Bonnie Scotland

O, ye'll take the high road, and I'll take the low road. And I'll be in Scotland afore ye.

I want to go to Scotland.

I want to arrive at Prestwick Airport and hear the voices. If one, lone Scottish accent can command attention in a crowded place on this side of the pond, what will it sound like when the buzz is nothing but Scottish burr?

I want to see the highlands and climb to where the ocean meets the sky, and down a wee dram or two of scotch while I’m there. Maybe I’ll even learn to like the stuff.

I want to hear the mournful skirls of the pipes in the place where they belong.  I want to see Edinburgh and explore castles and medieval architecture.

I want to see an Old Firm game between Rangers and Celtic, get drunk, and live to tell the tale the next day.  Maybe by the time I can afford to do this, Rangers will have returned from financial purgatory and this match can actually happen.

Most of all, I want to see Aberdeenshire, the ‘shoulder’ of Scotland, thrusting out mightily into the North Sea. That’s where I’ll find Fraserburgh, the town where my father grew up. That’s where I’ll find Pennan, the spectacular little seaside village where my grandmother – my nana – spent her childhood.

That’s where I’ll find a piece of my heart: from a place I’ve never been.

Pennan, Aberdeenshire, Scotland

Bonnie Scotland has always sparked something deep inside me, despite the fact that I am just half Scottish and truthfully, was not raised in a Scottish household. The kitchen was always my mother’s domain and my Sunday dinner plate would be far more likely be piled high with roast beef and Yorkshire pudding (yumm!) than it would ever see haggis or finnan haddie.

The only contribution Dad would make to my mother’s English dinner table would be the grace he would always say (and still does), straight from the pages of Robert Burns himself:

“Some hae meat and canna eat, and some wad eat that want it,
But we hae meat and we can eat, and say the Lord be thankit.”

Bless my English family, which is now down to my mom and three cousins, but there’s no pre-dinner speech like that in merry old England. Humble, confusing – who has meat and can’t eat it? – and best of all, short.

So no haggis, no trips to the homeland and no accent, either. My father has none to speak of and never had one in my lifetime – I would have to visit my cousins or my Nana to hear those familiar rolling rrrrrs – because he’s from The Broch and they don’t exactly speak English in those parts.

They spik Doric up Fraserburgh way, a dialect of the Scots language that is rich in strange phrases such as fit like? (how are you?); gie’s a bosie! (give us a hug!) and dinna be coorse or a’ll skelp yer dowp (don’t be naughty or I’ll smack your bottom). Soccer? Aye, it’s fitbaa, laddie.

The BBC shoots documentaries on life in the north-east of Scotland from time to time, and when they do they use sub-titles. Not just for the English, but also for the viewers in the rest of Scotland.

So when my Dad, fresh-faced and all of 18 or so, came to Toronto to make his mark in the world, he had to tone down the burr if he wanted to be understood. Before I came along, he was completely burr-less.

If I wanted to immerse myself in Scottish ways, I only had to visit the Martins and the Strachans, the families of my Dad’s two sisters, Norma and Jan. My Uncle Jimmy (who hailed from nearby Peterhead) and my Uncle George (Glasgow area) are gone now, as is my Nana. I miss them.

I still have my aunts, my cousins (Steve and Neil; Janice and Jill) and their children to help keep me close to my roots, but I want to go to Scotland very badly. I even made a rash promise to Jake that we would visit in 2014.

But dinna fash yersel on my behalf; there’s no need for me to get doon aboot the mou. I can make this happen. If I don’t I fear I’ll be like the soldier, sensing his own mortality after a crushing defeat at the hands of the English, penning the chorus’ last lines from the famous Scottish song:

For me and me true love will ne'er meet agin’; On the bonnie, bonnie banks o' Loch Lomond.

Aye.

Happy Happy Joy Joy

Remember the joy.

That’s what I tell my son before every hockey game, and it’s what I’m going to say before every ball hockey game when that season kicks off next month.

