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HOCKEY DAD True Confessions Of A (Crazy?) Hockey Parent Bob McKenzie Copyright © 2009 Bob McKenzie All rights reserved. No part of this work covered by the copyright herein may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic or mechanical without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any request for photocopying, recording, taping or information storage and retrieval systems of any part of this book shall be directed in writing to The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free 1-800-893-5777. Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication McKenzie, Bob Hockey dad : true confessions of a (crazy?) hockey parent / Bob McKenzie. ISBN 978-0-470-15939-2 1. McKenzie, Bob. 2. Fathers—Canada—Biography. 3. Minor league Hockey—Canada. 4. Hockey—Humor. I. Title. GV848.6.C45M34 2009 796.962092 C2009-901891-8 Production Credits Cover design, interior design: Adrian So Typesetting: Pat Loi Author photos on jacket: Lorella Zanetti Printer: Friesens John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd. 6045 Freemont Blvd. Mississauga, Ontario L5R 4J3 Printed in Canada 1 2 3 4 5 FP 13 12 11 10 09 To Cindy, Mike and Shawn, the best family a man could have. To Mom and Dad, I think you would have liked this. To Graham Snyder and Hockey Dads who have experienced the most painful loss imaginable, bless you and your families always. TABLE OF CONTENTS PROLOGUE vi Chapter 1: It was always in the (Hockey) Cards 1 2: Breaking the Ice: It’s Never Too Early 5 3: Family Expansion and Our Little Nerd 8 4: “I hate Larry Marson” and Dissing Mr. Hockey 12 5: Big changes and the Grand Deception 17 6: “C’mon, Drop the Damn Puck Already” 21 7: Crossing the Line; Giving Mike the “Tap” 27 8: The Straight Poop on Playing Up 33 9: It’s Fair to Say We’re Not Morning People 39 10: Breaking the Golden Rule: “Grab Your Sticks” 45 11: So, That’s How You Want to Play the Game, Is It? 52 12: “I Didn’t Realize You Had Only One Son” 60 13: Was It Commitment or Should I Have Been Committed? 67 14: Talking the Talk, Walking the Walk: A Coach Is Born 73 15: Falling into the Trap, in More Ways Than One 79 16: Vengeance Is a Dish Best Served Curved 86 17: The Best Reward, Bar None, and Hockey Parents From Hell 95 18: The Four-Point Plan: Not as Stupid as I Look 101 19: Tough Love and Learning Our Lessons the Hard Way 109 20: Of Gun-Shy Dogs and a Crisis of Confidence 119 21: No Need for a Coin Toss: ’Twas the Best Year Ever 128 22: Rejected: The Parents Always Take It Harder Than the Kid 139 23: New-And-Improved Shawn Makes A U-Turn for the Better 146 24: Teach Your Children Well On the “Balance” Beam 154 25: The Draft Year: Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places 161 26: Discretion Isn’t Always The Better Part of Valor 171 27: Making the Big Time: Shawn Steps It Up 177 28: Turn out the Lights, the Party is Over 184 29: Into The Abyss and The Long, Hard Road Back 196 30: On the Comeback Trail; This Is No-Contact Hockey? 205 31: Major Junior Versus College: Making the Right Call 216 32: Bada Bing, Bada Boom: Once a Buzzer, Always a Buzzer 227 33: Play Every Game Like It’s the Last; It Just Might Be 239 34: Crazy Hockey Dad’s Magical Mystery Tour 246 35: Blowing the Whistle and Doctor, Doctor 255 36: You Try Cutting the Grass of a Quality Control Inspector 263 Epilogue 272 PROLOGUE IT WAS MY COLLEAGUE and good friend Gord Miller from The Sports Network (TSN) who first started it. The Crazy Hockey Dad thing, that is. Through a good part of the 1990s and into the new millen- nium, Gord and I spent an ungodly amount of time together covering junior, pro and international hockey events all over North America and Europe. You spend that much time with someone—on planes, trains, automobiles and buses; in hotels, bars and restaurants; in arenas and TV studios—and you get to know that person really well. Maybe too well, much to my chagrin. So as the proud father of two boys—Mike, an ’86 (that’s minor hockey slang for being born in 1986), and Shawn, an ’89 (there you go, you’ve already got a big part of the lingo fig- ured out)—Gord heard countless stories of the McKenzie boys’ hockey-playing exploits, to say nothing of my foibles and fol- lies as both