The Game Read online

  “Go home, Dryden,” he says evenly. “We wanna shoot on the board.” (“The board,” a piece of plywood cut out at each corner and at its groin, is hung from a crossbar to cover a net when a goalie is absent.) A brief argument follows about goalies and boards until Tremblay, thinking it over, relents. “Naw, let him stay,” he snarls, turning back to his skates. “Ya can’t make the board scream.”

  It has the look and feel of a child’s bedroom. Shin pads, shoulder pads, socks, jocks, gloves, skates, and sweaters lie in twenty little heaps on the floor. Players in various stages of dress move easily about, laughing and shouting in equal measure. It is too big to be intimate, about the size of a large living room, too antiseptic and bright to be cozy. In early morning or late afternoon, it appears quite ordinary—(f)luorescent lights, chrome equipment racks, a red indoor-outdoor carpet, concrete block walls painted white with red and blue trim, a wide gray bench that runs around its borders. Functional, attractive in an institutional sort of way, it is a room that needs people. Only higher, above the chrome racks and near the ceiling, is it clear that this is a dressing room unique to one team.

  Along the west wall and along parts of two others, team plaques, dark brown and lettered in gold, hang in two rows, one plaque for each season from 1918 to the present. Each offers just bare-bones information—the year, the names of team owner(s), executives, coach(es), trainer(s), and players (in two columns), the regular-season place of finish, and “Stanley Cup Champions” or nothing at all. I often look at those plaques, to read their names Georges Vézina, Aurèle Joliat, Howie Morenz—to see the name “Maurice Richard” appear suddenly in 1943; to follow it up the right-hand column season by season as it gained seniority, jumping to the left column until it reached the top, and disappeared in 1961. I like to spot the changes that have happened in more than fifty years: the names increasing from twelve to more than twenty as hockey became a free-substitution game; then, as entrepreneurs gave way to corporations, to see “Owner” become “Chairman,” (t)o see “Vice-President, Corporate Relations,” “Executive Vice-President and Managing Director” appear. I like to look at my own name—fifth from the bottom in 1971, at the top of the right-hand column two years later, absent for a season, returning in 1975 fifth from the bottom again, now back at the top of the right-hand column—sharing the same plaques with Jean Béliveau, Henri Richard, Frank Mahovlich, Guy Lafleur, and other remarkable company.

  Across the room, there is something else. For journalists, it is la différence, the glimpse that tells the story. Large, photoed heads of former Canadiens players now in the Hall of Fame gaze down at the room from a horizontal row, and beneath them, their words in French and English to each of us below:

  NOS BRAS MEURTRIS VOUS TENDENT LE

  FLAMBEAU, A VOUS TOUJOURS DE LE PORTER BIEN HAUT!

  TO YOU FROM FAILING HANDS WE THROW

  THE TORCH, BE YOURS TO HOLD IT HIGH!

  But tradition and style are one thing, a live team is quite another.

  One head, the Geoffrion head, has a moustache inked in.

  The room has no lockers, no cubicles or dividers, no names or numbers, nothing to tell us where we should be. I sit down at one end of the bench between Larocque and a short narrow corridor that leads through a door to the ice. It has been my seat for seven years. When I was first in this room, I was squeezed into a place that hadn’t existed between Rogie Vachon and Phil Myre, then the team’s two goalies.

  The following year, Vachon was traded to Los Angeles, I moved into his place, and Myre moved into mine and part of his. Seven months later, Myre went to Atlanta in an expansion draft and since that time his seat has been filled by Michel Plasse, by Wayne Thomas, and for the past five years by Larocque.

  I take my equipment down from the chrome hooks and throw it onto the floor, then reach under the bench for my skates. The room gets suddenly quiet. I took at one pair of skates, then at the other, and before I can say anything, several voices chorus, “Hey, I tried to stop him,” and there is laughter. The laces to my skates have been shredded into macaroni-size pieces too small for knots to hold together. I look up at a roomful of blank faces. Before I can say his name, Lapointe, who cuts my laces twenty or twenty-five times a year, though I have never seen him do it, gives me an injured look.

  “Hey, get the right guy,” he shouts, and there is more laughter.

