It Wasn't Easy Being An Ontario Kid, Being A Maple Leaf Fan In A House Where Dear Old Dad Cheered For Montreal

 

Photos by Suzanne Currie

A PREAMBLE TO TODAY’S POST

IT’S A CHRISTMAS THAT I MOST THINK OF THE PARENTAL SACRIFICES MY POOR FATHER MADE TO GET HIS KID TO THE HOCKEY RINK

BY TED CURRIE

     My father Ed, had been a good hockey players as a teenager, on the open air rinks of Toronto, in area of his Irish Cabbagetown neighborhood. In fact, he was good enough to have been offered an opportunity to play overseas in a European league, but he let a mate go without him, while he tried to figure out how to earn a living in the ever changing and expanding city. He loved hockey and he adored Montreal, and that was always a puzzler for me, seeing as he had grown up only a few blocks from Maple Leaf Gardens; in fact, he had actually watched in being constructed. But he hated the Maple Leafs, and that meant for interesting Hockey Night in Canada contests between the two Canadian cities back in those days of the original six teams. I was a little embarrassed to invite my chums over for the Saturday night games, because they were always fans of the Leafs, and they didn’t know what to make of anyone in our small town who would cheer for any other team. There was, of course, an allowance for the Detroit Red Wings because hometown hero, Roger Crozier, was the starting goaltender, and even when his team was playing the Leafs, we were generally okay with the Red Wings winning, as long as Roger had been tending the nets. And I can always remember the long standing argument my father and I continued throughout his life; being who was the better fighter. Eddy Shack of the Leafs or John Ferguson of Montreal. Well, truth is, Eddy wasn’t a fighter and John Ferguson was, so I knew, even in the midst of a dispute about this, I was on proverbial thin ice; simply because I adored “Clear the Track Shack.”

     When we arrived at the Christmas season in Bracebridge Minor Hockey, we had quite a few more games booked, some of them being exhibition games, and others either connected to tournaments, or previously cancelled games on account of weather, being rescheduled in an around the holidays. And of course the end of school for the Christmas vacation. In my day, and my father’s driving commitments to our hockey club, there were very few postponed or outrightly cancelled games on account of bad weather. I don’t really understand why this was the case, but as we all wanted so badly to play hockey, we were willing to put up with just about anything to get to away games. I can remember occasions driving in heavy snowstorms to Port Carling and Bala, even onward to MacTier, and watching my father have to reach out of the window of the moving car, to clear away snow that the faulty windshield wiper couldn’t handle when iced-up. Gosh, thinking back, that was awfully dangerous to have ventured forth on such evenings, in our car that was not only poorly maintained, but was not suitable for the five or so kids who were riding with us. The heater and defroster were inadequate, and the car itself was probably ten years old or more, and if it hadn’t been for the very competent navigation by the driver, my dad, the outcome could have been very serious indeed. Back then, there was a lot of concessions made by the hockey association, to get kids to the towns the teams were supposed to visit, for competition purposes, and it was accepted that winter driving and weather were horrible partners, and that some parents were not going to have the best quality rides to cover those distances. I never remember a single time when my father failed to achieve the desired outcome, and deposit the young players safely at the arena destination. He would sit in the car for awhile after we arrived, and I’m sure he was offering, in the silence of a cigarette glow, and deep inhalation, a sincere thanks to God for another safe passage despite a most horrible journey on ice-covered two lane roads. For the road trip home, he would have at least warmed the vehicle up well in advance, sparing no expense of fuel, and it was a welcome respite for those of us who had game-frozen feet, to climb into a warm car content to endure another cramped ride, this time back home. I never remember a single motor trip home where we had to navigate a storm or even slight flurries. It had always cleared away from hours earlier when it have been a raging winter event. Keep on mind, as well, that we were usually playing back then in natural ice arenas, that it was said, “were colder inside than the temperature experienced outside.” My poor old pop was frozen most of the time, and he never had proper footwear or even a decent winter jacket. The car was as poorly prepped for the winter as he was, but he always seemed in such good stead, being involved in this transport capacity; and to be able to watch so many of our games.

     So it is at Christmas time that I think back to those halcyon days of old time hockey barns, road trips in all kinds of weather, winning and losing with my good mates, and feeling pretty good about being part of what was so relevantly “Canadian.” Ed was always there for me in this regard, and whatever money he had to spend, he would make sure my hockey gear was upgraded when needed, even if it meant some personal hardship to himself. Such as getting a warm pair of winter boots to wear for our road trips, and for the many hours he stood out in the cold at open air rinks, especially when we lived in Burlington, and in some of the natural ice rink in Port Carling, MacTier, Bala, and Baysville. The part I’m not comfortable with, is that I never really thanked Ed for his many years of service to me, and my hockey mates, with the only reward ever having been the sheer enjoyment of watching us youngsters playing our hearts out, win or lose. I do toast him, of course, in my quiet contemplations at this time of the year, and I hope that through the spiritual grapevine, he does now appreciate that his son did most sincerely appreciate the self sacrifice in order to make my childhood a little more fulfilling and certainly more exciting. I was proud of my father, and he was well respected by the other players who rode with us through those Muskoka snowstorms.

