Chapter 1: The Transcona Kid 1 THE TRANSCONA KID
I AM SERIOUS WHEN I say that sports is an obsession. To some, being obsessed with something can be viewed as being unhealthy. However, to me, sports has been my life for as long as I can remember. I have been hooked on sports since I was a young kid growing up on the cold Canadian prairie in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

How did this love affair with sports begin? Was it was somehow embedded in my DNA, or passed along at a young age? I would probably say that neither was the case. The more likely reality is that I didn’t find sports—sports found me in the 1960s in a sleepy, yet quirky little suburb in the east end of Winnipeg called Transcona. Known as the Park City because of the abundance of green space, it had a bigger reputation because of its history with the national railways, including the National Transcontinental Railway, which gave the town its name. Everyone, it seemed, worked for the railway or at least knew someone who did. Transconians worked hard and they played even harder.

For whatever reason, Transcona was also endlessly suburb-shamed by people who lived in other regions of the city. Some mockingly referred to it as “Trash-cona,” as it wasn’t exactly high on the economic scale, or they called it “Flamingo City,” since a lot of houses in the area displayed plastic pink flamingos on their front lawns. That flamingo lingo has been part of Transcona lore for decades. Despite all the trash talk, Transcona was and always will be one thing to me: home.

It was my neighbourhood. It’s where I grew up, made friends, went to school, played games, got my first job—and, more than anything, learned to dream.

Like many kids, I dreamed of being a pro athlete. The goal was to become a hockey player like my father, who was born with the given names Henry John, but to everyone he met was forever known as Jack. Yep, that’s right, Jack Black, who, decades before a Hollywood actor made that name famous, was a junior hockey star in Flin Flon, Manitoba, and earned a tryout with the New York Rangers.

Unfortunately, debilitating knee injuries and bad timing ended his pro career before it started, but he never looked back with regret. He did keep some scrapbooks of his hockey memories, but he hid them in the bottom drawer of a dusty dresser and rarely, if ever, brought them out. He wasn’t someone who bragged about his playing days, but it was clear from the pictures, old newspaper articles, and write-ups that “BlackJack,” as he was nicknamed, was a big deal and had a legitimate shot to make the NHL. And while he didn’t get an opportunity to live out that dream, my dad never lost his love of the game and passed that passion down to me and my younger brothers, Derrick, Sean, and Ryan. He never made it to the big leagues, but make no mistake: Jack Black was my first true sports hero.

My dad was my coach growing up. He did the typical parent thing and drove us all around to rinks. My dad coached me for a couple of years, then he moved on and coached my younger brothers. He was big on volunteering, and he did a lot of stuff in the community. My dad wasn’t one of these parents who pushed sports on you. When we were growing up in Winnipeg in the 1960s and 1970s, playing sports was just part of the culture. Everybody was outside all the time, playing some sort of sport, and we mainly learned how to play on our own. Growing up, we were outside playing, morning, noon, and night. I was lucky enough to be in a neighbourhood that had so many kids. We would arrange games every day and we even kept stats! Invariably, there would be some fight that would happen, mainly brothers against brothers. But the next day, we would all be there, and we would all get back to playing.

Dad was an everyday hero, too. A friend to anyone he met. The only issue he had: The dude just loved to talk—to everyone, everywhere, anytime. He talked and talked and talked (I guess the apple doesn’t fall far). He even talked in his sleep, but he never, ever talked about himself, and what I admired most was how much he listened and how much he cared.

He cared mostly about his family and then his community. He became a local coach, a volunteer for charities, and a champion of first aid, where he saved lives and received a Governor General’s Medal.

Before my dad became the safety coordinator for the Manitoba Highways, he worked down the street from our house at a construction company called BACM, which in the early 1970s had an ownership stake in the Winnipeg Jets of the new World Hockey Association.

That wasn’t my dad’s favourite job, but it soon became mine—as in gold mine. As a valued employee, he got tickets to almost every single Jets game, and we in turn got great seats to see so many of hockey’s biggest names who had made the jump over to the WHA.

I was too young to know the impact that this new rebel league would have, and at the time, I honestly didn’t care. All I wanted to do was see all those familiar stars that I had watched on Hockey Night in Canada. That’s where my dream began. Every Saturday night, I was transfixed by the black-and-white TV set in our living room, cheering and hoping that someday I might be the next Jean Béliveau, Gordie Howe, Bobby Orr, or Bobby Hull, who just happened to be my favourite.

