Please allow me to introduce myself; I’m a man of wealth and taste.
Okay, only half of that might be true….but when Mitch asked me to write a sort of introduction now that I’ll be contributing to his website, a lyrical opening seemed appropriate given his connection to music. He suggested I mentioned how I was shaped as a hockey fan growing up in small town Nova Scotia. Like countless Canadians, hockey was a big part of my life for as far back as I can recall. One of first recollections is how I got a fairly nasty scar near my chin playing hockey as a five year old. Table hockey, that is.
My grandfather Bob Marsh was my opponent on that fateful day in 1975. I sat on folded legs as we went head to head on the dining room floor. In my excitement, I toppled face first on to the ‘ice’ (I have no idea why I didn’t put my hands out to break my fall.) When I got up, one of the players was sticking out of my face, blood spurting everywhere. In today’s safety-conscious world, I imagine table hockey players are made of plastic and not the razor-thin metal like they were back in the 1970s, denying the youth of today the chance for conversation pieces like the scar on the left side of my face that still exists. The next thing you know, lawn darts will be banned.
I played hockey every chance I got. My father put a net at one end of our basement and protective screens over the windows. Hanging on the net was a sheet of heavy felt with the image of a goalie on the front. There were six holes of varying point values on the sheet, the five hole worth 500 points if you could snipe that spot. I would take shots at lunch, after school and after supper. I remember Dad somehow tacking some lead onto one puck so it would strengthen my wrists and improve my shot. He was always thinking and tinkering, my dad.
Saturdays were the best. Up early to watch cartoons while I put my gear on, then off to the rink to play ‘house league’ games where all of the players in my town of Trenton of the same age would go at it. We were all friends and while there was a disparity in the talent level from player to player, we all had a blast. In those days in Atom and Pee Wee, there was a ‘B’ team and a ‘C’ team in towns of our size. There were five other towns with teams in Pictou County and usually on Saturday afternoons and then on Sundays we would play those games. I played “B” hockey. It seemed that every town had a standout player or three and that the rosters were usually pretty even. I hated some of the players with a passion. When Pictou County adopted ‘A’ hockey in my first year of bantam in 1983, some of those boys became friends that I still have today. And we had some damned good teams despite the fact we didn’t have a lot of kids to draw from.
Anyway, back to Saturdays and the greatest thing of all: Hockey Night in Canada. Living in the Atlantic Time zone meant 9 PM starts and I was only allowed to stay up until the start of the second period. I distinctly recall wearing Buffalo Sabres pajamas and a Montreal Canadiens robe. I’d watch the first period and then go to the basement to shoot pucks and tennis balls before mom would call down to me to go to bed. And as I write this, I remember pretending I was Borje Salming passing to Darryl Sittler or Guy Lafleur blasting a shot from a Larry Robinson feed, all the while doing play by play of the action to just myself or maybe our dog Clarence. Not my last play by play, as it turned out.
The Montreal Canadiens were my favourite team when I was a kid. Why? Because red was my favourite color (very deep, I know). But my brother also was and still is a huge Habs fan and despite the fact he had little time for a 9 year-old kid half his age, I still looked up to him. I can remember being on my knees during an overtime intermission, praying the Habs would beat the dastardly Bruins in game seven of the semi-finals in 1979. When Yvon Lambert scored the goal, Peter put aside his disdain and hugged me in a moment of unbridled joy. Of course I had no way of knowing that 35 years later, I would be one of the voices of the Canadiens and would have a chance to spend a bit of time with Lambert through my broadcast partner Sergio Momesso. I’ll have to make a point to tell Yvon that story some time.
The central figure in my hockey as a youth was my father, Roland (everybody called him ‘Rollie)’. Until I finished playing midget hockey, dad very rarely missed a practice, let alone a game. Same thing with my older brother Peter, who was an excellent defenceman. Being on the ice and hearing dad shout words of encouragement to all of us was the best feeling. I could never understand why some other boys’ dads didn’t go the games and I always felt badly for them.
In my final year of novice Dad told me he would keep track of my goals that year. One day on the way to school, I stopped into Skipper’s store (corner of Duchess Avenue and Seventh Street) and saw on the shelf something that took my breath away. It was an inflatable Stanley Cup, adorned with all of the NHL team logos. To a 9 year-old kid, it might as well have been the real thing. A couple of weeks later, I was back in the store for the umpteenth time, probably buying some penny candy so I could have an excuse to stare at the Cup. “How is hockey going this year, Danny?” Skipper asked. I likely told him right to the number how many goals I had scored to that point. “I’ll tell you what”, he said. “If you get to 100 goals, I will give you that Stanley Cup.” I ran straight home waiting for Dad to come through the door from work to give him the news. And when I got to 100 goals, Dad drove me to Skipper’s and true to his word, that Cup was mine. It sat on my dresser for years until it basically wore out. I ended that year with 153 goals, each one documented with the date and opponent in a small black notebook Dad kept on the dresser by his bed. I sure wish I still had that notebook.
One of my other favourite memories of my father came when I was playing midget hockey. Our team had won the Nova Scotia championship for the second straight year and went to the Atlantic championship in Charlottetown. I’d had a good tournament and going into the award banquet I knew I would be getting a trophy for tying for the tournament scoring lead. That night I also won the award as top forward and most valuable player. And when I went up to get my MVP trophy, I got a standing ovation. There was dad, clapping and smiling a huge smile. I could see the pride in his face. Maybe ten years ago, dad told me that something that brought a tear to my eye then and now. “Dan, I want you to know that hardly a day goes by that I don’t think about you playing hockey,” he said. “You have no idea how proud it made me to watch you play.” I’m so thankful that hockey gave us a special bond; him watching me on the ice, me seeing him in the stands for every game. When he was in hospital nearing the end of his life a few years ago, my sister Sue tuned in to one of our broadcasts for him on her phone. Dad had been getting increasingly confused and was not himself at that stage but when he heard my voice, she told me he came to life and smiled. “Isn’t Danny something, Dad?” she said. “He sure is”, Dad replied.
We lost my father not long after that on April 27th, 2016. He was 82. I never got the chance to bring him to a game in Montreal but I still feel his presence as I look down at the ice and do what I do.
