The Commish

    

     If you grew up in Atlantic Canada in the 1950s and '60s, you were either a Montreal Canadiens fan, or you cheered for the Toronto Maple Leafs. There were some outliers in Newfoundland who went for Detroit because of local boy Alex Faulkner's presence with the Wings. A few contrarians declared for the Boston Bruins, but in the main, it was Habs versus Leafs when it came to fan loyalties.

    Eighty-two year old Don Sparkes has been a hockey player for more than seven decades. That's almost as long as he's been a Montreal Canadiens' fan. And this weekend, one of the sharpest Habs followers around will be inducted into Canada's 80-plus hockey hall of fame.

    Sparkes got started in hockey when he was a boy in Glovertown, Newfoundland in the 1950s. He knew every pond and inlet where a game of shinny might be happening. 

    "We used to play, you know, around the bay and they cleared the snow off beforehand," he recalls. "And we used our boots for goal posts and and when we were done, the boots were frozen up so we had to put them on like that."

    When indoor rinks began to appear in local communities, the game moved in to warmer environs and Sparkes drove 45 minutes out and back to play in nearby Gander two or three times a week.

    Then, finally, Glovertown got its own rink in 2000 (ironically known as one of the coldest in the province) and Sparkes stepped up to form an Oldtimers' team, for players over 50. He became the driving force behind the twice-weekly game that soon was drawing a couple of dozen seniors...enough to comfortably ice at least two sides a night. The other guys dubbed him "The Commish," short for commissioner of the league, and the name has stuck.

    Goalie Kevin Noseworthy says he loves playing with The Commish. 

    "He makes all the decisions. Just like [NHL commissioner Gary] Bettman. He organizes the social, brings the cards for Pass the Ace. Everything we do. He keeps us all alive."

    "I think what amazes me about Don is even at his age now, he gets as excited about a goal, I think, as [Washington Capitals captain] Alex Ovechkin does," said Noseworthy.

    "I just loved the play from day one, right?" Sparkes chimes in. "And to play with a bunch of good guys," he explains about his motivation in starting the Oldtimer's team. "We had a real good bunch. Never had a fight or a row or anything for 25 years and good camaraderie and things like that."

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    Even though he's played the game all his life and is The Commish in his own league, Sparkes was surprised to get a phone call from the Hall of Fame back in the summer.

    "August or July maybe this guy called me and said congratulations, Donald," he reveals. "I was surprised. And then he told me I'm going to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. I don't know if it really sunk in yet. It's unbelievable, especially from a small town like Glovertown, right?"

    So now Don, his two sons and his grandson will be heading to Whitby, Ontario for the ceremony, a banquet and a couple of exhibition games. 

    "They're Montreal fans, of course," he enthuses, although he admits things have changed dramatically since he first started cheering for the Rocket, Jean Beliveau and Boom Boom Geoffrion.

    "I went to a lot of games in Montreal years ago, and I haven't been up now for three or four years. But me and my brother used to go up on Super Bowl weekend, getting the Saturday afternoon game and the Sunday afternoon game. That was good. My first ticket was $30, bought off scalpers. The ticket was $15.00 but they they made 15 on it.  We didn't care as long as we got our ticket. But then the last time we went up I paid 200 for Saturday night and 100 for Sunday night. If you bought it from the same scalper, they give you 2 for $300."

    And the price isn't the only thing that's different these days.

    "It's a *lot* faster," he chuckles, noting that his current favourites include speedster and fellow Newfoundlander Alex Newhook, and the inimitable Lane Hutson.

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    The senior inductees will play a couple of exhibition games over the weekend, but Sparkes isn't sure he can make it into the fray. He had some health issues last year and has put his game on pause for the time being. He's still bringing his gear to Whitby though, just in case he's feeling energized enough to get on the ice.

    "Well, I've got to get my equipment out now and look it all over and make sure everything's okay and I gotta bring it. I'm supposed to bring a sweater from my own team, right? And they're going to give me a new sweater when I get there." 

    "I'm just ready to go. Yeah. You just gotta get your hockey bag and go on."

    Wise words from a sage and dedicated lifelong Canadiens fan.

