I carried a tattered copy of that poem to every game when I
was a kid. My coach, John Futa, handed out the poem on little
cards when I was eleven years old playing peewee hockey for the
Toronto Marlboros. I didn't take it all that seriously at first, but
it's something that has stayed with me throught the years. And
when I was fifteen and I started playing Junior B hockey, I began
to realize, "This is good stuff, this is true, this is life." I could
really see the value in it. I no longer have the card Mr. Futa gave
me, but that's still my poem.
When I look at hockey, I think the mental aspect is about 60
percent of the game. If you think you can do it, you can. Just
being physically fit and in A-1 condition to play is probably only
40 percent of the battle. Things start going sour when you begin
to doubt yourself. So even when times are tough and my team is
struggling, I'm confident. There's a fine line, because you want to
be humble, not cocky or arrogant. But the best is just to be secure
within yourself. The way that I'm secure and content is through
knowing what I can do and believing in myself. I don't have any
self-doubt on the ice.
As a player, I want to keep driving to reach levels I'd never
before dreamed I could reach. I want to be the best I can be. I set
my goals at a certain level and try to achieve those goals. Then I
establish a higher goal, one that goes beyond the original objec-
tive. You just can't stop. When you get complacent, that's when
you start losing your edge. I'm not happy about what happened
last year, losing in the Ontario Hockey League finals against Sault
Ste. Marie. I'll be back. You have to keep driving and striving.
I still have to work on every single facet of my game. I don't
shoot the puck like Brett Hull, I don't skate like Paul Coffey, I don't
think or set up plays like Wayne Gretzky, and I'm not as strong as
Mark Messier. I may never reach the level of those players in any of
those areas, but who's to stop me from trying, who's to say I can't?
You can never be satisfied. I've got to learn more about every-
thing -- it's endless. No one knows everything about everything.

When I go to watch a hockey game, I focus on one player for a
shift. I watch what he's doing, try to figure out what he's think-
ing. When Steve Yzerman curls, he turns on a dime. Messier,
when he drives, his feet never stop moving. When Al Iafrate
rushes, he doesn't care that he might get smoked, he just goes for
it. You've got to like that. I look at what some guys do and I try to
adapt it to my game. I try to integrate as much as possible. The
more complete your skills are, the better a player you will be.
There was a sign in our dressing room in Oshawa: "The will-
ingness to win is not as important as the willingness to prepare."
That's so true, and it becomes more important as you move up
through the levels in hockey. I talked to as many pros as I could
this past year about what were the hardest thing to adapt to
coming in as a rookie. I don't think anyone can be prepared
enough. You've always got to be receptive to other people's
observations. Even if only one idea out of five is good, then you
want to hear all five to get the one. If you don't go in knowing
what to expect, you're going to get pushed around. And it doesn't
matter what you've done in junior hockey, because you're start-
ing from scratch in the pros. If you act like a know-it-all, the guys
at the next level are going to look at you and say, "Who are you?
You're just a rookie."

