Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Shoots and Scores (34 page)

DON'T LOOK BACK

The Dionne-Lafleur run for number one had an assortment of unique twists to it. Lafleur was born in Thurso, Quebec, and achieved junior stardom with the Quebec City Remparts. Dionne, too, was Quebecois, born in Drummondville, but at 17 his entire family moved to St. Catharines, Ontario, the only way a player could shift from province-to-province. In the heated French-English political climate of the time, Dionne was viewed as a “traitor” for “selling out” to Ontario interests. In three seasons in St. Catharines, long one of the country's best junior hockey towns, Dionne went from 37 to 55 to 62 goals, 100 to 132 to 143 points, winning the Ontario league scoring title in his last two seasons. He was a chunky lad but with extraordinary quickness, toughness around the net, and a dandy playmaking sense.

130 GOALS!

Lafleur spent four full seasons with the Remparts, producing 103 and an astonishing 130 goals in his last two terms. He was slender and intense, quick off the mark, and able to absorb much punishment without retaliation, especially on his way to the net to unload his deadly shot.

SERIES OF DREAMS

When the Remparts won the Quebec League playoffs and the Black Hawks were Ontario champs, the stage was set for a ferocious junior match-up in the Eastern Canada final of the Memorial Cup playoffs. Adding to the many factors of intensity was that Remparts coach Maurice Filion had been Dionne's coach in Drummondville at the junior-B level and was bitter when Dionne departed to Ontario. When the Remparts arrived in St. Catharines to open the series, Filion stated, “Guy Lafleur is the
best junior player in the country, no doubt about it.” The feeling among hockey scouts seemed to be that the player who led his team to the series win would be the Canadiens' pick.

SERIES OF NIGHTMARES

But the series that started with great interest ended with bitterness and recriminations from both teams. Lafleur scored twice as the Remparts won the opener 4–2, his winning goal on a shot that broke the stick of goalie George Hulme on its way into the net. The second game belonged to Dionne, who scored four goals in an 8–3 win while Lafleur did not produce a single point. When the series shifted to Quebec City, the mood changed completely. Not long after the FLQ crisis, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's use of the War Measures Act and the loud backers of an independent Quebec, perhaps any Ontario team would have encountered loud reaction. But one with a lad from Drummondville as its star seemed certain to draw a harsh reaction.

WHERE'D THAT WAR MEASURES ACT GO?

In game three, Lafleur scored twice, Dionne had a single assist as the Remparts won 3–1, though the Hawks had 47 shots at goalie Michel DeGuise. Lafleur then scored three goals when the Remparts won game four 6–1 for a stranglehold on the series. The Hawks played tough in the late stages, earning six game misconduct penalties and leading to incidents involving players and fans. The tires on the Hawks' bus were slashed and a police escort was required for the team to reach its hotel.

ACCUSATIONS GALORE

The Remparts, of course, blamed the Black Hawks for the violence and St. Catharines supporters pointed to the Quebec fans who had directed every imaginable obscenity at Dionne and the team's other Francophone, Pierre Guite, and threw loads of debris at the Hawks players. The fifth game was played at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto without incident before a crowd of 15,343, the Hawks winning, 6–3. Dionne had two assists, Lafleur a goal in the tame game. When hockey officials refused to post a bond guaranteeing adequate protection for the Black Hawks in Quebec City or to move the game to Montreal, the Black Hawks—led by the
players' parents fearing for their sons' and their own safety—forfeited the series by refusing to play the sixth game. Lafleur had eight goals and an assist in the five games, Dionne, five goals and three assists, and at the draft the Canadiens made Lafleur the first pick; Dionne was second, claimed by the Detroit Red Wings.

