As a kid, I was just as competitive in school as I was on the
ice, because I wanted to get good marks. I had a pretty heated
rivalry going with this girl named Stephanie. Whatever we did,
we were totally caught up in trying to beat each other. The big
thing in school at the end of the year was to win the citizenship
award. I won it three years in a row on the boys' side, while she
accomplished the same on the girls' side. But neither of us won it
the fourth year, because we both went totally overboard in our
attempts to outdo each other.
I really got into cross-country running in Grade 4 at Ryerson
Public School back in London. The Board of Education organized
a lot of races that year, and we Ryerson Rebels tried to make sure
we entered every one. It was not a good sport for kids with big
joints, and I was often in a lot of pain, but that wasn't going to stop
someone who hated losing the way I did. I improved with every
race leading up to the city championships. There were about five
hundred kids jammed together at the starting line for the champi-
onships and, because the starting gun wasn't working properly,
they used a whistle to signal the start. The whistle sounded and I
took off like a rocket and moved out in front. The only problem
was that it was a false start, and I was so focused that I didn't hear
the weak toots of the whistle trying to call me back. I ran about a
kilometre before they finally caught up with me, and then the race
had to be restarted. I wound up seventeenth overall, which was
pretty good all things considered, but it was pretty upsetting. That
was the end of my cross-country running career.
All that running nearly short-circuited my days as a hockey
player. Because we were always training on concrete, I ended up
with a condition called Osgood-Schlatter, a knee problem that
afflicts growing kids. The pain persisted, and I eventually went to
a sports clinic, where they had some special braces made for me.
The braces are made from the material used for wet suits and
have pads in the knees. I still use the braces every game; they've
become part of my uniform.

I scrapped more than I should have during my school days,
but there was nothing like a good fight to secure your rung on the
ladder. When I was in kindergarten, I got into a fight with a kid
who was in Grade 3. The Grade 3s and 4s always had the big foot-
ball games going, and it looked like a lot of fun, so I wanted to be
part of it. But there was always one guy who thought he was the
king of the playground, and he wouldn't let me join. I wanted to
play so badly that I fought the guy. We went at it outside the
school by the big green garbage cans, and I scored an unanimous
decision. His mother phoned our house to give Bonnie an earful.
"Do you realize your boy has beat up my son? He's got
cuts and bruises all over."
When the lady found out I was in kindergarten, she was so
embarrassed that she hung up the phone.
Still, I've always done well in school. It wasn't that I studied
that hard; it was more a matter of making sure I did all my work.
School's not difficult, unless you don't pay any attention to
what's going on in your class. If you listen and you're still
having problems, then it's time to ask questions. People are so
worried about how they look and acting cool in school that they
forget why they're there. I never wore great clothes or did any-
thing special, because I wasn't out to impress anyone. I just went
to class, listened and had fun with it.
My parents always said, if you're not keeping up in school,
then you can't play hockey. As a result, I'd hav to sacrifice shoot-
ing the puck in the garage for homework on many occasions. I
was expected to maintain an 80 percent average, which I knew I
could do if I just concentrated on my work. If I ever had a prob-
lem, I would go to my parents. My Dad would help me out with
some of the math stuff; my Mom would look over my English to
make sure it was okay. I had a pretty heavy load -- eight sub-
jects -- at North Toronto Collegiate Institute, so I usually tried to
do my homework at lunch because I had Junior B hockey practice
every afternoon.
I felt like an outsider at high school. Because I was so busy with
hockey, I was considered to be some dumb jock. I had a few friends
there, but I didn't go to any of the dances or formals because I
never really had a girlfriend. It didn't really bother me, because I
was into hockey. The way I looked at it, I was dating hockey.
The fact that I was going through incredible growth spurts at
the time -- I grew about nine inches in one year -- didn't make me
feel any more comfortable. I felt uncoordinated and was always
tumbling down the stairs in school. Nothing ever worked the
same way twice. One time I put my arm straight through a plate-
glass door at school because I missed hitting the panel on the side
when I went to open it.
I just wished that it would stop, that I would reach my height.
When it came to hockey, I prayed I wouldn't grow right before
the playoffs or a big game. It would really affect my skating and
my shot. My shot was never the same twice. I'd use the same
action, the same flex on my stick and everything else, but it
would always be off by a little bit. It was like continually adjust-
ing the sights on a rifle, gauging and regauging the scope each
time you fire a shot.
As far as sleep went, there weren't enough hours in the day. I'
was always tired. One day I went to bed at nine at night and got
up the following afternoon at two o'clock. Some people say too
much sleep isn't good for you, but I've still got to have those big-
time siestas. If I don't get ten and a half hours, I'm in trouble. My
favorite thing is to do nothing but sleep.