See, we have this ritual in the dressing room before the game, something I’ve done with all my boys. With Matt it was Play Hard, Have Fun, and that morphed into Play Hard, Play Strong, Have Fun with Cameron. When Jake started playing I added Be Awesome or sometimes Be Amazing. Or sometimes both.

Along the way I think I started putting too much pressure on the J Man by expecting him to be a star and shine every game. He certainly has the natural ability to do that: he was playing select hockey when he was six, before abruptly quitting the game after being cut in the rep tryout process shortly after his seventh birthday.

It was when I found myself chastising him following a game recently for not shooting enough, for not being first on the puck, etc., etc. that I realized I was putting needless pressure on him. I was acting like those hockey dads I’ve tried my best not to act like since Matt and Cam first laced up skates in 1999.

So I changed my tact.

I kept the Play Hard, Play Strong mantra for the dressing room props – it’s about being responsible for your teammates – but I took out the Be Awesome, Be Amazing stuff. “You’re already awesome and amazing every day,” I told him.

Then I reminded my 11 year-old of his younger days as an athlete. I told him to remember when he was six and scoring 66 goals in one season in three-on-three soccer. He would steal the ball, and being faster than the other kids, would just run down the field and score at will. Hell, he scored 15 goals in one game, with a big grin all day long.

I told him to remember his first year in hockey when he was five. It was just practices – instructional, it was called – until January, when they played a short slate of games. He scored 19 times in only nine or ten games and several were of the end-to-end, take the puck and just go, variety.

No pressure, just a stick, a puck and 60 feet of open ice between him and goalie.

“What did that feel like?” I asked him. “Remember that feeling,” I told him. “Remember the joy. Remember the fun.”

So that’s what I tell him now, and he responded with two of his best games all year in what turned out to be his final two games of the ice hockey season.

More importantly, the smile was back on his face. The fun was back.

Remembering the joy is a good life philosophy for anyone, and I figure it can be especially useful when dealing with the inevitable burnout that people experience when they’ve been in one career for a long time. Remember why you became a journalist, a child care worker, a nurse or a carpenter in the first place. So many things were possible back then, and they’re still possible if you remember the joy you experienced.

Just think of Ren and Stimpy and the Happy Happy Joy Joy dance.

I’ve been trying the philosophy on myself, because joy is universal and everyone can benefit from remembering what it felt like to be joyful and to have fun. I can still recall why I got into the newspaper business, though the joy of childhood is a little harder to remember.

But that’s because I’m getting old and my memory ain’t what it used to be.

The King James Show

It may all end tonight in Chicago, but with 27 consecutive victories it’s time I showed the Miami Heat some love.

They’re just six wins away from the all-time NBA record of 33 straight, held by the 1971-72 Los Angeles Lakers, a team that boasted some all-world talent in Wilt Chamberlain and Jerry West and would later win the city its first championship. They also had a serviceable small forward named Pat Riley, who would coach the Showtime Lakers a decade or so later to four NBA crowns and add a fifth title in Miami, where he now serves as president.

The Heat has some pretty good talent on display as well, starting with LeBron James, who is now, without question, the best basketball player on the planet.

I should say up front that I’m not a Heat fan and I wasn’t, until recently, a LeBron fan either. King James has always been a little too arrogant for my liking and his ‘Decision’ spectacle when he left Cleveland to sign with Miami two years ago was utterly dumb-ass.

But his play has slowly brought me ‘round. He’s already a three-time MVP, a Finals MVP, a six-time All NBA (first team), and scoring champ. And his arrogance? Well, it’s still there at times, but he’s learned to treat opponents with respect, and that new attitude has helped the Heat to better kick opponent ass and keep their streak alive.

Case in point was a couple of games ago when Miami was in danger of losing to Cleveland, of all places, until King James took it upon himself to make a 27-point Cavalier lead disappear in the final eight minutes. “We take no team for granted,” he said after the game.

After the Bulls tonight Miami visits New Orleans before rolling into San Antonio to face the always dangerous Spurs. So getting to that magic 33 consecutive win mark is going to be a difficult task.