ONTO BIGGER AND BETTER THINGS

The two players had extraordinary NHL careers. Lafleur needed a couple of NHL seasons to boost his play to a high level but he was the league's best player for seven or so seasons in the late 1970s. Dionne spent four years with the Wings—Gordie Howe gave him the nickname Little Beaver—then moved to the Los Angeles Kings as a free agent, a controversial move that was settled by a trade. In 19 seasons, Dionne had 731 goals and 1,040 assists for 1,771 points in 1,348 games. Lafleur played 17 seasons with a 560-793-1,353 point total in 1,126 games. Lafleur became a superhero to the Canadiens fans and led the team to five Stanley Cup crowns. Dionne, who never won a Cup, played magnificently in California but received little national attention.

* * * * *

YUK, YUK

It's Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final, and Sam makes his way to his seat right at center ice. He sits down, noticing that the seat next to him is empty. He leans over and asks his neighbor if someone will be sitting there.

“No” says the neighbor. “The seat is empty.”

“This is incredible,” says Sam. “Who in their right mind would have a seat like this for the Stanley Cup and not use it?”

The neighbor says, “Well, actually, the seat belongs to me. I was supposed to come with my wife, but she passed away. This is the first Stanley Cup we haven't been to together since we got married.”

“Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. That's terrible…But couldn't you find someone else, a friend or relative, or even a neighbor to take the seat?”

The man shakes his head “No. They're all at the funeral.”

Make sure you know which league you're signing up for.

W
e've all been there: After a 50-goal season with the Brandon Wheat Kings, you arrive at the big-city convention center for the NHL draft, Mom and Dad on either arm, visions of Bruins jerseys and million-dollar contracts dancing in your head. But things do not seem right. Where are the fluttering team banners and ESPN cameras? Why is everybody playing the harmonica or discussing gnostic codices? Mom and Dad start to panic. There can't possibly be more than one NHL, can there?

National Historic Landmarks:
A subsidiary of the U.S. National Park Service, the NHL preserves, protects and promotes over 2,000 buildings and locales of historical significance. Landmarks of baseball, cricket, football, basketball, tennis, track, and rowing appear on their register, but no sites relevant to hockey.

Nag Hammadi Library:
In 1945, an Egyptian farmer outside the town of Nag Hammadi found 13 papyrus volumes sealed in an earthenware jar. Published in English in 1970 as
The Nag Hammadi Library
, the long-lost “Gnostic Gospels” of the NHL, hidden by heterodox Christian monks around 390 AD, have prompted a major re-evaluation of Christianity and its teachings.

Noordelijke Hogeschool Leeuwarden:
A university with 9,000 students and 850 staff members, located in the capital of Friesland province in the Netherlands, NHL offers undergraduate and graduate courses for both full- and part-time students, as well as opportunities to participate in sports such as “Mixed Hockeyclub” and “Tafeltennis.”

Norske Homeopaters Landsforbund:
Founded in Oslo in 1930, the NHL is one of five different organizations representing Norwegian homeopaths. Its 400 members must fulfil the standards of medical and homeopathic education while practicing their profession according to the organization's exacting ethical standards.

Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma:
Like Hodgkin's Disease, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma originates in the lymph nodes—oval, pea-sized organs that filter the blood of infection and disease—but, unlike Hodgkin's Disease, NHL often spreads to areas beyond the lymph. While the five-year survival rate for NHL is a less-than-reassuring 56%, 81% of patients survive HD, including Mario Lemieux, who received treatment for the disease in the winter of 1993.

National Harmonica League:
Britain's national harmonica club is more globally minded than their name would indicate, as they send their quarterly publication,
Harmonica World
, to membership in more than 20 countries. According to their mission statement, “The NHL…caters for all people with an interest in the harmonica, ranging from non-players to virtuoso professionals, regardless of race, creed, or color, and regardless of tastes in music.”

NCL-1, HT2A and LIN-41:
NHL is a protein domain 30 to 40 amino acids long, and often repeated several times in a single protein. An ancient motif, it occurs in humans as well as in a wide range of other organisms, including the arabidopsis plant and the microscopic
C. elegans
worm, both widely used in genetic research. Very likely it predates the better-known NHL which was created in Montreal in 1917.

* * * * *

OUCH!

