Old Time Hockey

I had the radio on the Team 1260 on the way to work today, and they were taking calls from listeners to hear about their "brushes with greatness". Of course, they were all of the "seeing Messier at a party" or "catching Arnott with 3 naked chicks in a hottub at one in the morning" variety. But it got me reminiscing about the time I got to bask in the glow of awesomeness of the recently-retired (the first time) Guy Lafleur. Yeah, I know, 99.7% of you probably hated the Habs, but I was born into a (somewhat) French-Canadian family. And in the 70s it was either cheer for them or the fucking Leafs. (Nobody cheered for the Canucks). I even kept cheering for them until Patrick Roy sucked the fun out of it later on.

Anyway, Guy was travelling around the country with his pal Steve Shutt and a team of All-Stars (read: career junior players and has-beens). For some strange reason, they decided to bring this show-of-shows up to Inuvik, where I was 15 and playing minor hockey (badly). I managed to get myself the job of stickboy for the visitors team, guaranteeing myself a chance to meet my boyhood idol.

The senior men's teams (all 4 of them) cobbled together their own all-star team. It was thought that Inuvik's finest might even be able to put up a decent fight. Memories of that night:

• going into the Inuvik All-Stars dressing room, where everyone was dressed very early, and pretty uptight.

• being sent to get Guy's team, who were still in the room with 5 minutes until game time. Guy was still in only his jockstrap, with a beer in one hand and a smoke in the other, telling some joke in French.

• four minutes later, he's on the ice. His and Steve Shutt's warm-ups consisted of ringing pucks off the crossbar from the blue line.

• Guy smoked through the entire game, leaving the burning cigarette on the bench when he was on the ice. That soon became my actual job, watching Guy's smoke.

• I don't remember the actual score, but Guy must have scored a dozen goals. Even at half-speed, he couldn't help but make everyone else look like they were nailed to the ground. The hometown squad was pretty sheepish afterward.

What can I say? He was a decent enough guy (no pun intended. I wouldn't stoop to Young D's level), and I think he may have even tipped me ten bucks after the game. I still have the autographed program somewhere. No naked broads, no underage girls, no cocaine. But a pretty good story nonetheless.