Yep, to me, Bobby Hull was a hockey god. So, you can imagine my nine-year-old excitement when my dad, at the dinner table on June 26, 1972, told me that he had heard a rumour in his workplace that the man nicknamed “The Golden Jet” was about to leave the NHL’s Chicago Blackhawks to sign with the Winnipeg Jets. My dad looked at me and said, “Apparently, Bobby Hull is flying in tomorrow and then coming to BACM before he heads over to Portage and Main [the most famous intersection in Winnipeg] to sign the richest deal in hockey history.”

I remember that moment just like yesterday. My dad looked at me sternly with his dark eyes squinting, and then, breaking into a little grin, added, “Whatever you do, keep it a secret.”

I didn’t know what to think. At first, I thought he was joking, but why would he joke about that? I couldn’t believe what I had just heard. I wanted to jump out of my chair and scream to the moon, but I held it together because I suddenly had a plan.

I quietly nodded to my dad, scoffed down my Kraft Dinner, left the table, and then sprinted to my younger brother Derrick’s room, shut the door, and put a finger to my mouth.

“Shh… listen, I got some big news,” I breathlessly whispered to Derrick, who was only seven years old at the time and, like me, was absolutely infatuated with hockey. “You are not going to believe this. Dad just told me that Bobby Hull is coming… to Winnipeg… tomorrow… to sign with the Jets… and he’s going… to Dad’s work.”

Derrick looked at me like I was an alien… but then, in unison, we started jumping up and down like we had just won the Stanley Cup—or at least the Bobby Hull Cup. When we stopped celebrating, I grabbed him with both hands and said, “Listen, we can’t tell anyone. Put your pyjamas on. Go to bed and I will wake you up bright and early.”

He looked at me quizzically. “Why?”

I looked back towards the door, and, in an even lower whisper, told him, “Why? Because we are going to see Bobby Hull.”

I slowly crept back to my room, where I set my alarm clock for 6 a.m.—but that really didn’t matter because I don’t think I even went to sleep. I was so jacked.

When morning came, I tiptoed back to Derrick’s room to wake him up. I made sure that our parents and baby brother, Sean, were still sleeping as we quickly got some clothes together, grabbed our baseball gloves, and made some peanut butter sandwiches to take with us. I threw all our supplies for the “Bobby Hull Mission” into a bag I attached to the end of a stick, like Tom Sawyer, and out the door we went.

The sun was just peeking over the horizon as we made our way down the back lane of our street—Ravelston Avenue West. There we were, two cute but nervous little hockey fan fugitives, hand in hand, big brother trying to console his little brother, who had tears in his eyes because he thought we were “running away from home.”

“No,” I assured him. “We are ‘walking away from home’—to meet Bobby Hull.”

When we got to my dad’s work, the parking lot was empty and the doors to reception were locked, since we had arrived a few hours before the offices opened. It was early, but it was already smoking hot outside, and I was starting to sweat even more when I realized that I might have screwed up the timing of our adventure.

I wouldn’t have worried if I had been by myself, but I had Derrick with me, and he was getting more and more distressed knowing that we were going to be in big trouble when our parents woke up and found out we weren’t in our beds.

So, I did what any good big brother would do. I played the distraction game. I took him on a tour around the office buildings to see the trucks and machinery. We got our ball gloves out and played catch. We sang songs. We played rock paper scissors. We looked for four-leaf clovers. We had a picnic and ate our sandwiches.

Then, around eight thirty, just when we had run out of food and I was running out of games to play, cars started to pull into the parking lot and people started arriving for work. Quickly, we both lunged into surveillance mode, finding a perfect hiding spot just outside the reception area.

Our operation was twofold: First, to keep our eyes out for any Golden Jet sightings, and second—and maybe more importantly—make sure we didn’t bump into our dad, who we knew would go ballistic, derail our mission, and likely send us home with sore butts.

So, we both ducked down and waited… and waited. One hour became two, two became three, and as the sun kept beating down on us, I was starting to seriously worry. Still no luck, still no Bobby, and Derrick at this point was losing it.

“Please, I just wanna go home,” he cried.

Finally, just after noon, I decided to listen to him and abort the mission. Holding back tears, I picked up the backpack and started to head home. I don’t know what made me more upset: the fact that we didn’t get a chance to see one of my hockey heroes or the fact that my dad had let us down—and, even worse, lied to me.

That’s when the big corporate doors suddenly opened, and a very nice receptionist beckoned us to come inside out of the heat and grab some water. Unbeknownst to us, she had been watching us all morning, making certain that we were staying out of trouble.

Hesitantly, we walked inside, sat down on the lobby couch, and grabbed our glasses of water. Then—whoosh—a side door burst open and in walked a couple of older gentleman in suits, followed right behind by…

My hockey god—Bobby Hull, right there in front of me, and I absolutely couldn’t believe it.

