed a shot towards the Kitchener
net and it deflected past goalie Mike Torchia. I felt sorry for Mike,
even though he had stoned me the whole series. We're buddies;
we played on the same team one year when we were kids and
he's been on my backyard rink many times. But on the ice, if I get
a chance to run him, I'm running him. And when I'm in front of
the net, he's slashing my legs and giving me the blocker to the
back of the head. Once the game is over, though, it's "C'mon Taco,
let's go grab something to eat."
We won because our so-called third line -- Dale Craigwell,
Cory Banika and Joe Busillo -- was better than any other third line
in the nation. None of those guys got above sixty-five points
during the year, but they came through whenever we needed them.
I played on a line with Mike Craig and Iain Fraser, and we ¨
had a good series. Craiger and Fraser were scoring; I wasn't scor-
ing, but I was setting them up. I played hard and I worked hard
and I wanted to win so badly. While I didn't play quite as well as
I had hoped, I was still one of the top point-getters in the tourna-
ment, with nine assists. But because I didn't score a goal, the crit-
ics automatically presumed I didn't play well and fired a few
darts in my direction. If I had scored four goals, they would have
been saying I was great, or that I was a puck-hog. But we won,
and that's what counts.
There was a bit of déjà vu for a couple of my teammates at the
end. Mike Craig got hurt and was replaced on our line by Brent
Grieve. Iain Fraser and Grieve had played together on the same
line for most of their lives and had always dreamed about win-
ing the Cup while working as linemates. It was a great experi-
ence for them, and I was really proud to be part of that line.
All in all, it was a great ending to a diffucult season. Finally,
the hassles involving the Sault Ste. Marie fiasco seemed far
away -- I didn't know they were far from over.
* * *
"Woooo! Woooo! Who's coming with me!"
I went flying out of the dressing room and jumped out onto
the ice at the Sault Memorial Gardens. It was game three of the
1991 Ontario Hockey League finals, and the Sault Ste. Marie Grey-
hound fans finally had what they wanted -- a chance to abuse me
in person. Nearly five thousand people were packed into the rink;
they probably could have filled the place three times over.
Another three hundred were jammed into the Elks' Hall next door
to watch a closed-circuit telecast of the game. The hooting and the
booing echoed throughout the arena. I was pumped. I rode the red
line at center ice to get the adrenaline going. Riding the red line is
something I often do in the warm-up to get myself psyched. I
cross into the other team's zone a few times, as if to send them a
message. When they come into your arena, it's like, "This is my
barn, this is my territory, this is Generals' ice. I'm a General. I'm a
big part of this team. This is a big part of my ice. So watch out!"
There was so much hype leading up to the game; everything
was blown out of proportion all over again, just as it had been
when I said I wouldn't report to the Soo nearly two years earlier.
The people in the Soo had promised to give me a rough ride, and
the pre-game build-up had reached such a fervor that extra
policemen were stationed all over the rink. We also had a couple
of security guards staying with the team full-time. It's kind of
bizarre when you have to take those kinds of safety measures at a
junior hockey game because of fears that some loon might get out
of control, but I don't think it really affected me. The way I
viewed the situation, it was just like having a whole bunch of
babysitters there -- and I wasn't the baby. The fans were hanging over the glass during
the warm-up,
taunting me. Every time I dumped the puck into our zone, I sent
it right their way. Thwack! The puck would bounce off the plexi-
glass. Then all the soothers would be tossed onto the ice. There
were more soothers on the ice than you see at a nursery, and I'm
pretty sure I saw a few of the adults who threw them take them
right out of their own mouths.
The warm-up went really well, with all but three of my shots
going into the net. I felt calm, poised, very sure of myself. I
looked at the games in the Soo as more or less a proving ground,
a place to make a statement for myself that I'm not evil, I don't
wear black, I'm not the made-up, superficial jerk they're so proud
to portray me as in the papers, or talk about on the radio. I'm just
a regular person using the methods my parents brought me up
with, and using their morals and values. I was proud of the way I played in the Soo, but
we never really
got on track as a team. The Greyhounds won games three and four
to go up three games to one in the series. Going back to Oshawa, I
still felt we could win the series and advance to the Memorial Cup
again. There was no way I was going to quit. Even when you're
down, you just have to keep plugging away and playing honestly.