  Suddenly proper, he goes on the offensive. “Hey, câlisse, you know the rules: 11:30 in the room for practice.”

  “Pointu,” I say weakly, using Lapointe’s nickname, “not for optionals. Not when we’re coming back from the road.”

  Then, like a good routine that never gets tired, he looks at me apologetically. “Oh, hmm, sorry,” he says, as he always does, and laughs.

  The faces in the room are stubbled and drawn but the eyes are alive and the bodies move about with a quick jerky energy. Still filled with last night’s game, voices blurt on top of each other, and everything is funny—things not funny when they happened, everything that earlier was too personal, too embarrassing, too important to be funny, today is torn laughingly apart. Though there are some players here because they were told to be here, and others because it is expected, today we are all here for the same reason. After more than five months of a season, we need a day off more than we need practice, but everywhere else, distracted by grocery shopping or traffic jams, by normal living that today seems out of place, last night cannot be shared or understood. So we come here, just for a few hours, to feel special; to be with people who know our same feeling and are as interested in it as we are.

  Tying up his skates, Réjean Houle talks back and forth in quick animated bursts with Lemaire and Gainey on either side of him. A small, versatile winger, Houle has a wide-eyed boyishness about him that makes him the frequent target of good-natured abuse. Robinson suddenly looks up.

  “Hey, Reggie,” he shouts, “that was a helluva play ya made last night.”

  Houle goes silent; we begin to laugh.

  “Yup,” Robinson continues slowly, drawing out each word, “not often ya see a guy on a breakaway put it in the crowd.” There are screams of laughter.

  Lapointe snaps down his newspaper. “Don’t let it bother ya, Reggie,” he says sympathetically. “No harm done.” Surprised, we all took up. “The goalie just woulda stopped ya anyway,” he says, and we all laugh harder.

  Bowman has left the practice to Ruel, something he does infrequently but with some delight, though more to exercise the privilege of a head coach than to enjoy the day off. Ruel, a squat, dwarf-like figure, stands in the southwest comer of the rink surrounded by fifty to sixty pucks. Treating him like a substitute teacher, we skate by, talking, passing pucks between ourselves, paying no attention to him. Every so often, Ruel shouts, “Dougie! Dougie!” or “C’mon, my Mario,” and Risebrough and Tremblay, like Pavlov’s dogs, break quickly to center, catch one of those pucks on their sticks, and curl back for a shot on Larocque in the net beside Ruel. I skate around, pretending to be a forward, dropping the puck into my skates, kicking it back to my stick, stickhandling triumphantly around and through players who ignore me, swinging in front of a net for a shot, always to a top comer, staying out of the net for as long as I can.

  Finally Ruel blows his whistle and our unwanted drills begin. To the cadence of his relentless chatter, we sprint between the bluelines, coasting through the corners, then sprint again, continuing this way for several minutes. A whistle, more words of instruction, and we organize by the color of our practice sweaters into line rushes, into two-on-ones, and one-on-ones. But the energy of last night’s game is beyond our control, and as each bad play becomes funnier than the last, everything breaks down. When Tremblay’s pass to Lambert crashes against the underside of a seat five rows into the stands, an exasperated Ruel blows his whistle and calls for a scrimmage.

  It goes no better. At first, he stops play with each mistake he sees, but soon he gives up. It becomes a game of breakaways and countless goals, added
up until only the difference is remembered. I enjoy it for a while, making saves that I never get to make in a game; then, as too many goals go by me, I start to sulk and lose interest—until I see Lapointe.

  He races to the corner for the puck, pumping his legs with exaggerated enthusiasm, and bumps Lambert—whose back is turned—harder than anyone is bumped in practice. Lambert turns angrily to complain; Lapointe steals the puck and streaks up right wing. Houle breaks with him and cuts for an opening at center. Lapointe sees him and angles his body towards him as if to pass, then doesn’t. Houle swings sharply to his left to stay onside, his skates chattering violently apart on either side of the blueline. Lapointe laughs, and continues on. Others make duck-call sounds to Houle, the canard. Lapointe moves against Robinson, one-on-one, exaggerating his fakes left and right, then, pretending to stumble, falls into Robinson, his head striking him in the stomach. They both fall down, Robinson laughing, Lapointe on top of him scrambling to his skates, his legs moving faster than he can control, falling on his knees, spinning up, falling down again. The puck rolls to Larocque, who covers it with his catching glove. Everyone stops, except for Lapointe.