(Now, I would be overdramatizing it if I said there was a bright light and some heavenly entrance music, but back in 1972, in a nine-year-old’s impressionable mind, it certainly seemed like that was the case.)

I don’t remember exactly what happened next, since I was frozen in shock, but I do recall that he came over, shook our hands, sat down, and talked with us for about twenty minutes. I couldn’t stop staring at him. His blond hair, blue eyes, and big smile framing the battle scars over his chiselled face. He looked exactly like his hockey card.

That’s when another door opened from the employee side of the lobby and in walked… my dad, who looked like he was ready to kill someone until he realized who we were sitting with.

My dad’s face brightened as he walked over, shook Bobby’s hand, told him that we were his sons and that we had been waiting all day long to meet him. Bobby laughed and signed some autographs, including a four-by-six-foot piece of plywood that he inscribed to our whole family.

I was so nervous meeting Bobby Hull. I asked him, “How do I improve my slapshot?” He looked at me, and in his gravelly voice he said, “You don’t! You want a great wrist shot, kid. Make sure you have a great wrist shot.” Then he said, “I hope to see you at the Jets games and see you at the arena.”

Years later, when I was in broadcasting, I had a chance to work with him. I wore the number 9 in hockey because of him. I thought Bobby Hull was the ultimate hockey hero. He lit up every room he was in. And he never shied away from an autograph seeker, and he never denied anyone an autograph. Bobby had his faults, and he had his demons off the ice. Near the end of his life, even after all of the negative stories that had come out, I would watch Bobby Hull walk into a room at an event and people would line up to see him.

Looking back, I really wish the cellphone had been invented at that time, because Bobby and I would have taken the best selfie ever, but the next-best thing was that piece of plywood that would end up hanging on a garage wall fifty years later.

That day was so memorable for so many reasons.

I’ll never forget that feeling of fulfillment from seeing a plan come together, the thrill of meeting someone you idolized and realizing that that person is as human as you are—a fact that was really crystallized for me a few years later, when I got a chance to work alongside Bobby and started to discover his shortcomings. Yes, he lit up every room he entered—but he also had a serious dark side, including some anger management and domestic abuse issues that made headlines everywhere and tarnished his so-called golden image. To this day, I’ve had a difficult time processing how my boyhood hero could be so seriously flawed, but the best lesson learned was that even those you worship can disappoint you.

I’ll also never forget how Derrick and I got into so much trouble when we finally got home and had to face the music. It wasn’t pretty for both of us, especially when we found out that the police had been called and there was an APB out for two runaway boys in West Transcona. Oops.

But the biggest memory I cherish of that day is the look on my father’s face when he saw us in that lobby. In one moment, he was steamed, absolutely infuriated with us, but then, only a moment later, his mood had changed completely—not because Bobby Hull was sitting there, but because he was so proud that his boys would have the balls to do something so crazy, yet so cool.

I knew right then that my dad would always be my true hero, but I also came to the realization that the guy who talked too much would never tell me a secret again. Dad took me to a lot of Jets games during their WHA days. One of the proudest moments I had with my dad took place during this era. I knew he was a good hockey player, and we had a scrapbook at the house. One time, BACM had a charity game against the police all-stars. Bobby Hull had practised earlier and then joined Dad and the BACM team for the game. My dad was playing with Bobby Hull! I was never so proud of him.

While my father was the goal scorer and captain of “Team Black,” it was our mother, Bonnie, who was the stay-at-home defenceman. She was an amazing mom. She was a beautiful lady, incredibly compassionate, with an infectiously boisterous giggle that set decibel records.

Bonnie was kind and she had a heart of gold, but she was also stubborn, feisty, and fiercely loyal. If you pissed her off, or if anyone said something about one of her boys or someone in her family, her Irish blood would boil and blue flames would shoot from her aqua-blue eyes. Just ask a few local referees and umpires who felt the wrath of Bonnie. If she didn’t like a call, she either let them know right away or confronted them after the game and gave them an earful.

In her mind, her boys could do no wrong—even though we often did.

Bonnie would also be the voice we heard—in fact, the whole street heard—at dinnertime, or as we called it, supper hour. Almost every day of the year, we would be outside, playing road hockey, baseball, or football, when the clock approached 6 p.m. Suddenly, my mom would appear on her front step and scream at the top of her lungs, “ROD, DERRICK, SEAN… BOYS… SUPPER!”

And that was it—game was over. No overtime or extra innings. We’d bust our asses to get to the dinner table, stuff our faces, sometimes slip the food we didn’t like to our dog, and then scurry back out into the street or onto the field to finish the game before sunset and the inevitable second appearance of Bonnie, who would then scream, “ROD, DERRICK, SEAN… BOYS… BEDTIME!”