     Christmas is the time to wax sentimental and honor traditions, in family or beyond. Hockey was a mainstay for our family, and when I was not playing the game, watching one on television, my bedroom was a din of childhood play on my Eaton’s special table-top hockey game, which got a heck of a work out through the festive season; just as my rickety old tube hockey net, with only partial netting, got out on the snow covered roadway of upper Alice Street, where we slid on our thin winter boots, and used what were called “sliver sticks,” that had only partial blades, and had usually been harvested from the bleachers of the Bracebridge arena, after senior games we attended. Funny thing that, but I haven’t watched a televised hockey game in close to ten years. Once my own sons moved on to other projects, and other friends not so compelled to play or watch hockey, I rather gave up on a sport that had nurtured me with excitement since five years of age. But my memories survive, and that’s okay. So here’s to you Ed, and all the other hockey parents who went above and beyond the call of parental duty to give their kids a good experience with skates and a hockey stick; to chase a puck end to end.

ON BEING CANADIAN AND PLAYING IN RINKS COLDER INSIDE THAN IT WAS OUTSIDE

FEET AND NOSE FROZEN - REMINDS ME OF MY YOUTH

Chilled to the core of my old creaking bones, I’ve just now arrived in the safe haven of a cheerfully bright and warm Birch Hollow.....and while the thermometer tells me with a wink of an oldtimer’s reflection, that it’s only minus fifteen, it has all of a sudden given me a flash of reminiscence. In my middle fifties now, I’m told by my senior cronies that it’s all right to have flashbacks and this teeter-totter of mid-life crazy.......and it’s not the preamble to a stroke or sudden senility. You tell me? If this blog reads a tad nuts, I’m okay; if it makes sense, geez maybe I am in trouble. I’ve often worked in opposites, or so I’m told by my editors over the decades.

It’s been almost a year since my father passed away. A year before he died I wrote a little tribute to Ed, about his unfailing determination to get me to my minor hockey games back in the early 1960's. It was a hit and miss situation from the get-go because nothing in my Burlington days, was within easy walking distance for an eight year old. And our car, a vintage “hit and mostly miss” Austin, was a lover of warm climes, and on so many occasions, wouldn’t start without a push or a boost. Our family didn’t have a lot of money, so paying for a tow-truck was out of the question, and most people we knew hated to see my dad coming through the snow flurries of a January morning......with that look in his eyes of anger, frustration and yet resignation the day wasn’t going to get much better. “Could you give me a boost Fred?” he’d ask. Fred was just one of a dozen names spoken on those occasions of battery failure.

When we did get going, it was usually to the outdoor Kiwanis Rink, and it was bloody cold out there at about 4:00 a.m., in mid-January, the only time our young team could get ice on weekends, in the crammed city league. Poor Ed was frozen and tired before he got to work that day....and all the other days he hauled his goaltender son to and from the rinks. When we moved to Bracebridge, in the winter of 1966, playing hockey was much different, as we had a marvelous old time arena and a modestly chilled playing surface. We also got to play, in what seemed to our family, as prime arena time, coming after eight in the morning on Saturdays. That was, of course, for the practices and the home games. Ed then had to deliver me, and a few team-mates to natural ice arenas, in Port Carling, Bala, MacTier and Baysville. It was a painfully cold experience as I remember, and a lot harsher than today’s minus fifteen.

The car heater seldom worked. Ed had to clean the windshield with a scraper every few miles, our feet would be frozen long before we made it to the rural arenas, and even then, with the exception of a heated lounge and dressing room, the dominating condition was cold and colder. I thought I was one of the first goaltenders ever to have my mask break a puck in two but I later found out this was pretty common on natural ice rinks. True enough. We had pucks break after that, just hitting the boards. I can remember being the back-up goalie on twenty below nights, and crying because of the pain in my toes. Of course, as the coach barked at me, “Currie, stop complaining,” and as I found out at intermission, warming frozen toes is twice as painful as having them nearly frozen. It was quite a scene at the end of the game, having won on the scoreboard but crying with pain in the dressing room, as the red hot stovepipe brought back circulation. Some kids actually burned themselves, putting their frozen toes right on the metal pipe, only to have part of their skin remain when yanked violently back when thawing commenced. Those old stove pipes branded a lot of hockey players back then, as the dressing rooms were not much more than bedroom size, for fifteen to eighteen kids and equipment.

The real crying came on the way home again, when frozen and thawed toes were frozen all over again, and by the time we hit the town limits, the heater had come on for a tad and provided a third thaw in the same night. My dad’s feet were frozen too, as he never seemed to have appropriately warm footwear even up to his last days. He was a tough guy but I know he suffered a lot, taking me to those games in colder than cold arenas. I never heard him complain about personal discomfort, just a few choice cusses when the car wouldn’t start, especially for the trip home. He hated to be late for work.

