An Amaysingly Unique Hockey life

By James J. Mays

This book captures life in hockey in the small-town arenas across our country, from five-year-old kids to all-time hockey legends, from the everyday to some of the most memorable moments in our hockey history through the eyes of an administrator, father, instructor, referee, and fan. They are unbelievable stories of unbelievable people who display the good, the bad and the ugly of the game of hockey.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Dec 9, 2020
• ISBN: 9780228842293

James J. Mays

James Mays has enjoyed a life in hockey like no other, from his first game as a six-year-old to his time as a Hockey Canada board member. He has seen it all, on a level that most people live through but never really take notice of, from the outdoor rinks of Saskatchewan to the Montreal Forum, the places and people that made for an amazing hockey life.

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Copyright © 2020 by James J. Mays

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Tellwell Talent

www.tellwell.ca

ISBN

978-0-2288-4228-6 (Hardcover)

978-0-2288-4227-9 (Paperback)

978-0-2288-4229-3 (eBook)

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 - My Early Years. And My Insignificant Hockey Career

Chapter 2 - Officiating, Starting Out

Chapter 3 - Another Step

Chapter 4 - A Bigger Stage Leads to Better Stories, That’s All

Chapter 5 - Junior Hockey

Chapter 6 - Saskatchewan Hockey Association

Chapter 7 - Hockey Canada What A Wonderful Beast

Chapter 8 - Hockey Canada Memories… at the Rink, Events, Parties!

Chapter 9 - Hockey Canada/IIHF Tournaments

Chapter 10 - Hockey Canada -- Great National Championships

Chapter 11 - Special Events, In Special Places

Chapter 12 - How Lucky Was I to Meet These People

Chapter 13 - There’s Always Tragedy

Chapter 14 - Minor Hockey, Some Really Good People

Chapter 15 - March 13, 2020, The Day Hockey Stood Still

Chapter 16 - The Other Side Of Minor Hockey. Nqr Parents Or, You Can’t Fix Stupid!

Chapter 17 - Guys I’d Go to War With

Chapter 18 - These Guys are Just Flat Out Special

Chapter 19 - Family

Chapter 20 - My Hero

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Introduction

As I stood and looked up at the structure in front of me, the ceiling, the beams, it looked Cathedral like, almost religious.

The majesty of the beams and the way they came together above the ice, how were they constructed? The building had to be 80 years old, how were people able to put the massive beams in place that long ago?

The banners that proudly display successes over the years hanging from each side of the roof in perfect symmetry.

The evening was uncharacteristically warm for late December which only added to the effect, as the fresh flood wasn’t freezing right away which made the ice glisten even more than new ice normally would.

From rink side I looked back towards the glass enclosed seating area that every smalltown arena has. The wooden bleachers looked like church pews, for all I know they may have actually been in a church at some point.

It looked like everyone in town was there on this Friday night, parents, grandparents, school friends and the people from town who just wanted, no, had, to be there. They were there because they didn’t want to miss anything that might happen in the game, and also they couldn’t afford to miss out on any hot gossip.

At first glance one would think this must have been an important game, maybe playoffs, but it was a regularly scheduled league game of no more importance than any other, well maybe to the Midget boys playing it was a little more important and of course always nice to win.

Authors Interruption– I forgot I can’t use the word Midget anymore, Shit! I’ll try to remember that.

Moving inside I overheard the conversations, how are the kids? How’s work? Is that crazy prick Larry still living on your acreage? Nothing about hockey, I guess you could talk about that once the game was actually on.

And the unmistakable smell of the smalltown rink, onions on the grill and popcorn. The sign over the counter saying, Best Poutine in Saskatchewan although every rink probably proclaimed that.

As I drank this all in I realized what I heard many times but never really understood until now, this really was a religion to us in Canada. Not to ever belittle the relationship with Church, but this was a church of a different kind and many of us held the Hockey version in just as a high a regard.

With every staunch religion there is a driving passion and Hockey is no different.

