In the mid-seventies, after my parents split up, my dad lived in Montreal and I guess he was doing alright because he had access to the company’s corporate tickets for the Habs games. They were three feet off the right goal post where Ken Dryden spent the first and third period. First row.. We put our pepsis on the ledge of the glass. When Guy Lapointe, Serge Savard, or Larry Robinson crunched some Boston Bruin into the glass, I could see how many teeth they had and the reverberations made my cola fizz again.
One night, for a reason I don’t remember, my dad was in town and in charge of feeding my brother and me. Peanut butter and banana sandwiches. I think I had the flu. I had a game that night and as a defenceman, when I crunched my first opponent into the corner, Larry Robinson-style, I puked all over my self. The game had to stop. The coaches had to console me. They had to clean the ice. It was the most humiliating moment of my life. I was eleven.
A friend of mine was a bartender on Crescent Street in the eighties. Those bars used to open around eight or nine. When she was setting up her bar, some guy walked in. She said to the bouncer, get rid of that guy, we’re not open. The bouncer said, do you know who that is? She didn’t.
It was Gretzky. He asked her out. She was very pretty. But she had a long-term boyfriend. She asked him if she should accept. He said, of course, he’s the Great One. She got drunk and sick and her boyfriend helped her out but his girlfriend went out with the Great One. He married a year later. Christine was/is prettier.