I don’t know whether he thought I had the right stuff to make the National Hockey League. My parents didn’t push me into hockey and I know they always had a hard time paying for the season’s registration in those days. They could get vocal and a tad critical of my play, especially if I let one of those long drifting slapshots in, that I should have stopped easily. By and large they weren’t crazy parent-fans, and they never approached the coach to beg more ice time for their special child. I appreciated that then, and now, because some parents made fools of themselves, and embarrassed the heck out of the kids, with their in-stand tirades. Ed just sipped at his hot coffee and talked with other fans about pro hockey, how he used to be a rink rat at Maple Leaf Gardens when Connie Smythe was the king of the city, and the big stars of the past he used to drink with at a local watering hole.

It’s funny how one moment, you’re shivering while the dog has its morning constitutional, and something strange, like a childhood recollection of frozen toes, will all of a sudden become the all encompassing state of the union. I could close my eyes and see it all, as if I was at that very moment getting ready to step onto the ice for a minor hockey game, in a tin ceiling arena, which was often said to be colder inside than out. While I didn’t haul a thermometer around with me, I’m pretty sure that analysis was true. God bless the fans who stood out along those rickety boards to support us. Ed watched from the crowded viewing area, in the lobby, having a cigarette or a dozen, running out to start the car every half hour or so, to get a head start on emergency planning before the final buzzer. We usually had two to four players in each car, and it added a more serious responsibility to the task. Ed and I had been stuck all over God’s half acre, and survived to tell the story. But he sure as heck didn’t want to have parents worrying at home, that there had been an accident on the highway. For all those years of minor hockey, Ed didn’t have much time to enjoy the game. I grew up knowing the importance of having plans “B” through “Z”, to employ when the first plan failed as we expected it to.....but never missing a beat to seek the alternative and the one after that. We had a lot of fun out there. But our cars sucked!

The saddest time for Ed was when our car wouldn’t start at home, in Burlington, and by time we called for another ride, everyone had already headed out. In this pre cell phone dark age, there was no other option, considering we didn’t have any loose coins for a taxi. He was always devastated when his backup plan failed. Trundling my equipment back up the stairs was far more of a let-down for him than me......I could stay home watching the Saturday morning funnies while he had to drive for an hour to work, thinking about the way he’d let his son down. I suppose in retrospect, I milked it a little, and on most occasions, he’d leave a few dollars behind so that I could at least buy some hockey cards at the variety store. What I didn’t realize was that he was giving up his lunch money but he didn’t want me to be totally disappointed with the day I’d looked forward to all week.

I have written a number of pieces about my old hockey days, and dear old dad, and it’s funny now to think back on those years, and ponder if he really did think I was N.H.L. bound. As a matter of some irony, many years later, my boss at the time, Roger Crozier, a great former netminder of the Detroit Red Wings.....working then for the American Bank, MBNA, told me that I was considered the next Bracebridge kid to get a shot at the big leagues. We’d been talking, during breakfast, one morning in Wilmington, Delaware, that one of the reasons I’d been given a free week at his Red Wing Hockey School, (late 1960's) in Bracebridge, was due to the reports from my coaches that my future looked pretty bright, if I could change some of my bad habits. I still have a few of those but I’m no longer a goaltender. I remember coming home to Muskoka, and meeting up with my dad, and being so happy to relay the news........that I had been actually considered professional material way back when. He just smiled and said, “Ted, a lot of people thought you had what it required to go on in hockey......coaches, managers, fans. There was only one who disagreed.” “Who was that, Ed,” miffed by anyone then, on this new information, who wouldn’t have seen all my prowess budding forth. “You,” he answered. “You decided to play hockey because you enjoyed it.....not because you had your heart set on a professional career. We wouldn’t have changed a thing. You loved hockey. Pushing would only have frustrated you.....and ruined the fun you were having otherwise.”

When I asked Roger, one day a few months later, whether he would like to be best recognized and remembered, in a biography I was working on, as either an all star hockey player, or as a banker, as he was in the period before his death in the mid-1990's, he responded without any hesitation..... “I’d like to be known as a banker, Ted!” I though this was pretty profound coming from a former professional hockey star, who had achieved acclaim at every level of his minor and junior hockey, up to and including milestones with the Red Wings, Buffalo Sabres and the Washington Capitals. “It was a job,” he said. He often said that he enjoyed the game when it was over, not during. For me then, I think I made the right decision. My first choice of professions was to join the media, of which I’m still a member, and as an antique collector /dealer, an adventure that has run parallel to writing for well more than thirty years.

I owe Ed a lot. He understood me even though I would have argued the opposite. While I think he might have liked to have a pro player as a son, he seemed to like telling folks his offspring was editor of the local newspaper. I hope this was the case. But regardless, I do very much credit his patience and determination with giving me a damn fine childhood.....even though frozen toes are the most poignant memories at this moment of thawing.