The passion that drives us to be at rinks like this from one end of the country to the other night after night, can never be dismissed. Hockey and passion go hand in hand way more than we could ever imagine.

Passion for the game of hockey is both wonderful yet incredibly destructive, as you will read throughout these pages it drives one to incredible accomplishments yet will drive a perfectly sane individual to act absolutely mental in a public place over something as trivial as a missed offside call.

Hockey the game and especially great organizations such as Hockey Canada or any of the Provincial branches within, have harnessed that passion from individuals and used it to enhance their success.

So now that we have laid the groundwork, the religious base, the cathedral like structures and the people, the crazy wonderful passionate, people. I can start to relate the experiences of one single individual (me) over the past half century.

What qualifies me to do this….nothing… other than I’ve experienced every aspect of this crazy game. Player, I played every position, none, very good. Official, I officiated over 2800 games at levels from squirt to Major Junior. Parent, I had 3 kids who played and officiated the game at various times, so I ended up Coaching and managing teams for their sake. Administration, I served on many different levels for many different organizations, from being a volunteer with a local community club to sitting as an advisor to the board of Hockey Canada. I have facilitated hundreds of clinics on both the coaching and officiating side of the game, and I have had full-time hockey jobs in my lifetime.

I have travelled this entire country and seen hundreds of different rinks in hundreds of different towns and cities, witnessed the game at every level from top to bottom, and oh yea, met thousands of people. Those people are really what this book is about, the good the bad the ugly, the crazy, the serious and the FUNNY, FUNNY things that happen in and around a hockey rink. And how I was lucky enough to be involved.

Chapter 1

My Early Years. And My Insignificant Hockey Career

Growing up in a small area of Prince Albert called Hazeldell was perfect, Hazeldell was three square blocks, maybe about 80 houses in total, yet we had everything a kid could ever want, including a skating rink with lights and a warm-up shack which came in handy when it was -30.

It amazes me as I look back on it now that we had enough kids in the same age group to have our own hockey teams in the Prince Albert Kinsmen Hockey league. Nowadays it takes 4 or 5 towns to sometimes form a single team. Back in those days everyone played hockey, and we all played every day.

The school bus would pick us up in front of Smith’s grocery store every morning, and drop us off there every day in the summer, but in the winter the bus driver knew we got dropped off in front of the rink a couple of blocks away. We had left our skates in the shack and threw down our books and threw on our skates, and we would play until the lights went out at around 9:00, then it was home for late supper and bed. Every winter day no matter what the temperature. On Saturday and Sunday, it just meant we had longer days, no school and more time at the rink. If it snowed everyone grabbed a shovel. Funny how we would grab a shovel willingly at the rink but protest vehemently when asked to shovel the walk or driveway at home.

It didn’t matter how old you were, you played, if you were 7 or 15, we threw our sticks in and played. We also didn’t seem to know or care if you were white, native, boy or girl. Many of the kids were native and the best player was a girl Carol Karasuik, and she was also probably the toughest. New kids to the neighborhood simply had to show up with skates and a stick and they were in.

For the most part we got along, sure we disagreed at times, was the puck in or not, what was actually the score, but usually nothing phased us or affected the game. As I recall our biggest arguments were who had to go over the boards and into the snowbank to look for the puck.

One day one of the best players in the neighborhood, Keith Wardman didn’t show up we found out later he stabbed his older brother and was in jail, and I guess dropped from the roster. Then there was Harley Davis (that was his real name) who lived a couple of blocks away and insisted on putting his skates on at home. If the roads were icy it wasn’t too bad because Harley could actually skate to the rink, but if there was pavement showing you could actually see the sparks flying as he headed down the street. Harley got to play even though he was NQR!

Authors Interruption – Since I can’t use the word that starts with R and ends with leotard, even though that word is often times perfect to describe hockey people, I will defer to the term Not Quite Right or NQR for short, or unfixable as in you can’t fix stupid!!

We had some pretty spirited games and every kid at one point or another was the play-by-play guy, narrating himself scoring the winning goal in overtime in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals.