But King James will have some help, notably by the other members of the so-called Big Three. Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh are perfect compliments to LeBron’s power game.

So why don’t I like the Miami Heat?

Certainly Wade and Bosh are likeable enough. I mean, who doesn’t like Dwyane Wade? Everyone likes D-Wade. I like D-Wade. And then there’s Chris Bosh. The former face of the Raptors has suffered his share of slings and arrows, but I’ve always liked CB4. Still do.

But I don’t like the Miami Heat. Go figure.

Great Expectations

With Sean Day set to become the fourth young man to be awarded ‘exceptional’ status for early entry in the OHL draft, it got me thinking about some of the players who have carried the sometimes impossibly heavy mantle of supreme expectation into the NHL draft.

Who were the most hyped players ever? And did they turn out?

It turns out that while scouts don’t get everything right, when they declare en masse that a player is the second coming of Gretzky/Orr/Crosby, they’re usually pretty close to the mark. For every failed first overall draft pick – think Patrick Stefan (’99, Atlanta) or Hailey’s big brother Doug Wickenheiser (’80, Montreal), there’s a Guy Lafleur or a Mario Lemieux to remind them that serious can’t-miss prospects seldom do.

Last year’s OHL draft exception, Connor McDavid of the Erie Otters, looks like he could be the real deal, but he has a couple of years to go before he’s even drafted into the big leagues. The first ‘exceptional’ player – John Tavares – certainly brought a trunk of press clippings into his draft year after a standout junior career with the Oshawa Generals and the London Knights. But did he make the list?

The following is my take on the Top 10 most hyped hockey players in history:

1.       Wayne Gretzky. The Great One was turning heads and making headlines from the day he laced up skates. When he was 10 years old he scored 378 goals in a single season, which was when I first heard of him. At 16 he was the top scorer at the World Juniors and was giving grown men fits at the age of 17 in the WHA. Considered the greatest player in NHL history, Gretzky – more than anybody else – lived up to his top billing.

2.       Bobby Orr. There was nobody like Orr, who simply revolutionized the game. The Boston Bruins recognized that very early, and bought the entire Parry Sound minor hockey organization just to ensure Orr – who would star for the Oshawa Generals in junior – would turn pro with them. Smartest decision Boston would ever make, I’d say.

3.       Jean Beliveau – The last of the pre-draft superstars on the list, the always classy Beliveau carried the weight of the entire province of Quebec when he was a junior, but Le Gros Bill spurned the Montreal Canadiens’ offer to play in the NHL, choosing instead to remain a star with the amateur Quebec Aces. Montreal’s solution was the same as Boston’s a decade or so later – spread the money around. The Habs bought the entire Quebec Senior League and turned it pro, effectively forcing Beliveau to sign with the NHL club.

4.       Mario Lemieux – There are some who would argue that Super Mario is the best hockey player ever. If they’re wrong, it’s not by much, and Lemieux had a spectacular junior career with the Laval Titans – smashing scoring records set 13 years earlier by #6 on this list – before launching his NHL career with the Pittsburgh Penguins.

5.       Eric Lindros – The Next One was a man among boys during his junior days with Oshawa, leading the Gens to the Memorial Cup championship in 1991. A little controversy helped ramp up the hype machine as well: Lindros said no to Sault Ste. Marie when the club chose him as the top pick in his OHL draft year and told the Quebec Nordiques to take a hike as well at the NHL draft, forcing a trading frenzy that saw him traded to two different teams at the same time.

6.       Guy Lafleur – The flower smoked a couple of packs of cigarettes a day and didn’t practice worth a damn, but he was worth every penny the Canadiens paid him (and every Ralph Backstrom they had to trade to the sad-sack Oakland Seals to draft him), electrifying fans with his play and leading Montreal to five Stanley Cups.

7.       Sidney Crosby – The first player on this list to have the internet and a million media channels to help pump up the promotion machine, number 87 has lived up to his end of the bargain after a standout junior career with Rimouski. Crosby has led Pittsburgh to a Stanley Cup, and scored a Golden Goal for Canada to cement his status as the world’s best player.

