Jamie McLennan - The Best Seat in the House: Stories from the NHL—Inside the Room, on the Iceand on the Bench

Copyright 2012 by Jamie McLennan and Ian Mendes

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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data

McLennan, Jamie, 1971

The best seat in the house : stories from the NHLinside the room, on the ice...and on the bench / Jamie McLennan with Ian Mendes.

Includes index.

Issued also in electronic formats.

ISBN 978-1-118-30253-8

1. McLennan, Jamie, 1971-. 2. Hockey goalkeepersCanadaBiography. 3. Hockey playersCanadaBiography. I. Mendes, Ian, 1976- II. Title.

GV848.5.M25A3 2012 796.962092 C2012-902844-4

ISBN 9781118304815 (eBk); 9781118304822 (eBk); 9781118304839 (eBk)

Production Credits

Cover design: Adrian So

Cover photo credits:

Front cover: Ian Tomlinson/Getty Images

Back cover: Jamie McLennan photo: Geoff George Photography Ian Mendes photo: Sonia Mendes

Interior text design: Thomson Digital

Typesetter: Thomson Digital

John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd.

6045 Freemont Blvd.

Mississauga, Ontario

L5R 4J3

www.wiley.com

To my mom, Darlene, and dad, Stuart, brothers Darin and David and their respective wives and kids, thank you for always being there through the ups and downs of this ride. Lastly, but mostly, to my loves Steph and Bumbo, for making me happy and completing my life, thank you.

Mace, you are gone but never forgotten.

Merrily, merrily.... Life is but a dream.

Jamie

My writing career is a perfect blend of my mother's love for education and my father's passion for sports. To my mom, Phoebe, and my dad, Ashley, thank you for laying the foundation in my life. To my wife Sonia, your continued love and support allow me to live the dream of being both a father and a sports journalist. You will always be the best thing in my life.

Ian

Foreword

By Jarome Iginla

I could suggest a few other titles for Jamie's book but The Best Seat in the House certainly suits this guy's career. Miikka Kiprusoff believes he should have called it The Guy Who Slashed Franzen. That came from Jamie's final game in the NHL. Six teams over 11 seasons and the most attention he received was in his final game, when he two-handed Johan Franzen and was suspended for five games. He served one and then retired. Yup, what a way to go out! Seriously though, that one incident speaks to his dedication and loyalty to his team in his role as a backup to Kipper in Calgary.

I won't ruin the rest of the story for you; besides laughing your butt off, you'll understand what I mean. Whether appearing in one of his 254 NHL games or taking the last seat at the end of the bench, Noodles played a very valuable role on every team he played with. If you look up the definition of team guy you'll find Jamie's picture. Actually, there are several words that also have his picture by them but might still get him in trouble if I reveal them. Nobody was ever better in the room then Jamie (maybe he should have stayed in the room). Through a great sense of humor, relentless pranks, constant chatter and chirping and a true feel for what the team needed in every situation, Noodles will always be remembered as a great teammate. He remains one of my closest friends and I cherish the time we find to spend together. I hope you enjoy reading his book as much as I did. Only he could get away with telling these stories.

Jarome Iginla

Foreword

By Roberto Luongo

Noodles was one of the friendliest, most down to earth, funniest teammates I've had the privilege to play with in my entire NHL career. From the moment I met him he made me feel at ease and I felt that he was very approachable. To this day we are still very good friends and keep in touch on a regular basis.

In the short period of time that we played together I learned a lot from him by the way he handles himself on and off the ice. He always looked like he was having fun at the rink and I think that is a major factor in being a great teammate. The fact that he has a huge heart and really cares about the game and his teammates so much is what makes him the most popular guy in the dressing room every year! His sense of humor is uncanny as everyone could tell in that video that we made for TSN. Here's to great success with this book!

Roberto Luongo

Acknowledgments

Ian and I would like to thank the many people who helped us complete The Best Seat in the House . First of all, to our literary agent, Brian Wood, for bringing us together to work on this project. A huge thanks as well to Karen Milner, Elizabeth McCurdy and the editorial and production teams at Wiley, for helping us polish the manuscript. We would also like to thank Sportsnet and TSN for their support and professionalism during this process. We would like to acknowledge the significant contribution from both Jarome Iginla and Roberto Luongo in writing the forwards for this book. Also, we would like to thank the following people for allowing us to share some unique stories: Chris Pronger, Miikka Kirpusoff, Darryl Sutter, Chad Kroeger, Grant Fuhr, Ron Hextall, Rhett Warrener, Jimmy Roberts, Billy Smith, Wendel Clark and many other teammates who were a part of this fun behind-the-scenes look. I would also like to thank the many teammates and organizations that I played for and with over the years and who always had my back and made this journey so enjoyable.

To my lifelong friends: Degs, Prongs, Moby, Yoely, Larue, Senny, Lums, Struds, Nasher, Holly, Iggy, Hanlon, Billy R, Leather, Foster, Bobo, Young Joseph, Jammer, Robyn, Rhettro, Kipper, Joshua Morrow, Louie, Marty the one man party, Greenie, Dion, Lombo, Ference, Chuck K, Commie, Chad, Mike, Ryan, Daniel, Chief and Brad (Nickelback), Tyler, Dean, Dave and Joe (Theory), and to Tanya and the boys and anyone else I have forgotten to include on this list, you guys have made me what I am today and I can never thank you enough.

And of course, we would like to point out that some of the names in this book were changed to protect the innocent and not-so-innocent.

Preface

When you reach your 40th birthday, it seems like a natural time to pause and reflect on life up to that point. I hit that milestone in the summer of 2011 and spent a good deal of time looking in my personal rearview mirror.

I sometimes laugh to myself because I considered myself the Forrest Gump of the National Hockey League: I always felt like I was in the background of a lot of memorable moments. When I got called up to the NHL as a rookie, I ended up voting to go on a players' strike just 24 hours into my career. I always seemed to be in the right place at the right timeor the wrong place, depending on how you look at it.

Nobody is likely to remember this, but I was actually Mark Messier's teammate with the Rangers when he played his final game in the National Hockey League. I was also there the night Mario Lemieux scored his 500th career NHL goalbut thankfully it was Tommy Soderstrom who was in net against the Penguins for that game. When Al Arbour reached a couple of major coaching milestones in his final season with the New York Islanders, Yours Truly was just a few feet down from him on the bench.