a minor hockey parent and coach. PROLOGUE | VII Armed with all that inside knowledge and dirt on the so- called Hockey Insider, Gord took great delight in inserting the needle. He and I would be in conversation with someone and at some point the fact that I had two boys playing minor hockey would come up. When it did, Gord would raise one hand with the back of it facing me and, with the index finger of his other hand, repeat- edly point towards me into the palm of his raised hand and say to our guest in a mocking tone with exaggerated enunciation as he rolled his eyes: “Cra-zee Hoc-kee Dad.” I would chuckle along with Gord and our guest—self- deprecation is one of my great strengths, though in the McKenzie household it’s more a survival skill—and not want- ing to be guilty of “he doth protest too much,” I would put up only token resistance. “I’m not really crazy,” I would say. “Well, not too crazy.” On cue, like clockwork, Gord would keep it going: “What about the time you called the stick measurement?” The guest’s response was invariably the same. “You called a stick measurement in a kids’ hockey game?” (Insert level of incredulity here.) “Twice…” Gord would quickly add, smirking at me trium- phantly and then pausing for effect, “…in the same game.” “Yeah, but…” I would say. Yeah, but…indeed. That was it, game, set and match. Thanks for coming. I would vainly try to tell our guests the same thing I will try to tell you now: I am not a Crazy Hockey Dad. Well, not too crazy. Yeah, sure, there was that stick measurement game in Barrie when I was an assistant coach in Mike’s atom year and, yes, it was two stick measurements in the same game, but only because the head coach of our team wouldn’t give me the VIII | PROLOGUE green light to call a third—damn you, Stu. But you can’t pos- sibly judge me and what I did that day until you have all the facts, the context and, most important of all, the knowledge it was payback for something really horrible the other team’s coach did to our team a couple of years before that. Why do I feel like I’m getting myself in deeper here? For most people who see my face on television, they see Bob McKenzie, the Hockey Insider. That’s fair. It’s what I do. I go on TSN and radio stations across Canada and talk hockey, or I write about it on the internet. I have been doing this broad- casting thing, to varying degrees, for more than twenty years. I started in the newspaper business thirty years ago. It’s a great job—if you can call it a job—and I would say I’m passionate about it because I’m passionate about the game of hockey. It was that way when I was a kid, it was that way when I graduated in journalism from Ryerson Polytechnic Institute to my first full-time job, covering junior hockey for the Sault Star in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.; it was that way in my nine years as Editor-in-Chief of The Hockey News, my six years as hockey columnist at the Toronto Star, another three years as Associate Editor of THN; and now that I’ve been wholeheart- edly immersed in broadcasting as the Hockey Insider on TSN since the year 2000, it’s been the same. I don’t expect that will ever change. But I will make one small distinction. Hockey Insider is what I do, not necessarily who I am. The truth is, I see myself more as a Hockey Dad. Crazy? Perhaps, though even on my worst days I would plead temporary insanity. Yes, Hockey Dad is what I am. As passionate as I am about my job, as passionate as I am about hockey, I am even more PROLOGUE | IX passionate about my family. I have two fine sons who have grown up to be terrific young men and who share my obses- sion for all things hockey. For as long as I have had kids, I have been leading this double life. My job is more or less all-encompassing. So, too, though, is being a Hockey Dad. But if you promise not to tell anyone, especially the good folks at TSN, I will let you in on a little secret—I’ve devoted at least as much time and energy (probably more) to being a Hockey Dad over the past twenty- plus years as I have to being a Hockey Insider. Truth be told, it’s a poorly kept secret, especially at TSN, where they have been unbelievably supportive in allowing me to do both.

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