There really was no better place to grow up, and the friendships and lessons that were learned on that outdoor rink from the rest of the kids or our parents and coaches, usually one and the same, went along way to shaping us as we grew up.

I started playing for real as a 6 year old with the Hazeldell-Nordale Pre-Squirt Maroons, there’s a team name, I see why it didn’t stick, it didn’t lead to big merchandise sales. We didn’t have a long season, maybe a half dozen games and a handful of practices, all outdoors by the way, but we had lots of fun. The big game of the year was being able to play at the Nordale Winter Carnival, because there were always lots of people watching. Well I always thought I was the best player on our team, and I usually scored 2 or 3 goals a game, until the Carnival game, that’s when we met Laird Parenteau. Laird was the same age as us but was playing up with kids 3 or 4 years older than him on his brothers team and when he came to play with us for the Carnival game the experience of playing with the older kids showed. I scored 1 goal and Laird scored 23 as we won 24-0. That was the last time we got to play with Laird. Laird continued to play, very well as I recall and even went to Europe as a Bantam aged player but after that some bad life choices lead to a short existence and missed opportunities.

I had my gang or Posse as the kids call it nowadays, Ken Karasuik, Karmin Reichle, Rick Wick, Shawn Ball and Clint Hewitt. We hung out together and obviously played Hockey together. We didn’t have a lot of success playing against the other Community Club teams in the city who had more players, but we always had fun and as I remember always tried our damndest. There was also an older group by a couple of years, Kelly Ball, Byron Yeo, Randy Wick and the Scarrett brothers, who were never afraid to let us join in their games at the rink, and also teach us stuff we had no business knowing. The Parenteau’s, Genereaux’s and the Vandale’s also lived in the neighborhood and because birth control was in its infancy, these families had lots and lots of kids which meant there was always full teams at the old rink. Did we fight, of course, but more important we played, hung out and laughed a lot and away from Hazeldell we had each other’s back’s, which meant when we were running away from the mean kids if one of us tripped somebody would help him up.

Authors Interruption – This was also the reason we hung around with Rick Wick, he was the slowest runner in Western Canada, and when things got real sticky we knew we didn’t have to outrun the mean kids…we just had to outrun Rick!

Not sure what the reason was, probably because we were on the rink for about 30 hours a week, but from that group of kids on those three square blocks, 8 of those plugs ended up playing Junior A or B hockey. Now nobody went real far, like the WHL unless you count me but that wasn’t as a player and it was only after I realized I was not that good. I guess I should have picked up my first hint when Laird Parenteau played that Carnival game with us.

That neighborhood was also the place where I got my introduction into community and volunteerism. It’s hard to believe that the rink doesn’t magically appear each winter. Somebody has to go out in the middle of the night and pour water on it, the lines have to actually be painted on the ice by someone and the holes in the walls didn’t repair themselves. And when the lights burn out somebody has to put new bulbs in, who knew. Which also leads to the age old joke, How many guys from Hazeldell does it take to replace a light bulb? By the way it’s 4, one guy to replace the bulb, 2 guys to hold the ladder and one guy to pour the drinks.

The Community Club Executive consisted of my Dad, Jack Mays, Wayne Smith, Jim Jones, the Stewart brothers, Chick Gunville, Herb Yeo, sometimes Gord Garson and Stan Vermette when they needed the expertise and insight from the Nordale guys. I don’t recall if they had a President, Vice-President or any formal titles, and I’m sure no one ever took minutes, but they made it work.

The Hazeldell Executive meetings were usually held at our house, we had a dining room with a big oak dinner table. The business consisted of when were they going to start making ice, and did the rink need anything, like did the boards need repairing, etc. They also had to try and figure out how many kids were going to register for hockey, how many teams would there be and who was going to Coach which team. Once the number of teams was decided on came the questions, did we need new jerseys, was there enough goalie equipment, who would practice when?

Next on the agenda was always how were the rink materials or any equipment or jerseys going to be paid for? There was going to be a whist drive (which is a card tournament of some sort of game like bridge, I don’t fucking know, I just know booze was probably involved) they were going to hold bingos and of course selling tickets on Christmas cheer (booze) so pretty much standard fund-raising stuff. Hockey, booze and bingo, pretty much summed up the cornerstones of life and social interaction in Prince Albert.