I never showered when I practiced with the Junior B team at
St. Mike's, because I hadn't matured physically yet. I would put
my street clothes back on and head for home. The guys on the
team would kind of joke about me. I rode to practices back then
on my Mom's old blue bike, which had this big wicker basket
attached, and the boys at St. Mikes got a kick out of that, too.
Angelo Libertucci, the goalie, called it the ugliest bike he had ever
seen. Angelo and Dino Grassi taped it up one time, put pucks in
the spokes and hung it on the wall in the dressing room. It was
pretty funny.
The bike at least had one more wheel than my previous mode
of transportation. I got a unicycle for Christmas when I was
twelve. I loved the challenge of something like that and, after
practicing downstairs by balancing with my hands on the ceiling,
I could ride it within an hour. It was a lot of fun. I rode it to
school, but I felt really self-conscious on it. Then one day a van
came through the neighborhood and stole all the kids' bikes at the
school. My parents offered to replace the unicycle, but I didn't
want to get another one because it made me look so different
from the other kids.
The only time I really felt part of my high school was in my
math classes in Grade 9 and 10. We had the greatest teacher, Mrs.
Kathy Love. The thing I liked the best about her class was that it was
a team effort. If you showed up and you tried really hard, then
you were guaranteed to pass. When she did something on the
board, only two students might know how to do it at the start,
but by the end of the period everyone had learned it because we
worked together as a group and helped each other.
It was very social because we talked all the time, but we were
always thinking about math. If we did really well and we had some
time off after homework check, we'd pool our money and one
person would sneak out the window to go to the variety store to
load up on Freezees for everyone. We had to keep it quiet,
though, because the head of the math department caught us on a
few occasions and would start yelling at Mrs. Love. But she
would say, "Look at their work. Would you come in and look? I
am teaching in here. They're having fun."
Most of us were in different classes after Grade 9, but we all
transferred back into Mrs. Love's class because we enjoyed it so
much. I didn't know too many students at the school, so I looked
forward to period nine math because we had a great bunch of
people -- we were a real team.

I took a full load of classes every year and usually went to
summer school, but it all paid off because I completed high
school far ahead of schedule and now have two courses to my
credit at York University in Toronto. Sooner or later, I'm going to
get my university degree. I'm not sure when, but I'll get it.
What Randy Gregg did really impresses me. To complete his
studies to become a doctor while playing defense for the Edmon-
ton Oilers is amazing, especially when you consider the pace of a
pro hockey life -- daily practices, team meetings, games and a
hectic travel schedule. And then toss in what it would take to
establish a career in medicine -- the studies, all the reading, work-
ing as an intern at a hospital. It's hard to believe that someone
could juggle both, but he wanted to do more with his life than just
play hockey. He's not only a high-caliber athlete, he's Doctor
Randy Gregg.
In junior hockey, I think a lot of players get caught up in the
fact that they're big celebrities in a small town, and they start to
believe their life is set and they don't have to take school seri-
ously. Some guys take courses like basket-weaving or underwater
door-slamming. Craig Donaldson, who was on the Oshawa Gen-
erals the first year I played there, worked really hard at school,
got all his credits, did very well in calculus and went on to play
hockey at the University of Western Ontario. He's someone who
had his mind set in the right groove.
Hockey has always been a way for me to get away from
everything. If I've got problems with a university professor, prob-
lems with my friends, problems with my car ... I can forget about
that on the ice. When I'm on the rink, it's my time. If you want to
talk to me, don't call me off the ice. It bothers me when people try
to pull you away from something you love just because they're in
a hurry. If they'd have the courtesy to wait a little bit, then every-
thing would work out fine. It's just that it's my time, and no one's
going to take it away from me. It's just like some people love their
sleep -- don't take their sleep away from them. It's like that with
me at the rink -- don't touch my ice.