8.       Gilbert Perreault – Pity the poor Vancouver Canucks, who lost the spin of the roulette wheel in 1970 and had to settle for Dale Tallon, instead of Perreault.  The French Connection superstar went on to play 17 Hall of Fame seasons, all with the Buffalo Sabres, after his junior career with the Montreal Junior Canadiens. The first true first overall pick, Perreault perhaps pitied himself at the time of his selection: if he had been one year older he would have been protected by the Habs as a native son.

9.       Alexander Daigle – the first and only bust on this list, Daigle was projected to be the saviour of the second-year Ottawa Senators when he was chosen first overall in 1993. He did stick around for more than 600 NHL games, but never played near expectations.

10.   John Tavares – Yet another Oshawa General on this list, Tavares would probably rank even higher if he was drafted a year earlier, when he was scoring 72 goals and wowing scouts in every rink he played. But his final junior year was slightly underwhelming and there were rumours that Swedish defenceman Victor Hedberg would go first overall instead. The Islanders are glad they didn’t listen to those rumours.

For Honourable Mentions, I also considered Alexander Ovechkin (2004), Vincent Lecavalier (1998), Denis Potvin (1973) and Ilya Kovalchuk (2001).

For the record, six players on the list are already in the Hall of Fame, two are still active and one (Lindros) will get in eventually, despite what the haters have to say.

Daigle’s selection into the hallowed Hall appears unlikely.

The Beautiful (and humbling) Game

They say it’s never too late to learn something new but when that something is physical in nature – like, say, soccer – and that someone learning it – like, say, me – is old and falling apart, it does make it a bit more difficult.

I loved playing soccer when I was a kid – I was pretty good, too – but stopped playing competitive sports when I was 12 or so. (Long story.) So other than a tryout with my college varsity team in 1981 and a year playing in a men’s league in Kenora, Ontario in 1984, I had been out of the game for a quarter century when I joined the Durham Oldtimers Soccer Club (over-45 division) three years ago.

It was a humbling experience, but I persevered and played a couple of seasons in the Sunday ‘official’ league with Oshawa Italia (as a kid from Downsview, I never thought that would ever happen lol), as well as three years in the Wednesday night loop, which is essentially the practice night for the Sunday players. Yellow versus White, slightly different teams each night (depending on who shows up), that sort of thing.

Along the way I re-learned the game – these lads, old as they may be, were all experienced guys who had been playing the Beautiful Game their whole lives. Some had semi-pro backgrounds and most had played at a high level at some point in their younger days. So it was tough company, but my goals were not lofty.

I just wanted to not be the worst player on the pitch. On most nights I think I accomplished that.

Then the injuries began. A torn meniscus in my left knee was operated on in 2010, and orthopaedic surgery was needed last December for the second time. My doctor – I have nothing good to say about the bedside manners of the orthopaedic surgeons I’ve met, I’m sorry to say – also gave me the news that my arthritis had gone from “early onset” to “full-blown” in those two years.

And my damn meniscus is tore up again.

I was always a fan of the game, but I’ve ratcheted up interest recently, thanks in large part to a friend of mine (and Jake’s old soccer coach) who has hooked up me and the J Man with TFC tickets on numerous occasions the past two summers. And I took all three boys down to BMO Field last year to cheer ourselves hoarse when Canada took maximum points from Panama in a crucial World Cup match.

Of course, that kind of emotional investment has its price, especially when TFC missed the playoffs – again – and our national team followed up that home win with a shocking and embarrassing 8-1 thrashing at the hands of Honduras in a do-or-die match played in the hostile surroundings of San Pedro Sula.

That’ll tear a chunk out of any fan’s heart, I tell ya.

But Canada soccer will be back, TFC will eventually reach the promised land, and I’m hoping I’ll be back on the pitch this year as well. But with limited mobility in the bad knee and a fair bit of pain, it may take a cortisone shot and a whole lot more fitness for that to happen.

Wish me luck.