Brotherly Love

   

    There's something special about brothers appearing on NHL ice together. All the childhood rivalries and support, the cuts and the triumphs they shared growing up give them a deeper layer of connection you usually don't get with ordinary teammates. 
    The first pair of brothers ever to face each other in a regular-season game were Corb (Vancouver) and Cy (Ottawa) Denneny, on December 22, 1917. The first to share a forward line on the same team were the Bentley brothers...Max, Doug and Reg...who all played in Chicago in 1943.
    In Montreal, Odie and Sprague Cleghorn played together with the Canadiens, and on January 14, 1922, each scored four goals in a 10-6 win over the Hamilton Tigers. Sprague was a big, violent defenceman who took particular displeasure with opponents who took liberties with his teammates...especially his brother. He once cross-checked Newsy Lalonde in the back of the head in retaliation for hitting Odie. Sprague was hit by a car in 1956 and died of his injuries.
    Upon his death, his brother, Odie, remarked, "He was my brother, and I don't like to boast, but I never saw a tougher or better defenceman than Sprague." Two days later, Odie died in his sleep of heart failure and was found by his sister just hours before Sprague's funeral.
    Then there were the Richard brothers; one of the most prolific brother duos in NHL history, teaming up on the Canadiens' five-straight Cup dynasty in the late fifties.
    "At first I wanted to take him in hand and give him a lesson in the facts of NHL life," Maurice recalled. "Then I decided we'd both be better off if I just left him alone. As it turned out, Henri never came to me for advice. But what kind of advice could I give him? He was a better stickhandler than I was and a better skater. He was a better all-round hockey player than me. The only difference was that he couldn't score goals the way I could. But he made up for that by becoming a terrific playmaker, which was just as important."
    And one of the more special nights in NHL brother-lore was the first time two opposing goaltenders were from the same family. On March 20, 1971, Ken (Montreal) and Dave (Buffalo) Dryden faced each other in nets, but only after a bit of coaching gamesmanship.
    "A visiting team designates its starting lineup first; Sabres coach Punch Imlach wrote Dave’s name in as his goalie," Ken remembered years later. "Al MacNeil wrote in Vachon’s. After the game’s initial stoppage in play, when Imlach was first allowed to make a change, he replaced Dave with Joe Daley. Dave and I sat on opposing benches watching the game."
    "Early in the second period, there was a scramble around our net. Vachon went down and didn’t get up. A few minutes later, he was still down. MacNeil motioned for me to go in. When Imlach saw me leave the bench, he put Dave back in the game."
    "I couldn’t get comfortable in the game. Already struggling with the sense of unreality that I’d felt since joining the team — if this is me, this can’t be the real NHL — this was worse: If this is me and Dave, this really can’t be the NHL. I felt like I was outside myself."

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    Of course, not all brother combos work out the way fans would hope. Andrei and Sergei Kostitsyn were both talented players, but both mental midgets when it came to decision-making. (A coincidence they were born in Belarus just after Chernobyl?)
    And many times, the Canadiens have featured "the other brother." Gilbert Dionne. Marcel Hossa. Jordie Benn. Bobby Joliat.
    This year the team has the privilege of employing the Xhekaj brothers to terrify all comers. The pair are huge, menacing and not bad at hockey either. It's early days, though, with Arber still trying to cement his place on the full-time NHL roster and Florian just breaking in. The potential for magnificent destruction is there if they can harness it consistently.
    In preseason, we got to see Nick Suzuki face off against his brother Ryan when Montreal faced Ottawa. 
    "I took the opening faceoff against him and I cleaned him up," Nick couldn't help but recalling, with a laugh. "Later in the game, we were each skating to our own benches and I took the chance to give him a little slash on the shin pads. The referee saw me do it and decided to give me a penalty. I was pretty frustrated. I told the ref, 'You know that's my brother?' and he replied 'I don't care!' and he sent me to the penalty box. I was frustrated, but it was pretty funny."

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    Now, tonight, it's Lane Hutson's turn. His younger brother Cole cracked the Washington Capitals roster last spring and is now into his first full NHL season. And this matchup promises to be special. Lane is already a Calder Trophy winner and finished fourth in Norris Trophy voting last season. He's launched this year with a point-a-game average.
    On the other side, Cole is drawing attention for his own play. While not yet piling up the points like his big brother, the pundits are comparing his skating and vision to Lane's. Both players are attempting to be low-key about their first-ever game against each other, but their dad knows what's under the surface. 

