A Lucky Life: Gretzky, Crosby, Kawhi, and More From the Best Seat in the House

By Steve Simmons

An unmissable tour of sports history from one of Canada's most preeminent and outspoken journalists

For the past 40 years, Steve Simmons has had the best seat in the house, documenting the greatest sports moments in Canada and around the world. He was there when Wayne Gretzky won his first Stanley Cup. When Tiger Woods hit the first drive of his career at the Greater Milwaukee Open. When Usain Bolt crossed the Olympic finish line in an ecstatic blur.

He was there when Sidney Crosby scored the Golden Goal in 2010. When Kawhi Leonard hit the shot. When Joe Carter hit the home run and when Jose Bautista flipped his bat. When Michael Jordan retired in Chicago and when he came out of retirement to play his first game in Indianapolis.

In A Lucky Life, Simmons shares a selection of columns from his prolific career which celebrate sport at its best and most impactful. Added postscripts further illuminate historic events and towering figures with modern perspective and behind-the-scenes anecdotes.

Covering both larger-than-life achievements and quieter personal victories, this collection captures those moments in sport that stay with you long after the final buzzer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Independent Publishers Group
• Release date: Nov 8, 2022
• ISBN: 9781637271070

Book preview

To Sheila and the boys, Michael and Jeffrey. You make every day better.

—

Writing turns you into somebody who’s always wrong. The illusion that you might get it right someday is the perversity that draws you on.

— Philip Roth

I wrote a sports column for 25 years and I learned something writing a sports column. I learned that losers were always more compelling than winners. I learned that tragedy is more important than triumph and I learned that heartbreak is the common denominator for a great column.

— Tony Kornheiser

Contents

Foreword by Doug Gilmour

Introduction

1. Legends and Champions

The Great Goodbye

The Old Man and the Kid

The Home Run That Changed Everything

The Great Chase for Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

Bye-Bye, Kawhi

Donovan Bailey’s Golden Run

The Amazing Usain Bolt

The Don Cherry Nobody Knows

The End for Don Cherry Comes without Apology

George Chuvalo’s Tragic Homecoming

Of Brady and Gretzky

2. Of Ice and Men

The Wild Life of Derek Sanderson

The Uncomfortable Firing of Brian Burke

Hometown Kid Heading to Hall of Fame

The Heartbroken Wendel Clark

David Frost Not Guilty — and Certainly Not Innocent

Sheldon Keefe Haunted No More

All Gilmour Wanted Was One Last Chance

The Great Fall of Alan Eagleson

In Appreciation of Mats Sundin

Tie Domi: I Feel Like I Let So Many People Down

Wrong GM, Wrong Time

A Rare Glimpse of the Big M, Frank Mahovlich

The Kid Named Jagr

Lou Out as Leafs GM

Sickness Cured, Kessel Gone

What Makes Mike Babcock Tick?

The Man Who Lost His Way

The Dream Slipping Away

3. Summer Love

Touch ’Em All, Joe

Barry Bonds and the Meaningless Records

So Long, Pat Gillick — and Thanks

What Happened to the Game I Love?

Joey Bats, the Most Hated Man in Baseball

Omar Vizquel’s Private War

Losing Alex

Gibbons’ Long Road to the Big Leagues

The Fight to Draft Bo

4. Hoops! (There It Is)

Nothing Halfway about Isiah Thomas

Welcome to Toronto

More Than Two Sides to One Ugly Story

The Life and Times of the Remarkable Wayne Embry

Hope Arrives in Vince Carter

The Mother of All Trades

Canada’s Greatest Hoopster

The Anger Subsides in Kyle Lowry

Champion Raptors Are a Team for the World

The Bitter Split of Casey and Nurse

The First Retirement of Michael Jordan

5. A Football Life

The Faded View of Terry Evanshen

The Buffalo Bills’ Drive for Five Has Begun

Jermaine Gabriel, from Homeless to Grey Cup

What Was Pete Carroll Thinking?