The Board, Executive, or whatever the hell they called themselves always seemed in agreement with all decisions, maybe it was the common thread of concern for the neighborhood, or maybe it was the ever present bottle of rum, which never once saw the end of a meeting. But no matter what the reason that brought them to our dining room table, their passion for the game was unmistakable and every kid in the neighborhood owed the Executive immensely for our rink and the memories and friendships it created for each and every one of us.

My bedroom was upstairs, but for every meeting I would sneak halfway down the staircase to listen in, that way I knew what was going on and I could tell the news to the gang the next day. And many nights it was actually pretty entertaining, way better than watching T.V.

What was always the most interesting to everyone the next day was who was going to Coach which team, that was the burning question. Herb Yeo always coached the older kids, and my team was either going to be coached by my Dad or Chick Gunville. It was never a given back then that your Dad would be your coach.

At least half of my years in Minor Hockey, Chick Gunville was my Coach while my dad coached another team.

At the time I thought that was a bit weird, but some years later my dad told me that was probably easier for both of us, my dad said he never felt comfortable putting me out on power plays or key situations because of what others would say, and he was always weary of me getting more ice time than other kids because he believed in being fair. So he was OK with me being on a team Chick coached cause then he never had to worry about that.

One of my most vivid memories of those years was watching Hockey Night in Canada on Saturdays with Dad, and I especially remember the night I became a HAB fan. If you’re expecting an earth shattering revelation here…..forget it. At the tender age of 5, I didn’t know who was who, the one thing I did know was that white was good and black was evil, and that night the Canadians were playing at home against Toronto, so Montreal was wearing white and the Leafs were in black on our black and white T.V. I shudder to think what could have been if that game was in Toronto, WOW, I could’ve been NQR like the rest of the Leaf fans. There will be way more on my lifelong love affair with the Montreal Canadians later in the book.

I always enjoyed watching hockey with my Dad and I got lots of opportunities, not just on T.V. but live, as dad liked to go watch the Junior B games in town and once in a while when he had to drive to Saskatoon (about 90 miles away) for work, it would be on a day when the Saskatoon Blades of the WCHL (now the WHL) had a home game and he would take me to that, which was always a treat.

So when I played for my Dad he was a pretty calm and encouraging coach, he taught me well and was always trying to encourage the players to try harder and learn from their mistakes.

When I played for Chick Gunville it was a different story, Chick wanted us to play well in spite of him. It wasn’t that he was mean, and every kid who ever played for him loved the guy and always had stories to tell.

There was the time when one of Chick’s goalies Bill Hoko was the starter for the game and wasn’t having an especially good night, so after the period when the team was in the dressing room, Chick walks over stands in front of Billy, reaches in his pocket to get some change and gives him some money, he then tells Billy take your stuff off and go get me a coffee, you might as well make yourself useful.

I started out playing forward but after my dynamite years in pre-squirt and my offensive explosion remember I scored 11 goals over two full seasons, yea, yea, Laird Parenteau scored 23 in one game, anyways I thought I might like to try goal, that’s where the fun started. Fun until the players started shooting hard, then it wasn’t so much fun as an exercise in survival.

I adapted to goal fairly well and was quite good at it or so I thought, one time I was on a hot streak and had a couple of shutouts in a row, now I’d be the first to say I had a good team in front of me. Anyways about halfway through game number three with another shutout on the horizon, Chick went to one of our defensemen Karmin Reichle and told him on his next shift he was to score on me.

Karmin looked at Chick with obvious disbelief and Chick simply said, If Mays gets another shutout we’ll never hear the end of it. Now Karmin always wanted to do what the coach told him to, so next time on the ice he picks up the puck in the corner wheels out in front of the net and fires the puck top corner on me. The other team celebrated after they finally realized what had happened and after the Referees had a discussion as to whether or not the goal should even count. I stood in disbelief. I stared at Karmin and then the bench. All Chick said was Be ready in there we certainly were never going to get soft playing for Chick.