I've had to learn to pace myself a bit. I got in trouble at times
last year for staying out too long on my shifts. You have to know
when to go hard and when to slow down, otherwise you're going
to burn yourself out early in the game and it will be impossible to
rejuvenate. Sometimes, people say it looks like I'm coasting out
there. But I'm not coasting; I'm thinking.
Mental preparation, being ready for every game, is the key. I
know what I'm capable of doing, but being mentally prepared to
do it, game in, game out, is sometimes where I falter. I have a
hard time playing in the easy games. We beat Hamilton two years
ago 9-1, but I didn't pick up a point and was a minus one in the
game. I didn't play well and I just wasn't into it. But when North
Bay came into our barn last year to battle for first place late in the
season, our line was flying and I had four goals in a 7-4 win.
That's the way it goes. Some games, everything just clicks and
you can do no wrong. Other nights, it's "Who am I? Where am I?
What time is it?" It's difficult to get motivated at times for games
that might not be as important, but that's no excuse.
Confidence is something you build up over the years. I
remember thinking, when we moved from London to Toronto,
that I would be just a regular Joe on the ice. The hockey in
London wasn't quite as competitive, and I was uneasy about how
I'd measure up in my new surroundings.
I ended up on the Toronto Marlboros' atom team, and we won
every single tournament we entered that year. The only thing we
got edged out for was the league title, which we lost by one point.
We had an awesome lineup, with several players who went on to
play in the OHL -- Grant Marchall, Nathan LaFayette, B.J.
MacPherson, David Dorash. We were sort of a renegade team, and
the other clubs really hated us. The parents of the opposing teams
would curse us, but it never bothered us. We loved it; we ate it up.
When they swore at us, we'd let them have it right back. Being
ten-year-olds, we didn't always know what the words meant, but
we used them because they were being used against us.
I was a defenseman back then, and I could pretty much do
what I wanted with the puck, but that quickly changed when I
began climbing up the ladder in the Metropolitan Toronto
Hockey League. I often played in age groups with kids a year or
two older, and there were times when it was difficult to keep up
with the rest of the pack. Though I did all right and usually held
my own, I was really nothing special.

Being the youngest on the team, I often had a hard time fitting
in. A lot of people looked at me differently. I always hung around
with the same guys year after year; there was a small group of us.
The peewee and bantam years were a struggle. I usually
played up an age group, and for a couple of years, before my
growth spurt kicked in, I was smaller than some players my own
age. I would be skating as hard as I could, but I was moving like I
had cement bags in my skates. Things reached a point, after I sepa-
rated a shoulder, where I had to drop from minor bantam down to
my own age group, peewee. At times, I felt like a butterfly caught
in a tornado going up against these larger and stronger players.
Ed Robicheau, my bantam coach when I was fourteen years
old playing for the Toronto Young Nats, gave me a lot of confi-
dence midway through the season. He started putting me out
on the ice for all the crucial situations, whether it was an impor-
tant draw or we were shorthanded or on the powerplay. When
the team was in a hole, he would look at me on the bench and
say, "C'mon Eric, we need a big goal." For the previous three
years of hockey, no one had ever said that to me. And it was all I
needed to hear for inspiration, to feel deep down that I was the
player to do it. Just hearing the coach say that one sentence, I
would get my second wind right on the spot. He was the kind of
coach who used to rant and rave and call you names that you
had to ask your parents to translate for you later, but he could
sure motivate you.
I had one other coach who loved to rant and rave -- with just
the opposite effect. If this coach had had his way, I would have
been driven out of the sport when I was playing minor peewee
for the Marlboros at the ripe old age of twelve. I didn't think any-
thing could affect my love for the game then, but I really hated
hockey that year.
We were just a bunch of young kids, but our coach ran the team
like we were soldiers at boot camp. We had practices at 5:49
in the morning. I would ask him, "Why 5:49?" He'd say, "Eric,
that extra eleven minutes makes or breaks the team." Well, he
tried to break me all right. It was the first time I couldn't wait for
a hockey season to end.

Other Voices:

It's supposed to be a kid's game -- it's supposed to be fun. But
we were all glad when Eric's minor peewee season with the Mar-
lies was over. In our opinion, Ed Robicheau, who handled Eric's
bantam team, had the perfect attitude for a minor hockey coach:
his job was to look after the kids on the ice and the parents'
would look after them the rest of the time. But one of Eric's minor
peewee coaches had a different approach. He wanted every
aspect of our lives to revolve around the team and the coaching
staff. We were never given a master schedule of games and prac-
tices that season. Practices were held on any day and at any hour.
It got to the point where the activities for the whole family
revolved around Eric's hockey.
We seemed to be on a collision course with this coach from
early on, and it wound up taking a real emotional toll on Eric. The
season began on a bad note when the coach recruited five
defensemen instead of the four he had promised when Eric
signed up for the team. Having an extra defenseman meant that
at least one kid was going to be spending a lot of time on the
bench. It was hard for Eric because he was getting a lot more ice
time on defense than his teammates. Understandibly, they
became frustrated, and he became the target for that frustration.
When he came back to the bench after a shift, they would often
mutter things like, "Make room for King Tut."
More than anything, though, we wanted to get Eric away
from this coach because, in our opinion, he wasn't teaching
values we could live with. At a tournament in Detroit that year,
the Marlboros ended up playing a team from our hometown of
Chatham. While he was with the Chatham Junior Maroons,
Carl had played with the younger brothers of the opposing
coach, Don Wakabayashi. Well, the Marlboros were so much
stronger than Chatham that I guess our coach figured they
could play without a goalie and still dominate the game. So
they started the game without a goalie, left the net empty for
almost the entire game and still whipped the Chatham team.
But it was so degrading to the other team. Carl and I were just
dying inside -- I couldn't even bear to stay in the arena to
watch. I said to Carl, "Put Eric in the Chatham uniform and
we'll see how long our fearless leader plays without a netmin-
der." Since we had only lived in Toronto one year and Carl and
I had grown up in Chatham, I felt Eric's roots were deeper in
Chatham than in Toronto. Carl walked up to Don Wakabayashi
after the game and apologized because we both felt so terrible
and embarrassed.
The situation with the Marlboros eventually became unbear-
able, and Eric left at the end of the year to join the Young Nats.
We thought the season was behind us until we woke up on two
separate occasions to find "Go Marlies Go" stickers plastered on
our car and garage door.
During his first season with the Nats, Eric started receiving
poison-pen letters. The first letter came in a big brown envelope
with his name typewritten across the front. We thought it was a
picture or a clipping from a tournament and saved it for him to
open at the table after dinner. At his age, he was always excited
about getting mail, but that was about to change. Inside the enve-
lope was a poem typed in capital letters. As Eric read it, tears
started streaming down his face.

THEY USED TO SAY THAT HE WAS THE BEST
BUT NOW THEY ASK, "WAS HE EVEN DRESSED?"
THEY DIDN'T NOTICE HIM DURING THE GAME,
I GUESS ALL PEEWEE'S LOOK THE SAME!
HE WANTS TO PLAY BANTAM, MIDGET AND "B",
HE'S HAVING TROUBLE HANDLING LOWLY PEEWEE.
HE SKATES AND MOVES LIKE HE'S 60 YEARS OLD,
HE'S NEVER GOING TO MAKE IT -- AND ABOUT TIME
HE'S TOLD!

HAVE FUN WALLOWING IN MEDIOCRITY -- PEEWEE!!

Poems started arriving regularly after that, all the verses
filled with the same vindictive tone. Eric received five poems in
all and was also sent a sympathy card at Christmas with the fol-
lowing inscription: "Special thoughts and heartfelt prayers are
with you in your sorrow." At the bottom, in what appeared to be
a kid's handwriting, was scrawled: "There is no shame in being
cut from minor bantam. Perhaps next year you can play above
peewee. P.S. Perhaps a heart transplant!"
After the poems started arriving, either Carl or I made sure we
got home every day before Eric so that one of us could check the
mail to prevent him from seeing another one. Finally, after threat-
ening police action to those we felt were responsible, the letters
stopped. It's sad the way some people lose all sense and proportion.

Other Voices:

There's no question that things can get out of whack at times
in minor hockey. Sometimes, when the kids get their equipment
on, they look like gladiators on the ice, even at the atom and
peewee levels. The parents and the fans sometimes go berserk,
thinking that all of a sudden the kids are gladiators out there.
Then when you see the players without their equipment on --
even at the Ontario Hockey League level, when they're eighteen
or nineteen -- you realize they're just regular kids.
For some people, everything takes on so much importance. It
seems to me some parents put an awful lot of emphasis on getting
their kids on winning teams, which seems particularly odd if the
kid is a defenseman or a goalie, because in that situation they're not
really developing their skills to the maximum. It's best for a
defenseman or goalie to be playing against stronger teams, where
they're going to be challenged a lot. Naturally, Eric always wanted
to play for a winning team, but we never put a high priority on that.
With Eric, we often had him play up an age level because we
thought it was more important that he be pushed to develop his
skills rather than that he be the best player on his team. If you're
the best when you're twelve, it's kind of hard for you to keep
working hard to be the best when you're thirteen. You have a
tendency to start taking too many things for granted. Kids
develop at different times. What's unfortunate about hockey is
that kids aren't even told, "Just because you're a hotshot now
doesn't mean you'll be a hotshot later, so stick with the game,
enjoy it, and work on all your skills." We never even looked at
the standings when our kids were in minor hockey; the emphasis
was on the pursuit. Being on a winning team wasn't as impor-
tant as playing your best.
I know some coaches were upset when the kids played some
extra hockey on a game day. But our view was that if it was just a
regular league game, if you had an opportunity to play shinny for
a couple of hours, you should play shinny as well as the game.
You may not play as well in the game, but in the end you're going
to be a better player. We were always thinking more long-term as
opposed to how important each individual game was or looking
at statistics.
We felt that finding a proper coach was really important, since
their impact on the kids can be very broad. Besides being involved
in such things as recruiting, organizing, skill instruction, disci-
pline and motivation, the coach might be involved in talking to
the kids about broader issues like drugs or sex.
Minor hockey is made up of a lot of volunteers from a cross-
section of society. While most of the people get into it with some
good in their hearts about what they're trying to accomplish, there
are very few coaches who are perfect in all regards. When you
think about it, who is perfect? The coach can start off with every-
thing in balance, then, as the team gets closer to winning or is on
the verge of losing in a big way, he can start to act emotionally as
opposed to rationally. We're all human. The thing is not to assume
that everybody or everything is perfect. As we discover in that
one difficult year, there can be a rotten apple in every barrel.

It was when I was fourteen years old playing in Junior B for
St. Mike's that I started taking hockey a lot more seriously and
began to see it as a possible future career. There were a lot of fans
who used to come to our games, so the attitude sort of became,
"We've got to put on a show here, let's get the line going." I
would go home afterwards and talk with my family about the
games. If I had a big game, where I played really well all over the
ice, that was a "Lamborghini night." If it was just one of those
games where nothing clicked, it was a "Lada night." It was just a
contrast in cars and a contrast in the level of my play itself. The
one sure way I could tell what kind of night I had was by the
number of people waiting to talk to me after the game. If there
was a crowd, it was a Lamborghini night. When it was just my
parents standing there, I knew it was a Lada night.
I struggled at the start of Junior B, because I just couldn't put
the puck in the net. It wasn't until halfway throught the season
that I caught fire and all the scouts and the media started coming
out. I had a lot of help from Rick Wilson, the goalie coach at St.
Mike's, assistant coach Tony Cella and also Harry McAloney.
They spent a lot of extra time on the ice with me after practices,
giving me the work I needed to sharpen my offensive skills.
One person who really helped me out at St. Mike's -- and I will
never forget him -- was John McCauley, who passed away in June
of 1989. He was the NHL's director of officiating, and his son,
Wes, played defense for St. Mike's. Mr McCauley taught me a
few things about taking care of myself on the ice. I was getting
my fair share of shots in Junior B, because I was fifteen years old
playing against guys who were eighteen, nineteen, twenty years
old. It got to the point where you had to learn how to handle
yourself or you weren't going to be able to walk the next time you
went to the rink. Mr. McCauley quickly identified the situation
and he started teaching me some survival tactics. It wasn't so
much dirty stuff but borderline things, like how you could dis-
creetly grab the other player's sweater and twist him around
without the referee noticing. He was always helping me out with
pointers, and our families became good friends.
I only knew Mr. McCauley for one year, but it seemed to me
his first priority was family and friends. I never saw him in a bad
mood. He loved to come to our games at St. Mike's, and he would
be beaming with pride as he watched his son Wes in action. One
night in the arena, he said to my parents, "I've seen a lot of
hockey games, but there's nothing more fun than watching your
own kid play." He was always smiling, always cracking jokes. I
remember when we had a surprise birthday party for my Mom
when she turned forty. My Dad had ordered these huge trays of
shrimp. Well, Mr. McCauley, my brother and I pilfered one and
we hid ourselves at the back of the kitchen and the three of us
wolfed down the whole tray.
It was pretty tough when he passed away. It was five days
after the OHL draft, and it put things in perspective for me. Get-
ting drafted to a place that wasn't going to work for me didn't
seem so important after someone close to you passes away. Play-
ing hockey's easy; it's life that's hard.
I had worn number 8 when I played at St. Mike's, and I later
learned it was also John McCauley's number. When I got traded
to Oshawa, I wanted to keep the number, but the captain, Iain
Fraser, was wearing it. So I switched to number 88 and wore the
same commemorative patch the NHL officials wore on their
sweaters for Mr. McCauley that season. I still miss him. I went to
a sports dinner this past year where they honored him. I just
cried the whole time.