The Brady-Belichick Championship Tag Team

John Elway’s Final Act

The Rocket at Argos Camp

Memories of a Best Friend Gone

A Fond Farewell to the Cleveland Browns

The Day Toronto Shocked the Football World

6. Gone, Just Never Forgotten

There Was Only One Badger Bob

Mr. Hockey, Gordie Howe

The Wade Belak We Never Knew

Pat Quinn — a Giant Man, a Giant Life

The Greatest Olympian You Never Knew

The Don of Football

Bill Goldsworthy’s Final Days

The Brothers McCrimmon

The Pioneer, Bernie Custis

The Little General

7. The Fight Game

The Greatest of All Time

Dead End

Smokin’ Joe Gone

The Myth of Mike Tyson

Lennox Lewis, the Convenient Canadian

The Shattered Dream of Billy Irwin

The Night Evander Holyfield Exposed Iron Mike

8. From Here, There and Everywhere

Nearing the Finish Line

Tiger Woods’ First Day on the Tour

Laughter Helps Ease the Pain

The Interrogation of Ross Rebagliati

The Olympics from Hell

Pinball, One of a Kind

Looking Back at Ben

The Golden Goal

The Uncomfortable Mixture of Sports and Politics

Kerrin Lee-Gartner: Then and Now

Until Further Notice, This Is Our Life

Magic Johnson, a Ray of Hope Amidst Sadness

And Don’t Forget the Snacks

Acknowledgments

Foreword by Doug Gilmour

When you play as many NHL games as I did, 1,474 in total, a lot of the events blend together over time. I do remember this one, although I don’t remember the year. It was a practice day and Steve Simmons and a bunch of other reporters walked into the Maple Leafs dressing room, as media were allowed in most days, and I do remember yelling rather loudly: He’s here. And then I started laughing, as did a bunch of the Leafs players.

Truth is, I was trying to get Tie Domi’s attention. A few days earlier in the Toronto Sun, Simmons had run an item in his Sunday column that Domi wasn’t happy about. In the column, Simmons took Domi’s name after an on-ice incident of some kind and scrambled the letters in his name. He came up with Me Idiot.

I suppose he thought it was funny. Domi, our tough guy and one of our team leaders, clearly didn’t share his sentiment. He had been walking around for a couple of days complaining about the shot in the paper.

But what happened afterwards says a lot about Simmons and a lot about Domi. They were talking by his locker as most of us in the room were getting dressed. And they were still talking as most of us were leaving. I waited around, thinking there might be a confrontation of some kind, and they were still talking. I found out later that they had a helluva conversation, and out of that disagreement, a better relationship was born.

That whole thing gave me an appreciation for who Simmons was and how he conducted his business. He wasn’t one of those hit-and-run guys. If he wrote something harsh about me, about Domi, about anybody else, he showed up the next day and faced the music.

I never had what you’d call a close relationship with Steve — and we’ve had our moments — but as time went on, and my career grew longer, I came to appreciate how he approached his work. And I came to realize how he always seemed to be around for so many moments of my career.

He was there, covering the Calgary Flames, in 1986 when I had my breakout playoff with the St. Louis Blues, leading the Stanley Cup playoffs in scoring. From there, I got traded to Calgary. He left for Toronto. I got traded to Toronto. The first telephone interview I did after the trade was with him.

Even in 1990, the year after winning the Stanley Cup in Calgary, I got to play for Team Canada at the World Hockey Championship alongside Joe Nieuwendyk, Steve Yzerman and Paul Coffey, among others. I traveled to Switzerland for the event. One of the first people I saw outside our hotel upon arrival? Simmons.

A few years after that, playing for Pat Burns with the Leafs, I was injured in the playoffs and the talk of the city seemed to be whether I’d be able to play the next game. This was before the Internet and before social media. I came out of the doctor’s office that morning, got clearance to play, and rather than have the radio speculate all day about it, I called the all-sports radio station the FAN in Toronto and went on the air live with Simmons and Mary Ormsby. I told them I was playing the next game. It was big news at the time.

I’m not sure something like that wouldn’t happen today, but these are different times. I can’t believe this, but my last game was 19 years ago. We’d all like to play forever, but I can’t complain about a 20-year career, especially after starting out as a seventh-round draft pick who was a long shot. Steve Simmons was writing about hockey and other sports before I began playing professionally. And all these years later, he’s still doing it.