“I just tape four Tylenols to it.”

—Rangers defenceman Boris Mironov, on playing with a sore ankle

“Getting cut in the face is a pain in the butt.”

—former Calgary Flames forward Theoren Fleury

Perhaps the world's best female player, Hayley Wickenheiser made hockey history by playing for a Finnish men's team.

H
ayley Wickenheiser was not the first female to play for a men's professional hockey team. But she was the first to play as a regular for at least part of a season. Granted, the team for which Wickenheiser played 23 games in the 2002–03 season, Kirkkonummi Salamat, was in the Third Division of the Finnish Hockey League, hardly an indicator that an NHL career was a step away. But the longtime star of the Canadian national women's team, the most valuable player on the gold medal team in the 2002 Olympics and the woman often mentioned as the best female hockey player in the world proved that she could hold her own in the men's league—and on a team that played well enough to move up to the Second Division.

STATS AT SALAMAT

Wickenheiser initially talked with a team in Italy but the Italian Federation said it did not want female players. Salaat offered her a three-game tryout and when she showed well, she received a contract for the remainder of the season. In 23 games, she scored two goals and 13 assists. Wickenheiser, 25 at the time, returned to the team for a second season in 2004–05 but a lack of ice time and the desire to be with her family—her boyfriend and his son by a previous relationship—brought her back to Canada after a few weeks in Finland. “Overall, the experience of playing in Finland was a good one and it served the intended purpose of helping me to improve as a player because it challenged me,” Wickenheiser said. “I was treated very fairly by the team and opponents did not play any different against me than they did against the guys on the team.”

HOLDING HER OWN

Four female goalies—Manon Rheaume, Erin Whitten, Danielle Dube, and Kelly Dyer—had played in North American minor-pro hockey. Rheaume had attracted considerable attention when the
Tampa Bay Lightning used her for a period in a preseason game against an NHL opponent. But goaltender is not a position where there's a chance of heavy contact, the big risk for female skaters who are outweighed by at least 50 pounds by many of the opposing players. A gifted athlete, Wickenheiser is among the bigger female players at 170 pounds and, always tremendously conditioned, she held her own in the corners and along the boards in the Finnish league.

“Hayley certainly had the skill, speed and strength to play in our league,” said Parmalat coach Matti Hagman, who played 237 games in the NHL with the Boston Bruins and Edmonton Oilers. “She was the complete professional about everything and the men on our team liked her very much and trusted her on the ice. After a couple of weeks when the fuss died down, she was viewed as a hockey player, not a woman. She was especially good on faceoffs and passing plus working hard defensively.”

IN A LEAGUE OF HER OWN

Wickenheiser does not see herself as a pioneer carrying the women's hockey torch for participation in men's leagues. She attended the Philadelphia Flyers' rookie camp in 1998 and showed well, especially in the game's basic skills. She was offered tryouts by teams in the East Coast League but felt that the Finnish league on the large European ice surfaces suited her speed and skills. Her determination is legendary in women's sports. She had played softball as a recreation sport through her teen years before devoting more time to hockey. But she decided to try for the Canadian women's softball team at the 2000 Olympic Games and long, intense hours of training earned her a spot.

“The softball training helped my conditioning for hockey,” Wickenheiser said. “I had been playing women's hockey a long time and felt that if I wanted to make myself a better player, I needed a change for at least part of a season, a step up to a better level.”

ALWAYS A NAYSAYER

While there was little criticism of Wickenheiser's Finnish stint in men's hockey circles—the prevailing attitude seemed to be that if that's what she wanted and she earned the spot on merit, fine—one high-ranked official rankled many with his comments. Rene
Fasel, president of the International Ice Hockey Federation, the world governing body of the sport, suggested that Wickenheiser should give up her try at hockey in a men's league for her own safety. Fasel opined she was at risk in contact hockey after playing in the women's game where deliberate bodychecking is not allowed. The IIHF president's outlook was that Wickenheiser and others would better serve hockey as champions and role models within the women's game.