A Cast of Characters

On the off chance I actually sit down and finish some more Pizza Dude tales (for those who actually read them) I should take the time to introduce some of my characters:

Vern - The sole proprietor of Vern’s Property Maintenance and Landscaping, Vern Sawyer is a Canadian redneck from the hamlet of Raglan, located some 20 minutes north of downtown Oshawa. Big, brash, black and bald, Vern never let his ignorance of big words stop him from having all the answers. Take xenophobic, for example.

“I don’t know what the fuck that means. I just know I hate everybody who don’t look like me,” he answered. Then he roared with laughter as he hoisted his 300-pound bulk out of his chair, bellowing for us to “get it all, or you’ll be going and doin’ it again, on your own time!”

As he was leaving the shop, he stopped to pull out his wallet. “If any of you need any cash, best ask me now, ‘cause this gets locked to my ass in two minutes. If you still need money, you’ll have to go in the back way.”

Then he roared with laughter again, clearly pleased with his joke. That was the thing about Vern. He was as crude as a dog’s how-do-you-do and as subtle as a show shovel to the back of the head, but he was always good for a twenty when you were short. His generosity was duly noted in his account book, however, and too many of his workers, hooked as they were to one vice or another, were lucky to have enough left for rent by the time payday rolled around. 

“Not my fucking problem,” he would say when this was pointed out, and to his credit, occasionally a loan or three would never make it into the book

Do Wad – appeared as an extra in a porn flick once; still refers to himself as a porn star. Claims his super-sized ‘equipment’ makes him a chick magnet. Lives by himself in a basement apartment on the wrong side of the tracks. With his mother. Real name is Peter Poverelli.

Yo-Yo - real name is Cooper but is called Yo-Yo by everyone in the shop (especially Vern) because of his use of somewhat outdated street slang. “Yo, Yo, that’s my shovel, homie.”

Albert Trotter – a mysterious giant of a man with a massive, scraggly beard who speaks about as often as he bathes (infrequently). Despite his living arrangements – he splits his time between a trailer park located an hour’s bus ride away and a cot in the back of the shop – he is rumoured to be worth millions.

Eddie Rumsfeld – American-born Eddie is a Gulf War deserter who was once a member of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. A brilliant man who is generous to a fault, Eddie is a full-time drunk who occasionally makes an appearance at work.

Jacques Laraque – Foreman. Speaks with thick French-Canadian accent despite 20-plus years in Ontario. Stands barely five feet tall but his prodigious strength is legendary, so commands respect in the shop.

J.P. (short for Jean-Pierre) Laraque – Jacque’s 19 year-old son. At six-foot and change, towers above Dad.

Danny O’Doherty – Eddie’s drinking buddy, with a fierce temper and a history of jail terms for assault. Nice fellow on the job and like Eddie, generous with his money. Except he never has any and is always hitting up Vern for between-cheque loans.

Ron Metz – the oldest member of the crew by far, Ron is a former minor pro hockey player who quit the game halfway through his first season to fight in Korea. The next 20 years of his life is a mystery, though he tells stories of being in Berlin on August 12, 1961, in Dallas on November 22, 1963, in Memphis on April 4, 1968 and in Montreal during the fall of 1970. As these dates meant nothing to the crew members (with the notable exception of Eddie, who despised Ron, and myself), Ron’s rants were generally dismissed.

Junior – Real name Billy Nowicki, but Vern gave this 18 year-old advertisement for the need for Ritalin the name Junior, so Junior it is.

Pizza Dude – Me, also known as Doug Knight. I never actually worked at a pizza place, but I brought in a couple of pizzas from Domino’s during my first week (in a fruitless effort to suck up) and the name stuck.

Derek Leatherdale – the business editor at the Toronto Sun and my occasional boss. I am, I am told repeatedly, the bane of his existence, yet he continues to use me for freelance assignments. Derek suffers – sometimes in silence, sometimes whimpering like a whipped puppy – at the hands of his sadistic boss, the infamous Margaret McFaddy, a former ultra-right columnist and now wife of the eccentric octegenerian business tycoon (who just happens to be the majority owner of the newspaper), Derek McFaddy.