He was there at the beginning of my career, and he was there waiting for me outside the Toronto bar from which I announced my retirement in 2003. I didn’t always agree with what he wrote. I didn’t always agree with how he wrote it. But I came to appreciate who he was and how he did his work.

He was always there. Still is.

— Doug Gilmour, Hockey Hall of Fame Class of 2011

Introduction

I was there.

When Wayne Gretzky won his first Stanley Cup and won his last, when he played his final NHL game, when he wasn’t chosen for the shootout in Nagano at the 1998 Winter Olympics and when he was executive director of Team Canada that won gold in 2002.

I was there.

When Donovan Bailey won races on consecutive Saturday nights in Atlanta in 1996, a world record in the 100 metres, a trouncing of the great American team in the 4 x 100 metres relay one week later, maybe the greatest Olympic achievement of any Canadian athlete.

I was there.

When Sidney Crosby scored the Golden Goal in 2010. When Kawhi Leonard hit the shot that bounced and bounced and bounced some more. When Joe Carter hit the home run and when Jose Bautista flipped his bat.

I was there.

When Michael Jordan retired in Chicago in 1993 and when he came out of retirement to play his first game back in Indianapolis on a Sunday afternoon in 1995.

For the past 40 years, I have been fortunate to have the best seat in the house, documenting and being inspired by many of the greatest sporting moments of our country and those around the world. I am one of a very few Canadian journalists fortunate enough to have seen so much, including 17 Olympic Games, writing for three Canadian newspapers over my career. All told, I spent some 3,500 days on the road, packing and unpacking and packing again.

In person, I got to watch Pete Sampras win the U.S. Open and Roger Federer win Wimbledon and Tiger Woods hit the first drive of his professional career, at the Greater Milwaukee Open. I was at or near the finish line for all nine of Usain Bolt’s spectacular Olympic victories in three consecutive Summer Games, something that will never be done again.

I saw Mike Tyson at his terrifying best, taking 91 seconds to beat Michael Spinks, and maybe at his horrifying worst, being dominated by Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield. And I was ringside, almost accidentally, for the greatest eight-minute fight in history: Marvin Hagler vs. Thomas Hearns.

I was there when the New York Rangers won their only Stanley Cup of the past 80 years and when the Raptors won their only NBA championship, in Oakland in 2019. I sat about 10 rows up when Ben Johnson beat Carl Lewis in Rome at the world championships in 1987, before beating him again one year later in Seoul, before the disqualification. And I was in the press box at Busch Stadium when Mark McGwire hit his 70th home run, before we really knew why.

I was there to watch Doug Flutie win too many Grey Cups and too many awards. Same for Damon Allen and Anthony Cavillo and Henry Burris and Ricky Ray and all the Canadian football legends. I was there — among the masses — to see Tom Brady and Joe Montana and John Elway and Peyton Manning and Aaron Rodgers and Steve Young all win Super Bowls, many of them more than once. That group is the greatest to ever play.

I was in Oakland for Roberto Alomar’s franchise-changing home run for the Blue Jays in 1992 and in Atlanta when Ed Sprague made a World Series possible for the Jays with a pinch-hit home run just a few days later.

And I was there to see Mario Lemieux win both of his Stanley Cups, to witness the playoff magic of Patrick Roy and Martin Brodeur, and to see Dominik Hasek win gold in Nagano, almost by himself.

At its best, sport is so much about moments and memories, so many of them personal. What does it mean to you, that day, that night, that game, that ending? Where were you in ’72 or in 2010 or for whatever grabs you and carries you from year to year, place to place and celebration to celebration?

What a professional life this has been, writing about sports from six of the world’s seven continents.

My first Stanley Cup had Mike Bossy and Bryan Trottier’s New York Islanders winning their second of four Cup championships, this one against the Minnesota North Stars, who now play in Dallas. I covered the first game the Calgary Flames ever played after moving from Atlanta. They played the Quebec Nordiques, who now play in Denver. I also covered the last game the Colorado Rockies played in Denver before moving to New Jersey and becoming the Devils.