One thing about playing for Chick he knew that the team needed a goalie more than anything and he told my defensemen that on more than one occasion, telling them that if anybody fucked with me they were to take care of things. So armed with this security blanket and the fact that my defense which included three big dudes in Maurice Toutant, Calvin Zeigler and Jerry Hamilton were told to protect me. I took some liberties with the opposing players and would think nothing of slashing, spearing or cross checking the other team players if they came close to my crease, and of course there was always the well placed pointy end of the stick to the groonies. Well this led to more than one scuffle where my defensemen came to my aid, and at times even got thrown out of games defending my honor, but I didn’t care I was like a spoiled brat being constantly protected by my big brothers, aka, my defensemen.

I thought this was great, I could do whatever I wanted with no worries whatsoever, until one day it all came to a crashing halt when my biggest defenseman, Calvin Zeigler came up to me before the game and said very politely, Mays, I know coach says I gotta protect you and I will, but, if I get thrown out of one more game fighting your battles, I’m gonna beat the tar out of you after the game enough said, I was a Lady Bing candidate from then on.

Now Chick was not only hard on individual players he could get pretty upset with us as a team. One game we were playing in a tournament in Melfort, now how do I remember Melfort you ask? Well back in the day Melfort was the biggest tournament we went to it was 55 miles away and we actually took a bus one time, A BUS can you believe it. We didn’t get to go to Edmonton or Banff or Winnipeg for tournaments no, Melfort was our big one. Any way we were playing against a team from an indian reserve just outside of Melfort and these guys weren’t very good. We recognized they were not going to give us any trouble and we were goofing around more than anything, toying with the other team and we were more worried about going to a restaurant after the game. After the second period we were winning the game 5-0, pretty safe but not good enough for Chick. He came into the room and went up one side of us and down the other, he said if we didn’t score 20 goals in the third period we were getting on the bus and heading home, no restaurant, no nothing.

We gave it to those poor buggers in the third period and scored 17 goals and beat these guys 22-0, well if you thought that was good enough you didn’t know Chick, we packed up our stuff loaded the bus and headed back to Prince Albert, we didn’t get our 20 in the third, so no supper.

The following year I thought maybe I should play defense, we had 2 goalies and a were a little short on the back end and so what the hell. I wasn’t real good there either, not terrible but not great and this lead to a conversation with Chick which actually planted the seed for a chance at future success in another avenue. Chick took me aside after a game and said, "Mays you tried, forward, goal and now defense…..have you ever thought about reffing? I guess he did know something about hockey after all.

Chick was old school in the way he coached, but there isn’t a single player that wouldn’t have gone through a brick wall to win for him. All he ever wanted was the best from us and the best for us, and when I would run into him in rinks years later we would have some laughs and some serious discussions about hockey that I always looked forward to. As I grew older my life became very connected to the Gunville family, Chick’s younger sisters and his 2 sons became lifelong friends. And I can trace that all back to good ol Hazeldell.

Now you would think I would have been done with playing the game, and while the writing was there on the wall in front of me, I still couldn’t quite see it, but I was about to. I decided to try out for the Junior B team in Prince Albert and this brief, crazy yet noble idea ended things once and for all, with a thud.

After a few skates and an intra-squad game I wasn’t doing too bad, I knew I probably wasn’t going to make the team, but I thought if I could at least hang around and get to play in an exhibition game you never know. The coach came to me after the first week and told me he didn’t think they would have room for me, but he liked the fact that I worked real hard and maybe he could get me into an exhibition game.

So anyways the exhibition game I was going to get to play in happened to be on the road in Hudson Bay, Saskatchewan. I didn’t find out until after the game that the only reason I got to play was because most of the veteran players came down with a case of the ‘Hudson Bay flu". You may have heard Darren Dutchyshyn from TSN Joke about Hudson Bay rules in hockey…. No joke…. it’s a thing. The Hockey Canada Official Rule