Al Strachan - Go to the Net: Eight Goals That Changed the Game

Copyright 2005 AI Strachan

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LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Strachan. Al
Go to the net : eight goals that changed the game / Al Strachan.

eISBN: 978-0-385-67373-0
1. HockeyOffense. 2. HockeyHistory. 1. Title.

GV847.S75 2005 796.9622 C2005-902535-2

Published in Canada by
Doubleday Canada, a division of
Random House of Canada Limited

Visit Random House of Canada Limiteds website: www.randomhouse.ca

v3.1

This is dedicated to the National Hockey
League players who, while not perfect,
possess more admirable qualities than any
other group of people with whom Ive ever
been associated.

CONTENTS

IT HAS OFTEN BEEN SAID THAT BASEBALL MUST BE A WONDERFUL game to withstand the people who run it.

Thats true not only of baseball.

Hockey, too, is a great gamea lot greater than baseball, in my opinion. And it has travelled a much tougher road than baseball when it comes to withstanding the impact of those who have directed its course.

Like most Canadians, I grew up with an inherent love of hockey. One of my fondest early memories is scoring on a breakaway for King Edward VII Public School in a game we won 10.

I try not to remember with the same degree of clarity that the only reason I got the breakaway was that I was so far behind the play that there was no one within thirty feet of me. And that the only reason I scored was that I fell as I approached the crease, took a wild swipe at the puck while sliding on my stomach, and somehow batted it past a goaltender who was too confused (or possibly amused) by this unorthodox approach to make the save.

In Windsor, Ontario, in those days, you were either a fan of the Toronto Maple Leafs or the Montreal Canadiens. Even though Detroit was right across the river, the Red Wings were generally viewed as the Evil Empire because they had the right to prevent the Windsor CBC-TV outlet from showing games the rest of the country was watchingand they exercised that right with disgusting regularity.

We were Detroit Tigers fans. We were Detroit Lions fans. But never the Detroit Red Wings.

I switched allegiances on a regular basis, rooting for whichever of the two Canadian-based teams was having a better season at the time. If the Leafs played the Canadiens in the playoffs, my choice that year would be determined by some long-forgotten whim.

As a hockey writer, I followed basically the same principle, but with a slight alteration: now I admired not just the best Canadian team, but the best NHL team.

Over the years, Ive been accused of being a flack for almost every team in hockeywell, not every team. Only the good onesa fact that puts the lie to the beliefs of thousands of readers who, upon seeing some criticism in print of their own favourite team, fire off nasty letters accusing me of taking this stance because I live in Toronto and am therefore in the pocket of the Leafs.

Suffice it to say, that isnt a view that would receive a lot of support from the Maple Leafs themselves. As I said, my soft spot is for NHL teams that do well.

At the time I undertook to write this book, no NHL team was doing well. The owners had locked out the players at midnight, September 15, 2004, and there was to be no major-league hockey for the foreseeable future.

Nothing could have had a more profound effect upon the society in which I exist.

The hockey world is like a village, a small community of two thousand or so people in which, to varying degrees, everyone knows everyone else.

A tragedy that affects one member affects everyone. Consider how many hockey people from all over the continent turn out for a funeral for one of their number.

The common thread, the defining characteristic, in this village is not the location in which one livesquite the contrarybut the avocation one holds.

At the core are the players. They are the elite tradesmen. Without them the lifeblood of the village would dry up. The NHL governors would be the landed gentry, the ones who own the means of livelihood. Their managers would be those same people who do that job in hockeythe general managers, coaches and assistant coaches.

The media? Well, theyre the village gossips, the ones who spread the news about who is doing what to whom, and how often.

But if youre going to make the analogy work, you have to accept the premise that there are two types of hockey media people/gossips.

There are those who cover a number of sports, whose knowledge of hockey ranges from abysmal to acceptable and who are basically visitors. They are comparable to migrant labourers who merely visit the village when their job demands it.

The other type of media person is the specialist whose life revolves around hockey and who rarely gets involved with any other sport. These are the hometown experts. Some would say theyre idiots savant, capable of rambling on about the minutiae of the game for hourseven days, weeks, months and yearson end, but incapable of intelligent discourse on any other subject. That may or may not be true. Certainly some of them come perilously close to fitting that description. But for better or worse, this is the group to which I belong.

When youre in this group, youre a genuine resident of the village. You may not be accepted as an insider by everyone, but you are certainly one of us.

You are recognized and called by name. Like any village resident, you have your detractors and your confidants. You are part of alliances that evolve and devolve over the years. You share with the other residents the inherent details of life on this planet as they relate to each otherbirths and deaths, illnesses and recoveries, marriages and divorces, joy and sorrow.

The hockey village isnt just a place to live. It is your life. You can never get away from it.

Other people go home in the evening and watch television. If you do get home at all in the eveningif youre not in an arena covering a gameyou watch hockey from cities across the continent.

Other people go out amongst society and discuss a variety of subjects. You go out and face the hockey questions of the day. In the autumn, people want to know about their favourite teams chances. In the winter, its the issue of the momenta suspension, a firing, a slump or a hot streak. In the spring, the impending playoffs are the subject du jour, as well as the cornucopia of potential trades before the deadline. In the summer, its the playoffs themselves, followed closely by the draft and the free agents.