Over the years, I’ve written more than 8,000 columns for the Toronto Sun, Calgary Herald, Calgary Sun and Postmedia papers, probably close to seven million words. Some of them were great. Some were good. Some I’d like to have back.

I’ve taken my share of shots and received just as many back. If you give them, you’d better be prepared to take some too. Some days I feel like my friend George Chuvalo, who just kept on standing, no matter how many times he was hit. Nobody could knock out George. He just kept on punching.

The assignment here was to pick some 90 columns for this book, which wasn’t easy when you consider what a tiny percentage that is of my overall work. Here, I’ve tried to be topical, historical, analytical, varied and relevant. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I’ve enjoyed bringing it to you.

* * *

The columns that appear in this book were primarily written as one-day assignments. That’s a columnist’s life; you write on Monday and move on to Tuesday, never knowing what the next day or the next story will bring.

Many of the pieces here were written on deadline, against a ticking clock: That’s so much of the job. It’s not novel writing. There is no time to rewrite.

And all the pieces here were originally edited, mostly by the desk of the Toronto Sun. For purposes of clarity and accuracy, they have been edited once again for this collection.

1. Legends and Champions

The Great Goodbye

April 19, 1999

NEW YORK — They would travel to the rink together in the morning, the way they always had, before all the emotion and appreciation and honest sentiment had taken over the day.

Wayne and Walter Gretzky, together. Father and son.

One last game. One last time.

He had made the decision on Saturday, how he would get to Madison Square Garden, who he would go with, how it would all work. It had to be him and his dad. The way it used to be. The way it always was.

Same as any kid, Wayne Gretzky said in the early evening, his astounding National Hockey League career over. Same as you guys with your fathers. There’s no relationship like father-son.

He still was wearing his uniform as he spoke long after the game, the way young kids do when they go to hockey, with everything on but their helmet and skates. He didn’t want to take his equipment off. "Subconsciously I don’t want to take it off. I’m not going to put it on again ...

It’s hard. Hard to take it off.

Before that he had spoken to his father only briefly this day. He had watched him ride on to the ice in the Mercedes-Benz the Rangers were presenting him with. And he saw his father for just an instant after the myriad post-game ovations in the whirlwind of emotion and congratulation that was the end of the Rangers season and the end of Gretzky’s career. My mom (Phyllis) just said she was happy for me, Gretzky said. He (his dad) told me he was very, very proud of me. It was nice.

The words came 28 years after Walter Gretzky told his son about the future. After he told him he was different from all the other kids.

You’re a very special person, Walter told him. Wherever you go, probably all your life, people are going to make a fuss over you. You’ve got to remember that and you’ve got to behave right. They’re going to be watching for every mistake. Remember that you’re very special and you’re always on display.

Right to the end that message seemed prophetic, words from a father to a son, words that have defined a hockey generation. Wayne Gretzky’s last week of hockey was an ovation that wouldn’t end, a celebration of tears and accolades, emotions and storytelling.

Remember when? You couldn’t help but look back and smile and shed tears of circumstance and joy. Walter Gretzky was standing in the rotunda area at Madison Square Garden, trying to remember when. Sometimes he could and sometimes he couldn’t. The aneurysm he suffered in 1991 has stripped him of some of the memories of his son’s most phenomenal accomplishments. Some of the things I don’t remember, Walter said. But still there is so much to hang on to, so much to be proud of, so much to revel in.

There was the night he telephoned me, Walter Gretzky was telling the story proudly.

I just called to let you know, Wayne said. Let me know what? Walter said.

That I scored 50 goals in 39 games.

And without hesitation Walter Gretzky said: What took you so long?

That’s Walter, always expecting more, never wanting his son to feel too big or too important. Another Gretzky story was told yesterday by a close friend. It was during the time that his father was in the hospital in Hamilton. Wayne just had to get out for a night to ease his tensions. He and his friend went to a well-known Hamilton bar. There was a lineup of about 30 people outside.

When Gretzky arrived, the doorman instantly recognized him and waved him to the front of the line. Gretzky politely declined, saying he didn’t want to go ahead of anyone waiting. So the doorman told everyone in line they could go in.