Everything seemed to come together for me as a player while I
was at St. Mike's. Getting an opportunity to play two games with
the Canadian Olympic team in December of that year gave me a
real boost. I was fifteen at the time, the youngest ever to play for
the Olympic team, and it was a little overwhelming at first. I was
invited out by the team for two exhibition games in the Maritimes
against a touring Soviet squad. The opposition wasn't exactly
Krutov to Larionov back to Fetisov over to Makarov, but it was a
good Soviet team, and I was really scared and nervous before the
first game in Fredricton, New Brunswick. I was thinking, "These
are men -- they're going to be fast." I didn't know what to expect.
It was a whirlwind trip. I got home at 1:00 AM from Junior B
game against Peterborough the night before and was on a plane
to New Brunswick with my Mom by 7:30 that morning. I had a
cracked bone in my hand from a slash I had taken in the Peterbor-
ough game. My hand was really puffy and the Olympic team's
trainer drained it before we went out to face the Soviets.
When we came out on the ice at the Aitken Centre, the fans
went nuts and it was a bit intimidating. Here I am, coming from St.
Michael's College School Arena, where we usually played in front
of a couple of hundred fans, to a rink jammed to the rafters with
nearly four thousand people. I needed to do something to get over
my jitters and found just the ticket -- I scored on my first shift. It
wasn't a great goal, but it really sent my confidence soaring. I got a
quick chip pass as I was moving into the Soviet end and scored on
a slapshot from the far side that caught the top shelf. For the first
few seconds afterwards, I felt as if I were in another world.

When I went back to playing Junior B, my confidence level
was sky-high and I started scoring a lot more. I also received an
invitation to try out for the national junior team for the 1990
World Championships in Finland. The invitation alone pumped
me up. I remember talking about it with Angelo Libertucci, our
goalie at St. Mike's. He was really keen to get a shot at it, too, and
we talked about how great it would be. But I never expected I
would get the chance to do it.
I'd have some pretty heated battles during practice at St.
Mike's with Angelo, whom we called "Tooch." I'd want to score
so badly during the drills, and he was just as anxious to stop me.
He would say, "You're not getting it by me, Eric." And I'd reply
"Tooch, I'm getting it by you -- it's going in." If he stopped me
during a one-on-one drill, I would retrieve the puck and fire it
into the net while he was getting ready to face the next player.
Just to get under my skin, he would often let other guys put one
past him and then say, "Eric, they scored. Why can't you score?"
We had a lot of fun, but there was a serious competitive edge to it
as well. If he stoned me in practice, it really bothered me the rest
of the day. And if I was pumping them into the net, it really
burned Tooch. It was a never-ending battle, and we loved it.
I'm intense when it's time to work hard in practice -- I don't
want anyone to beat me -- but during some drills I'm laughing so
hard that I almost fall over. I try to accomplish two things. I want
to be happy and content, but do something productive at the
same time. If you're not having fun, there's no sense being there.
And having fun is something I love to do. I like to stir things up
at practice. One of the little games we had at Oshawa involved
trying to hit each other's skate blades with the puck when the
other player wasn't looking. I used to do that through the whole
practice. Our coach, Rick Cornacchia, would get fed up at times
and finally say, "Will you guys just grow up!" But seconds later,
I'd be banking the puck off somebody's skate blades again. Rick
would just shake his head and laugh.