I think you brand yourself when you're a kid as to whether
you're a winner, a follower or an "I don't care." When you're a
winner, you try to take as many followers as you can with you
and try to change as many "I don't care"s into the followers. I feel
that I branded myself a winner. I had a hard time playing with
kids my age because I was so competitive. When people talked
about me, I wanted them to say, "He plays for such and such a
team. They've got a winning team and a lot of really good play-
ers." I liked that attitude. There's nothing better than being asso-
ciated with the best in a winning atmospere. This past season in Oshawa, we didn't have
quite as much
depth and we lacked toughness, both mentally and physically. As
the series against the Soo wore on, the Greyhounds seemed to
want victory more than we did. We were winning on talent
that season, not because we were playing well. You can't win on
talent throughout the whole playoffs. We would put together one
or two good games, then we would lose, and then we would
come back and win a game on sheer talent, a game that we
should have lost. So then we would get it in our minds that we
could play on talent alone and win. But you can't beat a team like
Sault Ste. Marie on talent; you've got to beat them on guts, desire
and a never-say-die attitude.
We beat the Greyhounds back on our home ice in Oshawa to
narrow the series to three to two, but then they clinched
the title back in Sault Ste. Marie. Most of our players were crying
in the dressing room afterwards. We were all hurt because we
personally felt we had a better team. But certain spokes on our
wheel fell sick and certain spokes on their wheel turned into two
spokes, and they rolled right over us. People were telling us to
keep our heads up. But how can you keep your head up when
you're second best? We had a pretty good year, collected 100
points and had the best team on the road, but we just couldn't put
it together for the last series.
We all tried hard, but that doesn't mean we tried as hard as
we could have. There were things we could have done differently.
I don't think you can say "I tried my hardest." There's no such
thing, because there's always a lot more that you can give.
I'm scared of defeat; I can't handle it. I don't like any aspect of
it. It's meaningless unless we win. It's just a game, and I know
that, but it means so much. I pride myself on being a winner, on
being in a winning atmospere and always being the best I can
possibly be. The Soo fans made sure to rub it in every chance they got. The
first night I played there, I didn't think it was so bad. It was more
a matter of people taking pride in their own city than because of
something that they felt I had done wrong. I found it interesting
and I don't think you would see it in a lot of cities. But after that,
it all took on a different tone. They would keep chanting "Eric
Who? Eric Who?" and never let up, even when they were win-
ning the last game by a large margin. When the Soo's Colin Miller
scored a goal, it was announced on the loudspeaker as "Sault Ste.
Marie goal scored by our No.88, Colin Miller!" It was all so petty.
Of course, there were long lines of fans waiting for auto-
graphs after the games, many of whom I'm sure cursed me every
time I was within shouting distance. One night I was standing
there signing autographs and, after I signed something for this
one boy, he spit on me and told me to "F--- off." He looked to be
about nine years old. There were a lot of signs directed at my Mom, and I heard about her
all game from the fans. Who needs that stuff? Dump on me if you have to, I made the
decision. But the decision's made, it's two years old. Get a life! I'm still bitter about
the whole scene. It was over, the trade was done. Oshawa got what they wanted. Sault Ste.
Marie got what they wanted -- they beat Oshawa in the finals and earned a trip to the
Memorial Cup -- and the fans there still had to carry on. They just couldn't let it die;
they had to dwell on it and sensationalize everything. I guess the people from the Soo
need more experience in winning gracefully. They never thought beyond their hockey team.
What I did was best for me, and most of them couldn't understand that. They never really
understood the whole situation. There were some people in the Soo who were really decent
to me. Some came up and said, "You did what you had to do and I hope you're
happy." I really appreciated that. It's too bad more of their neighbors didn't have
the same insight. I was tired of junior hockey in a lot of respects at the end of the Soo
series, but I still wanted to play. Getting knocked out of the playoffs left a sour
aftertaste. As long as the puck was still being dropped, I wanted to be out there.
My like revolves around hockey right now. Ending the year on a losing note doesn't do much
for your summer. There are always questions in the back of your mind: "Why?"
"What went wrong?" "What could we have done differently?" You might
still think you have the best team, but you can't prove it. You're done. Branded winners
want to win. I hate losing.
End of Chapter 5
[Chapter1] [Chapter2]
[Chapter3] [Chapter4] [Chapter5] [Chapter6] [Chapter7] [Chapter8] [Chapter9] [Chapter10] [Chapter11] [Chapter12] [Chapter13]
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