The humility comes from Walter Gretzky, the telephone company worker from Brantford who never took a day off. I get all the accolades and the glory, but really he deserves it, not me, Wayne said about the best-known father in Canada. He never made more than $35,000 a year, but everything he made he put into his family.

Wayne Gretzky came to the rink yesterday with his dad, hugged him on the ice, hugged him after the game; they cried together in happiness and sadness, a lifetime of dreams changing directions.

I went and met my family (Saturday) night, left at 8:00. I said, ‘I’m leaving.’ My dad said, ‘Where are you going?’ I said, ‘It used to be in the old days you told me to go to bed, now you’re asking why I’m leaving.’

And when Wayne Gretzky finally stood up to leave yesterday, still in full equipment, more than an hour after his professional hockey career had ended, he walked to the Rangers’ dressing room one last time.

He had to get changed. He had to see his family.

He had to see his dad.

They had to talk about the game one last time.

The Old Man and the Kid

March 15, 2015

BARRIE — On the day they met, the old man and the kid, Sherry Bassin began talking to Connor McDavid about the book The Two-Second Advantage.

And talking and talking and talking some more. That’s what he does.

The book is a scientific examination of greatness and the innate ability of the exceptional to anticipate events before they happen. It isn’t a sporting book of any kind, but Wayne Gretzky figures prominently in it.

One day, Bassin recalled telling the 15-year-old McDavid, they’ll be writing another chapter about you.

I meant it then, he said the other day. I mean it now.

That was the beginning of the relationship between McDavid, the hockey prodigy, and Bassin, the senior-citizen junior-hockey lifer.

Now they’re just Mac and Bass. The arena travelling show. Best friends forever, as kids are apt to say, even with 57 years in age separating them.

He’s a great guy and I love listening to him, McDavid, NHL superstar in waiting, said of his general manager and pal.

"I think we’ll be friends (for a long time). When he talks, people listen. He has that effect. He’s a great speaker. Any time he gets in front of an audience, he gives a pretty good speech. It’s always something you take away and remember for a while.

I’m very lucky to have him around ... He’s been through it all and he has no bias. He’ll tell you straight how it is. It’s one of the things I love about him.

When McDavid broke his hand in an ill-advised fight in November, the entire hockey world stopped to ponder what it all meant.

But no one thought about the mishap more than the kid himself, who saw his dream season, his world junior possibility, his matchup with Jack Eichel crumbling away in a hospital room.

It was a terrible time.

When he got hurt, said Bassin, "I got hurt. When the doctor came in, and it didn’t look good at first, he was sitting on the hospital bed, slumped over, and he was looking so sad that I just went over and put my arms around him and I hugged him and I said, ‘I love you. You’re going to be OK. This is going to be OK.’

It was pretty emotional for all of us. His dad was sitting right there and everybody got choked up. I think that sealed the special bond we have.

When McDavid first showed up at the Erie Otters mini-camp after being chosen first in the OHL selection draft in 2012, he went out on the ice wearing his minor midget team colours.

Bassin was confused by this. He called McDavid over and asked about the colours.

"He said, ‘Mr. Bassin, I haven’t made that team yet.’ And I’m thinking nobody calls me ‘Mr. Bassin’ and, sometimes in this business, you get calls from agents 24 hours after a kid gets drafted asking for their team stuff. It tells you a lot about Connor. He has a certain humility about him, a sensitivity to his environment. He wasn’t big-timing anybody. He was academic player of the year and, until you read his grades, you wouldn’t know he was doing that.

This is a special person. He’s grounded with an inner drive I can’t even explain. I tell all my players: ‘Do I like who I am when I’m around you?’ And then I answer for them: ‘Well, I love who I am when I’m around Connor McDavid.’

They play this dressing-room game, Bassin and McDavid, although it started when Bass told Mac it wasn’t his fault.

It’s not your fault, he said. What’s not my fault?

Don’t worry, said Bassin, it’s not your fault.

What’s not?

It’s not your fault you’re ugly.

And a few seconds later, after the kid caught on and had a long laugh at the silliness of it, it became a part of the ongoing repartee around the Otters.

They go around the dressing room now and randomly say to a player, It’s not your fault, and then the other will say, It’s not his fault.