Other Voices:

Eric's ability to raise his level of play when there's something
on the line is unbelievable. Eric becomes very focused. He hits
harder, he skates harder -- everything is turned up a notch. He can
set the tone for the whole team by his play, which is a lot to ask of
any individual. But because of the person he is -- he's
respected by his teammates so much -- if they see him busting his
butt finishing checks, the rest of the team falls in line and
cranks it up another level. You can tell when Eric is really ready
for a game. It's almost comparable to a racehorse who is chomp-
ing at the bit to get out of the start chute. You can really see it. His
Eyes are telling you, "Let me out, coach. I'm rarin' to go. Put me
out there." When he gets into that mode, look out! He's going to
blow the doors off someone.
When the Generals got the opportunity to make a trade for
Eric, I asked Sault Ste. Marie for permission to meet with him. I
wanted to get to know what type of person he was and to see
how hiw presence would affect our hockey team if the trade
worked out, since chemistry of any team is very, very impor-
tant. We got together for lunch and talked for about an hour and a
half. One of the things I asked him was what he wanted to
achieve if he came to the Oshawa Generals. He told me that his
goals were to fit in and be accepted as one of the guys, and to con-
tribute to winning a Memorial Cup. He didn't say that he wanted
to score fifty goals; he didn't talk about personal accomplish-
ments. Just by his presence and the way he carried himself, I
believed what he said came from the heart. And after getting to
know him, I know that's true. I told him at the time, "If we can
make the trade and if I have any say in making the trade, then
we're going to get you to play for the Oshawa Generals."
I just felt that he was going to make everybody on our team
that much better, which turned out to be the case almost right
from his opening practice. The whole team rose to the challenge
when Eric arrived. His first time on the ice with us was on a Sat-
urday afternoon before a game the following night against the
Ottawa 67's, and it was the highest tempo practice I've ever run.
The players were in a real state because expectations were so
High after the trade had been completed. It was as if the team
was saying, "Hey, we're going to show we can skate with this
guy." The pace was so fast that I called the practice off after
thirty-five minutes. I said, "That's it, let's save it for tomorrow."
Eric raises the whole tempo of a practice, just like he can the
tempo of a game.