  He races at Larocque, stopping inches from him, throwing up a spray of snow in his face, hacking at his glove again and again. Chartraw shoves him away, Larocque rolls the puck to Robinson; play starts back the other way. A quick pass to Tremblay, then to Lambert, and it’s two-on-one at our blueline with only Savard back. Lambert winds up to shoot.

  Lapointe dives full out, his stick extended, and hooks the puck away.

  Lambert follows through onto bare ice.

  It doesn’t happen as often as it once did. Age, injuries, and vaguely disguised “personal problems” have complicated the game for Lapointe, robbing him of some of his zest for playing. But on those days when he isn’t distracted by illness or injury, by the current state of his relationship with Bowman or Ruel, with the press or the fans, when the slate is clean and it is just him and the game, Pointu plays with the unrestrained joy of a boy on a river, uncomplicating the game for all of us.

  After fifty minutes, Ruel blows his whistle and practice ends. A few stay on, more from habit than from commitment; I walk to the room, pick up some cans of soda, and sit down. Robinson walks by to the other end, stands on a bench, and turns on the TV. It comes on to The Gong Show and Gene Gene, the Dancing Machine is vibrating around on the floor. We let out a roar. The camera cuts to a laughing Chuck Barris wearing a Philadelphia Flyers sweater. Feeling slightly important, we let out another roar. Quickly undressed, Shutt and Larouche are in the shower. As soon as they leave the room, Tremblay drinks the Cokes they had carefully poured over ice to chill while they were showering. Then, with a wink for us, a laugh and a devil-may-care leap, he skips to the bathroom to shave. In the shower, Lambert is singing. Lapointe grabs a bucket and tiptoes to the bathroom sink like a cartoon spy. He fills the bucket with cold water, and peers around the corner of the shower. Lambert is still singing. Lapointe winds up; we hear a scream. Lapointe dashes back into the room and quickly out again, dropping his bucket. Lambert, still lathered up, races after him, screaming threats. Losing his trail, Lambert stops to pick up the bucket, fills it, and resumes his search. Finally, he finds Lapointe hiding in a toilet stall; he backs him into the room. Naked, sobbing, pleading pathetically, Lapointe falls to his knees, his hands clutched in front of him. Lambert winds up to throw the water, then stops: in Lapointe’s hands are Lambert’s clothes.

  Some days, I arrive late to practice and leave as early as I can.

  Other days, like today, I like to linger here. I read my mail, I read newspapers and look at the plaques on the walls, but mostly I just linger. I am comfortable here. It is not only a place to dress and undress, to wind up for and wind down from games. It is a place to relax and get away. It is our refuge. When restaurants, sidewalks, and theaters are taken away, when planes and buses, even our charters, are cluttered with press and ubiquitous “friends of the team,” when autograph seekers, phone calls from a friend of a friend of a friend, petty crooks armed with out-of-town schedules intrude on our homes, the dressing room remains something that is ours. For a half-hour before practice, an hour and a half before games, for a few minutes after each, there are no coaches, no press, no friends, no fans, no families. It is just us—sitting around, getting along, making something.

  Houle and Lambert make plans for lunch at a pub across the street. They ask the rest of us to go, and today many join them. Often overlooked as players, Houle and Lambert are important to our team.

  Generous and friendly, they thrive on a team’s easy, warm spirit, carrying it with them wherever they go. So when we get tired of going our separate ways and are looking for a team feeling, we look for them and find it. Today, I would like to go too, but I can’t.

  Their large group moves out noisily en masse as the trainers pick up the remaining vestiges of our practice. I stay behind. Some minutes later, I look at the clock behind me, and leave.