I get psyched for practices. Let's face it, practice can be routine
and sometimes guys just don't want to be out there. I have a lot of
fun at practice and I look on it as my role to make sure my team-
mates are having some fun too. If you can keep things light, then it
doesn't become drudgery and guys end up working even harder.
When I was in Oshawa, we'd always be playing practical
jokes on each other. Our repertoire included taping sticks together,
putting tape on the bottom of skate blades, covering doorknobs
with Vaseline, and nailing someone's shoes to a bench. I hid my
linemate Robbie Pearson's false tooth in his jar of hair gel once.
He wasn't too thrilled with that, because it darkened it and hurt
his image as a ladies' man. But he would always make sure to
exact his revenge. Whenever the team went for meals, you could
usually count on Robbie's false teath ending up in someone else's
glass before we left the restaurant.
Some of the funniest things happened on the team bus. You
log a lot of mileage on the road in junior hockey, and that's where
much of the team bonding takes place. There's kind of a pecking
order on the bus. The coaches and assistant coaches sit up front,
followed by the management and business people and reporters,
and then it's the rookies, second-year players and so on. I had a
great seat in my second year with the Generals, third row from
the back. Robbie Pearson was behind me, Dale Craigwell was in
front of me and Paul O'Hagan and Jean Paul Davis were at the
back. Mark Deazeley, a friend of mine from high school, sat a few
rows in front of me, and he was often the pranksters' target.
We had so many wild guys on that team, and there was
always something happening. It was the best time. You can't
replace those moments. One of the big things to do when we were
bored was to pick on Deazeley. It would usually start off with
someone firing some jujubes in Deazeley's direction. It was sort of
funny, because his seat was directly behind one of the TV screens.
Sometimes, "the Deaz" would bang his head on it if he turned
really quickly and jumped up. Clunk! So he'd start firing the
jujubes back. Then the food was passed out after the game. It was
usually Swiss Chalet chicken. So a bun would go flying, followed
by pistachio nuts, then a bone. It finally built up to the point
where Deazeley would turn around, grab his container of barbe-
cue sauce and a half-chicken and just drill the whole thing at the
back of the bus. Then everything erupted. It was a major food
fight. That would happen all the time. It was hilarious. I liked the
security of being in the dark on the bus. You could get away with
some stupid, crazy, immature things and have a blast doing it.
Later, you would look at it and think that was really dumb, but it
was a great release.
Deazeley was a great guy, because you could always joke
around with him and he never took it that seriously. One of the
promotions we had in Oshawa was that any fan who got a puck
in the stands during the game won a free submarine sandwish .
We stacked a case of pucks in Deazeley's dressing-room stall to
make it look as if he was stealing them to collect some free subs.
He was always worried about his weight and we kept bugging
him about it. So Deazeley would arrive at his stall and one of the
guys would say, "What are you doing here, Deaz? Are you going
to go to the sub shop with all these? Hey, coach..."
Another stunt I enjoyed was moving people's cars after we
came home from road trips. It would be freezing cold in the
middle of the winter, and guys usually started warming up their
engines before they went into the rink to unpack their equipment.
When they came out, they often found themselves walking a little
farther than they planned, because their cars were hidden on the
other side of the parking lot. We had a lot of fun, but we were
careful never to go too far with our jokes.

The nice thing about the end of a hockey season is that is usu-
ally means it's time to open the cottage. My parents built the
place bit by bit with a lot of sweat and toil over the years. It
seemed that whenever we drove up there we always had our sta-
tionwagon stuffed with building materials. Our cottage is noth-
ing extravagant, but it's our place to escape from it all. The
summer is time for a little "R and R" -- Rockin' and Rollin'.
I love sitting in the cottage and listening to the radio. We have
this old AM-FM radio and eight-track player that our Grandfather
Blake gave us when he moved out of his home. My brother broke
the eight-track so we wouldn't have to hear Mom play " 'Ol' Blue
Eyes" one more time. It's kind of beat up and we only get one AM
station where they play the same songs every thirty minutes, but
I just crank it up and let loose with a few howls. I turn up the
radio full blast in the car all the time and just shout out the words.
I find it's a good release.
The cottage is a great place for the whole family to get
together. My cousins have a place right next to us, and our grand-
parents often come for a visit. They hold these parties called
"Moonlight Madness" in the area, and at times we've had all
three generations -- my parents, grandparents and the kids -- par-
tying together there. That's what I enjoy most.
Things have always been kept low-key in the summer. Up
until this past year, most ot the people at the cottage didn't even
know I played hockey. One of my Mom's friends there found out
for the first time when she saw us in a documentary on the tele-
vision show W5.