It's not necessarily the amount of time you spend at practice
that counts; it's what you put into the practice. You can skate for-
ever, but it's no good unless you skate hard. I try to accomplish
something at every practice. At the start, there's always a lot of
team-oriented stuff, like working on systems and break-outs, but
by the end of practice it becomes more individual. That's the time
that you've got to take pride and do something productive. My
attitude is, you're given the free time, don't blow it.
In Oshawa, our assistant coach, Larry Marson, would spend a
lot of time after practice working with Robbie Pearson and me on
things like one-timers -- pivoting, winding and just firing the
puck the second it touches your stick. We worked on that all
season, but we spent the last three weeks before the playoffs last
year really concentrating on those shots. Then, in the second
game of the OHL final, I scored two goals from the far side of the
rink on the exact same type of shot. It was an unbelievable feel-
ing. I raised my hands to celebrate the goal, then thought, "We
just practiced that." I went back to the bench and Larry had this
huge grin on his face as if to say, "All right, Eric, you scored it, but
you know who really scored it." It's a feeling you can't really
explain. He knew it. I knew it. And we knew the source. It was
him benefiting me and helping myself and the team.
The same principles apply to any sport. When I went out for
the baseball team at Henry High School in Whitby during
my first year in Oshawa, I was brutal at the first practice. I hadn't
played baseball in a while and I only hit three of ten pitches well
during batting practice. My friend Jeff Hardy hit nine out of ten
well, so I got him to pitch batting practice to me in the gym for an
hour and a half later that afternoon. The next morning, I went
eight-for-ten. I had to get better because I had embarrassed
myself, and I knew the only way I could do it was through hard
work and practice.
Creativity is one of the biggest things on hockey. If you're
making the same move all the time, it's going to be easy for
someone to get a read on what you're going to do. When you do
something that is off the wall a little bit, something where people
think, "Fat chance of this happening," that's when you usually
get your best scoring opportunities. It's the element of surprise,
because you're always keeping the opposition guessing. I'm not
great at doing that, but I'm working on it.
If you're going wide the whole game, you're not going to be
very effective in the second or third period, because they're going
to know you're going wide. So, in the first period, you've got to
curl and drop. In the second period, you've go to go wide. And
in the third period, you curl, drop back and shoot. You've got to
be different every time you come on the ice.
I do a lot of my thinking about strategy after the games. I can't
sleep after a game, win or lose. I'm constantly replaying the game
in my mind, settling down and thinking about the next one. I
usually can't fall asleep until three in the morning. But after those
games where I played really, really badly, I just go to bed.

One of the ways I prepare myself for a game is through visual-
ization techniques. It's something that just came naturally about
halfway through my Junior B season. When I go to bed the night
before a game, I think about what I have to do in that game, how
the other team plays against me, about the things they do well
and also what they don't do well. I always think about positive
things -- taking someone out along the boards with a crunching
check or scoring a couple of big goals. When you start thinking
negatively, you get in trouble. Negative thoughts come in once in
a while, but I do my best to block them out. There are a lot of
times when I've visualized things and then they've happened in
games. I have a lot of déjà vu. The more you practice, the more
relaxed you become on the ice, and the easier the game flows.
I play little mind games with myself and I'm really supersti-
tious. Everything's always left before right. When I get on a roll, if
I had a gum that game, I'm going to have a gum for the next four
hundred games -- same amount of gum, same number of sticks. I
get right into the superstitions. My chain goes above my locker
in the same spot, my coat and shirt hangers have to be pointed in
certain directions. I always have coffee or Coke before the game,
depending on which one's working for me at the time. It's the
same with underwear. One of my friends, Lisa Best, painted some
stuff on a pair of boxer shorts for me. If I wear those and have a
good game, then I'll keep wearing them. (Of course, I'll get them
washed every once in a while.) When you're struggling, you'll try
anything. And when you get success, you keep that pattern.
The same pre-game ritual was followed pretty religiously in
Oshawa. I'd put the fuel -- lasagna, two buns and orange juice -- in
the furnace around two-thirty in the afternoon and then have a
nap. One of the first things I did at the rink was work on my
sticks, which always kept me busy for a while. After the team
meeting, I would read the game notes in the same toilet all the
time. It didn't matter whether I had to go to the washroom or not,
I sat there until I was done reading. Then I would take the notes
and toss them into Scott Hollis's stall. After some stretching and
spending a bit of time in the trainer's room tending to the stan-
dard assortment of bumps and bruises, I'd have my coffee. Two
cream, two sugar, in a littly tiny coffee that tasted just like syrup.
You know that the rituals and superstitions don't really do any-
thing for you, but they keep you content inside, and that does a
lot for you.

