I REMEMBER HOW S TAFFORD stuck to those tiny yellow handbooks written by Lloyd Percival. He tried to exercise everyday in the open air — which meant he left his bedroom window open and froze the upstairs out. Because this is what Lloyd told him to do.
There was a greyness to the snow, the earth itself. All winter long, lights from across our windswept river flicked out like beacons on faraway islands. For months there seemed to be nothing but small paths along the sidewalks, and snowbanks as high or higher than our houses. And Stafford exercised in his small sleeveless T-shirt, staring into the dark. Lloyd had told him to do it. His stretches and his toe touching and his limbering up for the big game that never came.
He kept a progress chart on his wall, and did practice shooting outside at a tin can. Night after night just after supper he would go outside with his tin can and his hockey stick, and try to flick a puck and hit it, like the man in the movie Liberty Valance, a string of lights over his head, and half the lights burnt out. Stafford Foley’s rink had disappeared by this time and was a trough of water and ruts covered with new, white snow.
He tried to jump over a broom handle. He practised stopping and starting quickly, but only in his rubber boots, and of course he tried to stickhandle and deek a board. From my window I would often see him running about this board, like a squirrel in a cage. I never quite knew what it was he was doing.
I suppose he was a Lloyd Percival addict. He was the first person I remember who insisted his mother get wholewheat bread. His father would take a bite of it, spit it back on his plate and say, “What in Christ is this?”
He ate fruit and vegetables, and walked about with a chunk of cheese in his pocket. He almost never ate the cheese — he just had it in his pocket. He started a regimen of weightlifting. I have often considered the wounded as being the ones obligated to do this. By the end of March he was lifting 30 to 40 pounds.
At school he stayed away from me. During the whole time the Trail Smoke Eaters were over in Europe he never spoke about hockey to me. I think half of the reason Stafford stayed away from me is because I was so fanatical about Trail. I was a psychological menace to everyone in Canada when Canada was playing international hockey.
All during this time, my relatives in Boston made no calls, and we heard nothing from them. We were supposed to go down to Boston at the end of March — of course I was going as a tagalong; and I knew that if Trail did not win the World Championship, I would have nothing to say. In fact, I would want to say nothing. I wouldn’t even want to go.
The Colonel told me that no one had given Trail much of a chance but that he thought they could win, and then he put, “At least the silver.” Silver was no good, and never has been any good for Canada — there is not a team who ever played for Canada who has won a silver and actually wanted it. This is one thing about hockey. No Canadian ever felt great about a silver medal. It shows you where the game stands in our psyche.
When Trail was overseas, I began to get the first solid impressions of our opposition. I still thought of them on outside arenas far away, but I was essentially beginning to differentiate one team from the other. To know them as chunks of their country’s personalities. For instance, no matter how much I admired Mats Naslun later on, I disrespected the Swedes then, and now, and forever. I felt they were bogus world champions whenever they claimed to be. I have always felt that at our best the Swedes would never be a match for us.
I feared, hated, respected and admired the Russians. I didn’t feel it then, but over the years I felt that they were the one
other country which could make a legitimate claim to the World Championship. That is often why, when in those contests in which some other country wins the World Championship or the Gold medal, it is more important to us how we fared against the Russians. I know the Russians feel that way about us.
“There is one team Canada has always had to watch — the back-door team — the Czechs,” the Colonel told me in early March of 1961.
The Czechs I also knew. I liked them more than either the Swedes or the Russians. I didn’t know them well, but I assumed at times that they liked us. The Swedes would never give us a wink. Definitely not the Russians, the Czechs might. At least I thought this way for a while. Canada. Well God knows what I thought. Canada was always the team to beat at these affairs even when they weren’t seeded number one. That is, every other team got up to play Canada.
Stafford decided that I was no longer his friend. He would come over to my side of the street and call for Garth instead of me. He would often leave when I showed up to play on Michael’s rink.
I was no longer his friend because I had gotten an assist. I finally brought this up to him. “Oh ho ho ho — you think that’s what it is,” he said. But he didn’t elaborate. He was betting money on Detroit. Detroit was this and Detroit was that, and there was nothing anyone could say. He was a Lloyd Percival, Detroit-loving fool. I knew Detroit would make the playoffs,
but I was hoping for Montreal — who actually had the most points that year.
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