    "I’m pretty positive that whoever doesn't win is not going to be happy,” Rob Hutson said. “And when I say not happy, they're going to really not be happy. But, at the same time, some time will go by, and they’ll be fine. But there's always going to be that live-in-the-now of like, ‘Hey, I beat you last time.’

    Whatever happens tonight, fans will have the fun of watching two up-and-coming young stars who just happen to be siblings. Fifty-five years ago, when it was Dryden versus Dryden the two players did what needed to be done on the ice, then, in the end, went back to just being brothers.

    "When that first game in Montreal was over, I skated toward the boards to get off the ice," Dryden wrote about that matchup.  "But Dave knew something I didn’t. He skated past center directly into my line, and we did what hockey players don’t do at the end of a game: We shook hands. I have two pictures on my wall from my time with the Canadiens. This is one of them."

    Hopefully, the Hutsons will one day have a similar photo on their own wall. After all, brothers don't get to be NHL colleagues very often.

Culture Club

    

    When you listen to Martin St.Louis talk about his team, a few phrases come up over and over again. "Play the game in front of you." "The league doesn't care." "Success is temporary but character is forever." Out of all the Martyisms though, perhaps the most frequent reference he makes is to the team's culture.

    A strong culture is the foundation of success, according to St‑Louis. “You can have the best players, but if your team doesn’t have a good culture, you’re only going to get small pockets of success,” he says.

    "Culture" is a small word with a complicated meaning.

    Merriam-Webster says it's "the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution or organization." Thomas Wolfe wrote "Culture is the arts, elevated to a set of beliefs."

    A few years ago, world-renowned expert in social psychology and communication, Helen Spencer-Oatey, published a paper called "What is Culture?" in an attempt to define what can be a fairly abstract concept.

    "Culture is a fuzzy set of basic assumptions and values, orientations to life, beliefs, policies, procedures and behavioural conventions that are shared by a group of people, and that influence (but not determine) each member's behaviour and his interpretations of the 'meaning' of other people's behaviour," she writes. Clear as mud, right?

    She goes on to define culture by explaining its characteristics. 

    "There are three fundamental levels at which culture manifests itself," she writes. "Observable artifacts, values and basic underlying assumptions. When one enters an organization, one observes and feels its artifacts. That's everything from the dress code, the manner in which people address each other, the smell and feel of the place and its emotional intensity." Okay...now we're getting somewhere.

    If we apply that understanding of what culture is, we start to get a picture of what St.Louis means when he uses the term. The Bell Centre itself is an artifact, and is filled with the evidence of more than a century of accomplishment. The dress code is the uniform in its simple, iconic pattern. We see the way the players address each other with sibling-like affection and we start to understand.

    

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    Then Spencer-Oatey gets into the heart of what culture is for the Canadiens. She says culture isn't instinctive. It's learned. 

    "Culture is learned from the people you interact with as you are socialized into a new group," she explains. "Culture is also taught by the explanations people receive for the natural and human events around them."

    In this case, it's learned from a teacher...St.Louis...who brings his own values to the group and insists his players adopt them. 

    He says in his view, culture is based on three main things. First, respect. 

    "That’s the starting point. You have to treat everyone equally," he stresses. "Whether it’s the young player earning $7 million or the guy washing the equipment."

    Next comes accountability to the team. "You have a job to do." By that, he means every person's role is important to the success of the group and because of that, each player must perform not only for himself, but for the others in the room who are depending on him to do his job.

    Finally, enthusiasm. "For me, coming to the arena in the morning after a loss, when you got blasted by reporters the day before, and working hard on the ice, is enthusiasm."

    So, in St.Louis' mind, and therefore in the minds of his players, the Canadiens culture is a combination of those three main elements. Add to them the coach/philosopher's insistence on hard work, listening and commitment and the picture of what he means by "culture" becomes clearer.

    He believes that if a team has talent and buys into the concept, it will have more consistent success; not just the sporadic runs we've seen fizzle over the years. 

    So, next time we hear St.Louis talk about his team's culture, we'll know what he means.