My mom had a kind heart and, more than anyone, taught me about the importance of giving back to the community. She loved kids in general, not just her own. My mom was big on keeping everyone together and keeping the family together. Every Sunday, she made sure that we were all together. My mom was a professional mother. Everything she did was geared towards the kids and the house. We didn’t have much growing up, but what we did have, we all had the same. My mom was insistent on fairness. If one person got something, nobody else could get more. She also hated bullies, and my mom was a real character. Later in life, when I was older, I really understood her attitude about fairness and why she did what she did. Even though my brothers and I went our separate ways later in life, I think we are all still close. That is all because of the lessons our mom taught us.

We lived a simple life, managing to squeeze six bodies into a small house in a modest lower-income neighbourhood, and we never complained. No fancy cars. No fancy clothes. No fancy anything. We were far from wealthy, but man, we were rich because we all had each other and our parents. Through the best of times and worst, our mom and dad were our constant guiding lights.

Mom and Dad taught us right from wrong, emphasized academics before athletics, and made us understand that family always came first. They could be doting and overprotective at times, and while I often hated the Black “shield” they put up around us while we were growing up, I’m so glad they did, because we always felt safe and we knew they had our backs. They never stood in our way in pursuit of our individual dreams. They were never judgmental, nor did they push us in a direction we never wanted to go. Like most great parents, they took time to listen and genuinely gave good, sound advice, but whatever we believed in, they believed in, and they encouraged us to reach for the stars.

Those stars, however, seemed galaxies away when I was that impressionable kid in Transcona. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe in my dreams. It’s just that I had so many of them.

I loved every sport, and I tried to play them all. I would watch games or events on TV and immediately go outside and replay what I just saw—or pretend that I was playing in those games, that it was me who was scoring the winning goal for Canada, like Paul Henderson did on my tenth birthday (September 28) in the 1972 Summit Series. Or that I was Reggie Jackson or Pete Rose winning a World Series, or perhaps Canadian quarterback Russ Jackson capturing the CFL’s Grey Cup. I had so many games going on in my head, I soon started to hear voices.

Voices like the announcers I heard on the TV and radio. Legends like Foster Hewitt, Danny Gallivan, Vin Scully, Howard Cosell, Don Chevrier, Johnny Esaw, and so many more. I would mimic their voices, not because I wanted to be like them, but because they were suddenly doing play-by-play in the theatre of my mind while I was play-dreaming. Whatever sport, whatever game, and whatever day—these voices lived in my head rent-free.

Night after night in the frosty winter, I would put my skates on at home and then glide down our back lane to the outdoor rink, where I would freeze my ass off taking shot after shot, the ice cracking under my feet, snot streaming out of my nose, skating lap after lap under the light of a Winnipeg moon.

Just me, myself, and all my announcer friends.

“There’s Orr, over to Hull, over to Béliveau, back to Black—there’s a cannonading shot,” I would shout out in my best Gallivan before morphing into a Foster: “HE SHOOTS—HE SCORES!!!” I would be out there for hours and hours, but it didn’t seem like it. That’s because time flies when you’re playing games in your mind. I also had one rule: My imaginary buzzer would sound only if one of my favourite players scored in overtime or my toes were burning from frostbite. Whatever came first. That’s when I’d take my stick and puck and skate all the way back home, celebrating another victory.

It may sound like crazy stuff, but I did that almost every day with every sport. I’d be on the rink, in the field, on the diamond, or in the street and I’d find my special place, tune in to the broadcast booth in my brain, and then do what every kid should be able do—play and dream.

The voices would subside as I got to my teenage years, but my insatiable love for all things sport never dissipated. Little did I realize that those impromptu imaginary games would be invaluable practice sessions aiding me in my pursuit of becoming a better athlete. The more games I played, the more I developed and the more success I had in whatever sport I transitioned to.

But with all that came a big negative. By playing so many different sports for so many different teams, I barely had time for anything else. It was a whirlwind that made it extremely difficult for my parents to manage the schedules, especially when there were inevitable conflicts. From hockey, baseball, football, and lacrosse to school sports like basketball and volleyball, not to mention tennis and golf tournaments—it was insanely wonderful. I lived in a blur.

I was so gloriously intoxicated with the circus of sports that I don’t think I even considered the importance of winter, spring, summer, or fall. To the young me at that time, the changing of the seasons only meant one thing—a game change. Trade your skates for sneakers, your helmet for a cap, a puck for a ball, put on a different uniform, and let’s get right back on the roller coaster to keep the dream alive.

Funny thing is, I was starting to find that my own voice, and my career path in sports would soon steamroll in a straight line, only towards a different profession—one I really didn’t see coming.