Fishing is one of my favorite pastimes up there. I like being
seduced by the environment. I'm not going to change the envi-
ronment; it's going to change me. It's just being out there and
trolling along and relaxing.
My friend Scott Bailey and I have fished together since we
were seven. Worms were expensive when we were kids, so, being
kind of cheap, we would try to dig up our own. We also made
sure we had the thickest lines possible for fishing because we
were afraid of snagging something and losing a lure, which
meant we would have to buy another one. I'm sure the fish could
see our lines a mile away, because we used fifty-pound test. We
thought we were going to catch Moby Dick, but were always
happy to settle for a little sunfish or bass.
I used to read all the fishing books and study the various tech-
niques. There was an expert fisherman I watched on TV all the
time, and one summer he visited our bay to fish for bass. I went out
to see him because I read his manuals and thought he was a real
hotshot, but he hooked his lure on the dock. I lost some respect for
the guy. What kind of an expert hooks his lure on the dock?
Scott and I had a lot of fun fishing; there was no competition.
We'd just sit out there in the sun and tan, and have a few laughs. I
got a kick out of his stories, because he was a bit of a rebel and
lived sort of a different life than I did. He would tell me some
wild stories about his high school in Mississauga, while I would
regale him with tales about hockey and life on the road.
We worked together one summer at an inn right near the cot-
tage. Scott was a waiter because he was a year older. I was the
toast boy in the morning and worked at the salad bar in the
evening. I wore a bow tie, ugly brown pants and made $3.15 an
hour. I remember Chef Lee was always ripping my head off over
something. I was thirteen years old, and he would be flipping out
because the toast wasn't cut totally straight or wasn't placed in
the warmer the right way. The day usually started at six-thirty
and we would go through about seventy loaves before breakfast
was over. I had to butter it all with a paintbrush.
Someone would always order a special request during the
crunch time. Now that was pressure. Whole wheat, no butter. I
would think, "Why do they have to do this to me? Take a white
bread with all the butter on it." Or they would send it back. "This
bread's too soggy. It's been in the warmer too long." One time,
someone complained that their buttered toast was too soggy, and I
tossed it back in the toaster. It started a little fire, which scared me
a bit. The toast was burnt to a crisp, but it wasn't soggy anymore
. It was a big relief sometimes just to get through the day.
The job had its fringe benefits, though. They had these mas-
sive bowls of Cool Whip and Jell-O and trays of banana cream
pies in a huge fridge, and I used to lock myself in there and just
fill my face. It's a wonder I didn't have to roll home.

My brother Brett used to deliver papers at the cottage to pick
up some extra money. He would usually buy himself something
nice at the end of the summer, like a bike or a Nintendo game. It
used to drive me crazy to play Nintendo with him, because he
would always beat me at it. After he won, he would look over
and see me getting that look in my eyes, and he'd try to dash for
the door before I could grab him. He rarely made it.
I'm trying to curb my competitive nature a bit. It's something
that a lot of kids learn to do when they're three, but I'm finally
learning. I always want to keep those competitive fires burning
for hockey, but I don't mind so much anymore when I lose at
sports like tennis. Still, when I go to a golf tournament and my
team's in contention, I find myself saying, "Boys, sharpen up the
shots here. Let's get it going."
Even as a little kid, competition always got me pumped up.
My favorite TV show used to be The Price Is Right, because of
the euphoric feeling of watching these people compete to win big
prizes in the "Showcase Showdown." The contestants were bid-
ding on trips or cars; they paid $100 to get a ticket to this show
and they'd come away with $25,000 showcases. And they got to
be on stage with big Bob Barker and all Bob's beautiful babes. It
was a great show. I used to jump around all the time when some-
one won that showcase and tear down the stairs to tell my Mom
all about it. She said my eyeballs were popping out. I still like
watching The Price Is Right -- it's my soap opera.
As far as sports go, I'm attracted to anything to anything that puts
me right on the edge. Water-skiing at the cottage really pumps me
up. So much to gain; so little to lose. I just know when I'm going
to make a big cut. Speed up the boat, really get it cookin'. The
only time you're going to see me is when I pop up for air. I get
right down there, right along the water, and all of a sudden my
elbow gets caught in the water and I go flying down. Big deal. I'm
right up again. If you start worrying about getting hurt, then you
lose out on a lot of things in life.
Tobogganing at Doidge Park was a big thing in our family
when I was growing up in London. It was lucky the park was so
close to the hospital, because I was fearless. I would stand up on
the toboggan and head straight for this wall of snow at the
bottom of the hill, but I never tried to slow myself down. Smack! I
would stumble around all woozy. Once I was bombing down the
hill pointed directly at a park bench, and my Mom ran to stop the
toboggan. My head collided hard with her knee. I went in for
facial X-rays after that, but it did little to deter me.
The way I see it, even though the odds against you coming
out on top might seem overwhelming in certain situations,
you've got to take your chances or you'll never find out if it can be
done. I've never been afraid to take risks -- you've always got to
tangle with that outside shot at winning.

END OF CHAPTER 6

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