  Along the east wall of the Forum, overlooking Rue Closse, are the corporate offices of Le Club de Hockey Canadien Inc., a small-to-medium-sized Quebec company owned since last summer by Molson Breweries of Canada Ltd. I walk upstairs to the second floor, and follow a wide corridor more than a third of the way around the building until I see a large unmarked blue door. I press the buzzer beside it. From inside, another buzzer is pressed, the door unlocks, and I walk in.

  At the reception desk, I ask to see Mr. Courtois. I tell the receptionist that he is expecting me. E. Jacques Courtois, a courtly, aristocratic Montreal lawyer, about fifty-five, is president of the Canadiens. The receptionist returns in a few moments, and shows me into his office. With Courtois is Irving Grundman. I shake hands with both of them and sit down. Before we are quite comfortable, Grundman asks me about last night’s game. I tell them that we played well, intending to leave it at that, but I keep talking, more and more involved in what I am saying, as they seem to be in listening. When finally I finish, there is a pause. I take a deep breath and begin. I tell them that I have thought over what we discussed in our previous meeting, but that my feelings have not changed. I tell them I will retire at the end of this season. There is another pause, longer this time.

  Finally Courtois smiles. “Naturally I’m disappointed,” he says, “but I am not surprised.”

  I always knew that the time would come; I just never thought it would come this way. When I was young, I always assumed that hockey would just end. That some September, some coach would tell me I was no longer good enough, and it would all be over. Each year, in a new age group, it might have happened. But it never did. Eight years ago, I joined the Canadiens; I had run out of age groups. For the first time since I had started playing, it seemed that I might have many more years to play. For the first time, it seemed possible that the decision to stop might be my own.

  Before my first season had ended, I was already being asked when I would retire. I was only twenty-three, but I was also in my second year of law school, and others knew that soon I would need to make a choice—a year of articling (like internship for a medical student, a law school graduate in Canada must work in a law office for up to a year before he can practice law), and six months of bar examinations, both done outside Quebec, or hockey.

  And without exception, those who for years had written or dreamed the dream of sports assumed that I would retire and practice law. I told anyone who asked that I had no plans to retire, that I would continue to play as long as I enjoyed playing and enjoyed it more than anything else I might do. I couldn’t be sure how long that would be, of course, but in my mind I thought it would be until I was thirty.

  Two years ago, when I was twenty-nine years old, I decided to play one more season. Before I was entirely committed to my own plan, Sam Pollock, then general manager of the Canadiens, offered me a generous extension to my contract, which had one year left to run.

  The offer came after what had been for me a beleaguered season.
/>   While (in many ways, it was because) the team had lost only ten games (eight regular-season, two playoff games), I had felt under constant, almost angry pressure in Montreal to justify myself as the team’s number one goalie. Outside Montreal, it was no easier. With Vachon playing well in Los Angeles, and Glenn Resch the same in New York, I kept hearing the same questions with the same harassing inferences.

  I took Pollock’s offer as tangible encouragement and agreed to the new contract. It was for four years, but at any time during the contract I could give Pollock one year’s notice of my decision to retire. I told him I thought I would play two more years. Last June, having played one more season, I told him I would retire at the end of this year.

  I have not enjoyed this year very much. For nearly the first time in my career, for the first time in my life, I am feeling old. I am thirty-one years old. I feel good. I feel the same: no more aches than I ever had, no special diet to follow, no regimen of extra sleep. My body seems to move the way it always has, the game moves no faster for me than it did. But suddenly age is the dominant fact of my life. After years of ignoring time, I have become sensitive to it. I look around the dressing room at younger players who look like me and older ones who have aged. I slap my stomach and say, “Ahh, I feel great,” and I never did that before. My weight remains what it always was, but it looks different. I look different. I was always the youngest in everything I did—in school, on hockey teams and baseball teams. Then on July 29, 1976, a reporter from The Gazette called me a “veteran goalie.” I didn’t feel like a veteran then, but I feel like one now.

  I have a past I didn’t have before, and now I wonder what comes next? I have discovered that I enjoy being good at something. I like the way it makes me feel, and the way it makes others treat me. It isn’t the praise, or the generous perks of celebrity; it is the implicit, unstated respect it gives. It is a shared understanding that requires no fast talk, no big cars or flashy clothes, that needs not be argued or explained. It is simply there— they know. What will I be good at now?