Everyday Hockey Heroes by Bob McKenzie and Jim Lang

(25. - 996.) Everyday Hockey Heroes by Bob McKenzie and Jim Lang - Adjusting a maxim, the book explores how “hockey doesn’t build character, it reveals it”. In the introduction McKenzie considers the impact of a double tragedy on April 6, 2018.

In the morning Jonathan Pitre, a 14 year old Ottawa boy who loved hockey, died. He had bravely born the pain of the “genetic skin condition known as epidermolysis bullosa (EB)”. Known as butterfly boy for the fragility of his skin he was “cheerful and optimistic” and “dedicated to a greater cause - raising awareness and funds for EB”.

That evening the Humboldt Bronco bus crash took place 65 km from Melfort with 16 killed and 13 injured. Every sports team has ridden a bus. Canada and far beyond our borders mourned the loss.

When I think of passion for the game I usually think of elite players working hard to reach the NHL or enthusiastic fans devoting time and energy to support their team. The stories of individual “hockey heroes” range far and wide over the Canadian (and one American story) hockey experience. The stories are connected with hockey in so many different ways.

Craig Cunningham is a young minor professional hockey player whose heart inexplicably stopped during a game. While emergency surgery saved him his left leg had to be subsequently amputated. After learning to walk again with a prosthetic leg he put on his skates:

Stepping onto the rink and hearing the sound of my skates on the ice

beneath me was the best healing I could have asked for.

He went on to be a sledge hockey star.

With his heart surgeon he has created the All Heart Foundation “aimed at preventing sudden cardiac arrests by promoting regular screenings to diagnose those at risk. We are currently working with engineers to use the heart monitor app on smartwatches as an early detection system for abnormalities”.

With the difficulties of vision in our family I was deeply moved by the story of Wayne St. Denis. Legally blind, with 5% vision or less, he plays hockey with the Toronto Ice Owls. This team of legally blind players (forwards 10% or less, defence 5% or less and goalies less yet) plays hockey with an oversize puck - “a plastic wheel you would find on a kid’s wagon and we fill it with piano pins”. As long as the puck is moving they can hear the puck.

He writes that the best part of hockey for him are “the sounds of hockey”:

          There’s the crisp swishing of the skates, the tapping of sticks, and the

clanking of the puck as it glides across the ice, but perhaps the most

important sound is that of the team. When I break away with the puck and

head for the net, the cheers from my teammates are the loudest thing in

the entire arena. There’s nothing like those yells.

Two stories involved sports media members whose utter dedication to the game led them to the NHL.

Harnarayan Singh grew up in Brooks, Alberta and was one of the original members of Hockey Night Punjabi broadcasting NHL games in Punjabi. Working in Calgary but broadcasting games from Eastern Canada he used virtually every spare dollar from his income for two seasons to pay his own way to Toronto every weekend during the season to broadcast games.

Andi Petrillo found a job in T.V. production but left the security of that position for a contract at Leafs TV where she could appear on air. She gradually moved through different broadcast opportunities until she became the host of Leafs Lunch. She was the “first woman to have her own daily talk show on sports radio in Canada”.

Dr. Charles Tator, a neurosurgeon, has worked for decades to make hockey safer by reducing violent hits and emphasizing the need for proper treatment of concussions. He worked with other doctors to show the dangers of hitting from behind near the boards. It brought to mind a presentation I made over 30 years to a government sponsored study on hockey. I advised that I expected there to be a murder charge some day from a player being cross-checked from behind into the boards and dying from the injury. Fortunately, it has not happened. More recently Dr. Taylor studied the cost of head injuries to the NHL from 1995 to 2015. He “discovered the total cost to teams and insurers for career-ending concussions during that period was USD $135,476,777”.

I wish the authors had not sought to re-create dialogue between the subject of a chapter and those around him or her. It did not sound real. In non-fiction let the subjects tell their stories as narrative and in their own way but not with attempts at dialogue. I found those conversations distracting.

The book was inspiring and a reminder of how Canadians love hockey. I am glad my sons gave it to me as a Christmas present.