Derek McCown – My best friend at the paper, Derek knows more about the stock market (I know little and care even less) than anyone I know. Always trying to get me to invest, Derek seems to have little regard for the rules on insider trading, or for any great degree of integrity as a business reporter, for that matter.

Sven Rodmenneske – Fellow journalism graduate from Humber College. We have seemed to follow each other to several jobs in the past and we are still competing for writing jobs today. Good writer and the funniest man I know. I hate the bastard.

T-Dot - Tania Frost. Beautiful and dangerous woman both Sven and I had brief dalliances with in Brockville. Turned up in Toronto soon after my divorce, but died suddenly after a lunch date when she was struck by an anvil.

Harry Benoit - can best be described as unloved, unwashed and smelling faintly of formaldehyde. The unwashed part was apparently a matter of personal choice. The unwanted and unloved? Remember what I said about unwashed. As to the formaldehyde, you got me. Maybe because he was always a bit pickled. Maybe he bought his por pourri from funeral parlour yard sales. No matter. On April 13, Harry Benoit smelled like formaldehyde because he was lying on a slab of concrete in the basement of Oshawa General Hospital. Somebody had bashed the back of his head in. With a snow shovel.

Keeping it Metal

I am not a metal head.

I keep telling myself that, yet every time I see my son Matt’s band Into Exile play, it gets harder and harder to convince myself of that.

It started out slowly, of course. All the great forbidden love stories do, don’t they? I would go see Matt play out of love and support, and I would concentrate on my son’s guitar skills (he’s bloody amazing) and try to tune out the screaming that is such an integral part of thrash metal’s soul.

Then I would go see the band again, and this time I would really listen to Bobby (No Fear) sing. That’s gotta hurt, I would think. Then I would listen some more. After a few gigs, I was hooked, but just Into Exile, you know?

Then it happened. I was at a show in Oshawa a month or so ago and I found myself having a great time listening to a trio of metal bands and Exile hadn’t even performed yet. This past weekend I saw Matt and the boys in Ajax at a Battle of the Bands competition and I had a blast again listening to screaming metal band after screaming metal band.

What the hell happened to me?

I am a rocker at heart, but I was more inclined to listen to progressive bands like Yes, Genesis and King Crimson in my high school days, and I would morph into a lover of punk and ska bands during my college years. My taste in hard rock usually went no further than Deep Purple and Nazareth and, eventually, AC/DC.

Metal? No way.

I should take some time and introduce the boys of Into Exile, a band that has its roots at Father Francis Mahoney, a little Catholic elementary school in Oshawa that is now the site of a Greek church. Matt, fellow axe man Tiy and drummer Josh were all classmates there and at Monsignor John Pereyma High School, hooking up later with Bob, the charismatic little powerhouse on vocals.

Josh, who shares the same birthday as me, has been a friend of the family since he moved here from Bristol, England when he was seven. He never did learn how to use the doorbell or knock at our house, and with a smile that never seemed to leave his face, we never minded. Tiy, the quiet one, was the original guitar player in the neighbourhood and if he wasn’t Matt’s inspiration to learn the instrument, he certainly was one of his motivations to excel at it. Bobby, who is a certified crazy motha and a born leader, is one of those guys who would give you the shirt off his back. Which is usually not a problem, as he rarely wears one. Do you even lift, bro?

Dylan, the third bass player in the band’s four year history, is a more recent addition. I don’t know him well enough to insult him. Yet.

The band has had its ups and downs since 2009, breaking up for a while last year before reforming with most of the original line-up. They won a huge band competition a couple of years ago and have established a large and energetic fan base – their mosh pits are legendary and great theatre (from a safe distance) – which follows the band from show to show.

They didn’t win Friday night at Sgt. Peppers, which surprised the hell out of me because they brought the energy, they brought the skill and they brought the moshers, but it does show that Durham Region has a thriving and highly competitive metal scene.

That’s something I can finally appreciate, but when I hear the screaming vocals I still want to ask: doesn’t that hurt?

Told ya I wasn’t a metal head.