Bernie Saunders - Shut Out: The Game That Did Not Love Me Black

Shut Out

Copyright 2021 by Bernard R. Saunders.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Published by Patrick Crean Editions, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

Front cover and spine photos: With permission from the NHL

FIRST EDITION

Digital Edition OCTOBER 2021 ISBN: 978-1-4434-6525-0

Version 09032021

Print ISBN: 978-1-4434-6524-3

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

Bay Adelaide Centre, East Tower

22 Adelaide Street West, 41st Floor

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

M 5 H 4 E 3

www.harpercollins.ca

constitute a continuation of this copyright page.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: Shut out : the game that did not love me black / Bernie Saunders and Barry Meisel.

Names: Saunders, Bernie, author. | Meisel, Barry, author.

Description: First edition. | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20210272872 | Canadiana (ebook) 20210272945 ISBN 9781443465243 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781443465250 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Saunders, Bernie. | LCSH: Hockey playersCanadaBiography.

CSH: Black Canadian hockey playersBiography. | LCGFT: Autobiographies.

Classification: LCC GV848.5.S28 A3 2021 | DDC 796.962092dc23

LSC / H 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For my familyespecially John and Gail, and my three amazing sons, Jonathan, Shawn and Andrew. And for all my brothers in the Bad Boys Club who fell in love with hockey the same way that John and I did.

BRS

Thank you, Neil, for blessing me with the opportunity to know and love Viktor. And thanks, Vik, for the gift of a lifetime: introducing me to the grace, friendship and beauty of Bernie.

BPM

After the game I met Bernie in the locker room. He took off his new uniform among some of the players wed grown up watching on TV, guys like Marc Tardif and Andre Dupont and new stars like the Stastny brothers, Peter and Anton.

You were fantastic out there, I said. Im so proud.

I wish you were out there with me, Bernie said.

You know I was.

FROM P LAYING H URT BY J OHN S AUNDERS, SPORTS BROADCASTER WITH ESPN/ABC AND C ITYTV (T ORONTO )

Much of this work comes from memory. I attempted to support subjective statements and many of the anecdotes with documentary evidence from press clippings or other sources. As an example, when I provide a subjective review of my play in an NHL game, I confirm that account with a press clipping from that game. I use that convention throughout the book. When press clippings were not available, I attempted to verify stories whenever practical by confirming them with the people who were involved or who were in the know. Where dialogue appears and scenes are recreated, my intention was to represent the essence of the conversation and the mood of the scene as closely as possible, but these are not intended to be construed as verbatim quotes.

G o back to the plantation, you fucking [N-word]!

It was a third-period faceoff in the Rochester War Memorial... April 6, 1980. Another day at the office, except the crowd was relentless that night because this was the regular-season finale and playoff positioning was at stake. The vitriol flowed like cheap beer. The shit started early and just did not stop.

Hey, [N-word], wheres your basketball?

The Rochester Americans and Syracuse Firebirds were a point apart for third place in the American Hockey Leagues Southern Division.

A man pounded on the glass, scratched his armpits and made monkey sounds. Ook, ook, ook, a monkey escaped from the zoo.

I had just been sent back to Syracuse after a successful four-game stint with the Quebec Nordiques, my first games in the NHL. We were one point ahead of the Amerks, so they needed to win, while we only needed to tie, to avoid finishing fourth and having to face the heavily favoured New Haven Nighthawks in the first round of the Calder Cup playoffs.

Hey, [N-word]. Why arent you picking cotton?

Sweat dripping from my forehead inside my helmet, I bent over with the shaft of my stick resting on the tops of my shin pads, anxiously waiting for play to resume. I hated stoppages in play. They were the worst parts of every game because the lone voices pierced the silence. Different rinks had different acoustics, and in many games I only heard the crowds buzz during play. But stoppages were different, like those dreaded walks onto the ice to and from the dressing room. Oh, how I hated those walks. People yelling obscenities, spitting at me, pouring beer on me, throwing things... all because of the colour of my skin.

Once in a while, I was able to chuckle to myself if I heard a clever insult or an inventive phrase. Most of the time, though, I just felt like a snake needing to shed that skin. I felt embarrassed because I knew my teammates heard the comments, and they knew I heard them, too. I always pretended not to hear, because acknowledging the verbal filth would be a sign of weakness. I would never let them know they were getting to me. But they were. The vitriol burned through to my soul. My skin, the subject of the cruelty, felt on fire.

The Amerks were up, 21, with less than a minute to go and the faceoff in the neutral zone. As the linesman approached the centremen, the 5,603 rabid fans pierced the silence and started to roar, anticipating the win. With the season at stake, Duane Rupp, our head coach, had pulled goalie Gary Carr for an extra skater and tapped our top line. Once I saw the puck drop, my mind returned to what I was born to do.

As Id done so many times, in so many games, over so many years Id spent mastering the move I copied from Guy Lafleur, I used my breakaway speed to elude my checker and accept the puck from teammate Steve West at the blue line. It took me three strides to reach the top of the right circle and unleash my patented slapshot towards the far corner of the net. The clock said there were 20 seconds to go when the puck blistered over the outstretched pad and under the helpless blocker of goalie Ed Walsh for the game-tying goal. Jubilation on our bench. Complete silence in the War Memorial.

My goal sent the game into overtime. Still tied in the final minute of OT, and again Coach Rupp put me on the ice when the Amerks pulled their goalie, desperate to score and avoid fourth place. All we needed to do was defend the tie, making this the key defensive shift of the game.

We worked the puck out of our zone and counterattacked against the six Amerks skaters. Blair Stewart fired a shot that was blocked by a defenceman, Roland Cloutier had a rebound stopped, and I freed myself in front and backhanded the second rebound into the empty net.

Winning goal. Mobbed by my teammates. Joy.

We carried the jubilation back into the dressing room, but I never enjoyed the postgame scene. I was always the sideshow, and tonight I wanted no part of a circus. I just wanted to bask in the glory of my performance and board the bus for home.