And they’ll shake their heads, and it has become part of the mindless dressing-room dialogue that makes sport so different.

It’s like any good friendship, that’s what it’s like, said Mac, talking of Bass. We poke fun at each other. We laugh a lot ... We’ve grown very close over the years. He’s almost like a (second) dad to me.

Or maybe another grandfather.

They talk a lot together or, to be accurate, Bassin talks and McDavid listens. Bassin, the 75-year-old father of three uber-successful children, owner of law and pharmaceutical degrees and a longtime Durham College lecturer loves to talk life more than he loves to talk hockey — and he does love to talk hockey.

McDavid was on the last Canadian team to win the world junior. Bassin was general manager of the first to win gold, back in 1982.

He’s always telling me stuff with a message, said McDavid.

It’s not my job to teach hockey, said Bassin. We’ve got good people here to do that. We talk about life, about values, about successful people and what makes them successful. About work habits. About all the things that go into success.

I love listening to his stories, said McDavid. He’s been around, he knows everybody. It’s different sometimes when you’re around him all the time because you hear a lot of the same stories and stuff like that. But his messages are so great. He’s taught me a lot.

Bassin gets particularly excited when someone becomes enamoured with McDavid’s immense skill.

He sees it every day. He lives it. He knows what it’s about.

But when word comes from a Hall of Fame player, such as Barrie Colts coach Dale Hawerchuk, he gets almost giddy.

Did you hear what Hawerchuk said? Bassin shouts, and then he tells you what Hawerchuk, who scored 102 points as an NHL rookie, said.

He said (McDavid) skates like Bobby Orr did, where it looks like everybody else couldn’t skate at the same level. He has vision like Gretz and hands like Mario (Lemieux). He’s the real deal, that’s for sure.

Yep, that’s what I said, said Hawerchuk. And I stand by it. He’s the full package.

Time is running out on this season for the old man and the full package.

Almost certainly, McDavid will be in the NHL next season. And, barring a change of mind, the 75-year-old Bassin will be back running the Otters, making the five-hour drive from his home in Oshawa to Erie.

He thought for a minute or two about retirement, with McDavid moving on — possibly the perfect ending.

But then there would be a game to scout in Detroit, and he’d be back in his car, highway driving again, doing what he’s done his entire adult life.

I’ve had a lot of good players over the years, but nothing on a three-year basis like this, said Bass.

"They don’t make people better than this. I can’t describe our relationship, it’s so special. I always talk about our hockey family, and he’s part of my family.

"I know he’s leaving us at the end of the season, but I just don’t want to think about it. I’m going to miss him as a person because we have this connection that’s hard to explain.

"We really understand each other. He really understands me. When Canada won the world junior, all the press was around him and asking him how he felt. And he said — and I remember this clearly — ‘You can’t describe it unless you’ve lived it.’

And I’m watching this and I’m thinking, ‘That’s exactly what I said when we won in 1982 and 1985.’ It knocked me over when he said that. You realize the connection. It really is something special.

The Home Run That Changed Everything

October 17, 1992

His fists went up in the air.

Immediately. Defiantly.

I knew, said Roberto Alomar. "All I’m thinking is: ‘It’s gone, it’s gone, it’s gone.’

I threw my arms in the air. I was real happy. Yeah, real happy.

The picture will be one we will always remember. Robbie Alomar, bouncing like Carlton Fisk, arms raised like Kirk Gibson. Another post-season moment. Another piece of baseball history. Another TV clip to keep on file forever.

This time, a Blue Jays moment.

Perhaps the greatest in a 15-year history.

The Blue Jays are a win away from going to the World Series for the first time and Alomar beat the flu, the sun, Dennis Eckersley and the Oakland A’s to carry the Jays on his slight but rounded shoulders to this franchise’s most significant victory.

I don’t have big muscles, Alomar joked later, surrounded in the crush of energy that was the Blue Jays clubhouse. Sometimes the little guy can make the big play in the big game.

Alomar didn’t just make the big play in the big game — taking Eckersley downtown in the ninth inning to bring the Blue Jays back — he made almost all the big plays.

Bob Welch was cruising nicely into the eighth inning, leading 6-1, when