Tie Domi - Shift Work

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Front cover and case photographs Peter Arnell

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Domi, Tie, 1969-, author Shift work / Tie Domi.

Issued in print and electronic formats.

1. Domi, Tie, 1969-. 2. Hockey playersCanadaBiography. 3. National Hockey LeagueBiography. I. Title.

GV848.5.D64A3 2015

796.962092

C2015-903850-2

C2015-903851-0

ISBN 978-1-4767-8250-8

ISBN 978-1-4767-8252-2 (ebook)

For my dad

I T WAS January 14, 1992, and I felt like I was on top of the world as I walked into Madison Square Garden. I was only twenty-two years old, but I was getting ready to play another game in what was already my second season with the New York Rangers.

The day had started off no differently than any other up to that point in my career. I got up, and the first thing I did was pour myself a bowl of Frosted Flakes. Some days I would add some chopped-up banana, but not that morningjust a bowl of Frosted Flakes to fuel me up before heading off to the rink for the morning skate.

I always sat in the corner of the dressing room at MSG. Nobody was on my left. James Patrickone of the Rangers more experienced defencemen and the sweetest guy everand I sat beside each other every practice, but on game nights it was always a different guy on my right side. The trainers and equipment managers would bring our skates, gloves, and sticks in for games at MSG from our practice rink, but no matter who was beside me, game after game, I always had that corner stall.

At morning practices, James and the older guys on the team always wanted to hear my stories from the night before. James was in his usual good mood, and as soon as I sat down, they were asking me for my stories. When I was young, I wasnt a big drinker, but we did have a lot of fun back then, and I got a kick out of making people laugh. The older guysmarried ones, especiallywould want to hear what Id been up to the night before.

After the morning skate, I headed to the hotel across from MSG for my usual pregame meal: two big bowls of pasta with chicken breasts and some bread to carb up for the game. For dessert, I always had vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce.

After Id stuffed myself full of pasta, I usually tried lying down for a pregame nap. I am really not a good sleepernever have been. And on a game day I could never rest all that much. My whole career, I was never afraid of anybody. But in the afternoon of every game day, I would find myself curled up in a ball on my bed, wide awake. I assumed it was my nerves. I was confused because I knew that I shouldnt be nervous about anything. I wasnt afraid of what I had to do, but still, there I would be most afternoons, curled up in a ball and unable to sleep. It was only years later, when I turned forty, that I found out I have a gluten intolerance. And here I was, stuffing myself with big bowls of pasta day after day. No wonder I was in so much discomfort.

Like I did most game days, I eventually gave up on getting a good nap and decided to make my way to the rink. On game nights I spent as little time at the rink as possible before the game. I would be the last guy to get there and the last to leave. Walking down the hallway to the dressing room, just like every other night, I said hello to everyone in the building. But there was one person who stood out among everyone else. One of my newest teammates just happened to be one of the games all-time greats: Mark Messier. Hed joined the team a few months earlier. As I passed by him doctoring up his sticks on my way into the dressing room, my energy level kicked up a notch.

Getting prepared for a game was a little different for me than it was for everyone else. The other guys would be thinking that they had to stop this or that guy, or that they had to keep the puck out of the net, or that they needed to score. I had to get in a mindset where I would be ready to react at any given time if an opponent took advantage of any of my teammates. I always had to be prepared to drop my gloves and do my job. Thats just the way it was, and its why I never started getting dressed until ten minutes before warm-upI didnt want to sit in the dressing room and think about fighting.

When that ten-minute mark hit, I finally started getting ready. Before I put my gear on, I jumped into my usual cold shower. As soon as the freezing water hit me, I felt myself sink into that familiar zone. The switch went on in my head and I realized what I might have to do that night. Afterward, I stepped back into the locker room and put on my equipment. No special taping or sharpening; I liked to keep things simple and straightforward.

As I laced up my skates, I looked over to see what the other guys were doing. Some of them had cups of coffee in their hands. When I was young, I never understood that habit. As an older player I drank coffee, but not when I was young and had just started playing. Back then, I didnt need anything except the opportunity to do something I love. This being the 1990s, some of those same guys swilling coffee also had cigarettes sticking out of their mouths. The league was a lot different back then.

The start of the anthem always made me even more focused. Like I did before every game, I said my usual quick prayer for my dad and grandmother after the anthem, and then crammed my helmet back on my head. Game time.

It wasnt long after the puck dropped that I realized this was going to be a special night: in the first period, I scored. That night, I was playing with Tim Kerr and John Ogrodnick, and I was lucky to even be on that line. Kerr was playing centre, and Ogrodnick was on the left wing, and both of them were fifty-goal scorers at some point in their careers. Those guys helped me get my confidence uptheir nickname for me was Little Brother. It felt good playing with them. They loved it, too, because they knew nobody was going to hit them. When I got on their line, they suddenly had a lot more room than usual to work with.

And that night in particular, in the first period, we made it count. I broke out into the neutral zone on the left wing with Kerr carrying the puck up the middle and Ogrodnick cutting across the Buffalo Sabres blue line. Kerr fed me the puck as I burst ahead, and as I crossed the blue line, I dropped a pass back to him and got a step on the Sabres defenceman as I cut towards the net. When Kerr reached the top of the circle, he ripped a wrist shot on net. Clint Malarchuk, the Sabres goalie, made a good pad save, but the puck bounced out in front of the crease. Wed caught the Sabres defence on a bad change, so when I saw that puck just sitting there, I zeroed in on it. I flew down the left wing in the clear, and before Malarchuk could get back in position, I snapped the puck under his left side into the back of the net.