I like to prepare myself mentally for all possible eventualities
in a game, including the chance that I might have to drop my
gloves against one of the other team's tough guys. In my first year
in the OHL, I was challenged to fight a lot. I held my own and did
better than I was supposed to in a lot of respects, and the follow-
ing year I wasn't challenged as much. There's a time and place for
everything, and I knew I had to pick my spots. My job was to put
the puck in the net and set up plays, not be in the penalty box. If it
was a tight game, I wasn't going to risk it. But if we were leading
6-2 with two minutes to go and I was on the ice at the same time as
the guy who's been running me all game, then that was the time
and place. Rick Cornacchia would scream at me if I got into a fight
in a close game, "Lindy, what are you doing fighting? You're let-
ting everyone down!" As soon as he said that, the guys on the
team would look at me and I felt like crawling under the bench.
On a lot of nights, I have to play a physical game or I'm not
into it. I have to bang somebody; I'm not some little freelancer
who can wheel and deal and not hit anyone. I don't perform at
that tempo. I'm the type of player who has to antagonize a little
bit. It's not a matter of playing dirty, just keeping guys alert,
letting them know where you are. Watch Mark Messier when he
loses a face-off. He lays a beating on the guy right there at the
draw, and the guy doesn't want to come in to take the next draw.
It's just the way he plays. Some people don't like it, but he wins
the next face-off. Job's done.
The tone of a game can be changed with a devastating hit. If I
try to crunch someone and I get knocked out, that's a big lift for
the other team, so I've got to make sure the other guy goes down.
And if I go down with him, that's fine, I've just got to make sure
that I get up quicker than he does. That's what it's all about. Deck
or be decked. There's a moment when you see someone charging
up the ice, and he sees you. You make eye-contact with him and
you both know that neither one of you is going to move out of the
way. I'm thinking, "All right, you're in for a ride, you're going
down. I might get hurt, but you're going to be hurt worse than I
am." You've got to think you're invincible. If you're preparing to
hit somebody, you can't be thinking that you're going to separate
a shoulder. On impact, my body flexes and I try to draw power
from my legs all the way up. It's a matter of timing; you have to
lunge at just the right moment. When everything comes together
and the other guy is sent reeling, you can just see the opposition
bench sag.
In a game against Niagara Falls last year, I hit Andy Bezeau so
hard that he went airborn and landed headfirst on the ice.
Bezeau got right up, went to his bench and then walked down the
hallway to the dressing room. He's a tough guy and he tried to
show he was all right, but everyone knew that I hurt him. All the
guys on their bench saw it, and it created enough space for me to
have a really big night. I had a hat trick in that game, including
my fiftieth goal of the season.
Apparently, I've always had a passion for the rough stuff. The
first time I ever experienced bodychecking was at a hockey school
when I was about eleven. I don't remember much about it, but
my Mom says I never touched the puck that whole scrimmage. I
just ran all over the ice throwing checks, and when my turn was
up, I would stand at the bench and scream, "Hit 'em, hit 'em."
Bon says my face was purple and my neck veins were bulging.
She was sitting there thinking, "Oh my God, this kid is whacko."
You find that you have to prove yourself at every level. When
I was fourteen I was practicing with the St. Mike's Junior B team
during my bantam year, and the other players would take shots
at me all the time. I didn't always make the most of the situation.
I'd stick them or something like that and it would escalate, but I
had to make a point. I almost got into a fight with Jeff Harding,
who was a huge eighteen-year-old and a really tough kid. I fig-
ured, "What's he going to do? Bash out my teeth? My uncle Dan's
a dentist. He can make me a new set." Some of the players might
have thought I was a little crazy, but I got their respect.
Dan Cameron also helped me cope with the rough going in
Junior B hockey. After my games at St. Mike's, I sometimes spent
an hour or so talking with Dan, who was a former Junior B coach
and then went on to coach Holland's national team for a few
years. We went out on the ice together a few times, and one of the
things he taught me was the nasties. The other players were
taking liberties with me because I was younger and I had to
learn to handle myself. It's something you don't like talking
about, but it's part of the game.
Hockey is a physical sport and fighting becomes a natural outlet
for all the on-ice aggression. You're dealing with players in the
heat of battle. What are you going to do, take them to The
People's Court and sit them in front of Judge Wapner to settle their
disputes? Judge Wapner doesn't have the time; there'd be just too
many cases for him to handle. Other than the score, fighting can
sometimes be the only way to settle matters.

End Of Chapter 7