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you going. Fun tonight, when no matter how much your bones and muscles say no, there is something inyour imagination that will send you down to the basement where that heavy bag of disgusting equipment lies—and where there is always at least one more pretty goal in the stick that looks good for one more game.
    In 2011 I turned sixty-three and still play, now “cutting back” to three hours a week. The greatest delight is playing with son Gordon and several of his friends, those of us old enough to be their fathers grateful for passes and accepting of the ridicule that is reality in a hockey dressing room. I now use an expensive composite stick that has done nothing, absolutely nothing, for my game
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THREE
LEGENDS OF THE GAME
MARIO LEMIEUX’S LONG JOURNEY
(
The Globe and Mail
, January 1, 2011)
    H e hasn’t lost a step.
    There are not many players you can say that about at age forty-five and five years removed from his skates, but the truth is Mario Lemieux never had much of a step to begin with. Never needed it—not when you could fire the puck over the net from centre ice at age eight, not when peewee goaltenders used to weep at the mere prospect of facing you, not when you score on your very first shift in the National Hockey League.
    There was not much to cheer about at the Winter Classic Alumni Game. Once the introductions are done with, interest in old-timers playing shinny drops as quickly as the puck at the opening faceoff.
    In Pittsburgh, however, they came out ten thousand strong in the early morning to cheer the player who saved the franchise so many times he now owns it. They cheered as, toque replacing helmet, Lemieux made his way out from the football stadium locker room to the outdoor rink where Saturday’s much-hyped “Classic” game willbe played between his Pittsburgh Penguins, featuring Sidney Crosby, and the Washington Capitals, with Alexander Ovechkin.
    They cheered when hockey’s former superstar won the opening faceoff and cheered again when, predictably, he floated into the opponents’ end, sailing more than skating, and promptly set up the first goal of the game.
    â€œSome things never change,” chuckled his long-time friend and one-time teammate Paul Coffey.
    They would have cheered even louder had the NHL shown the common sense to send the dreary alumni game to a shootout when it ended 5–5—a move that would have allowed Lemieux the chance at one more hockey heroic, even if rather meaningless compared to all the others.
    It has been a long journey for the one they called The Magnificent One. I met him first in 1985 at the world championships in Prague, where his play as a teenager was the talk of the tournament. He was shy, reluctant, and spoke little English. His personality transformation over the years has been almost as remarkable as his on-ice accomplishments. He once refused to play for the Canadian juniors because he did not like the coach. He refused to shake the hand or don the jersey of the NHL team, the Penguins, that drafted him. He learned English, but rarely bothered talking, preferring to duck out the dressing room’s back doors than to face the press.
    His on-ice brilliance was undeniable. From that goal on the first shift—stealing the puck from the great Ray Bourque, no less—he chased Wayne Gretzky through a decade of NHL records that still stand. He won every trophy available. He scored that most brilliant goal during the 1987 Canada Cup. He purposely let that puck slip through his legs to Paul Kariya during the 2002 Winter Games as he captained Canada to Olympic gold. He battled remarkable health issues—back operations, cancer—retired from the game, was chosen for the Hall of Fame, and came back not only to play again but to star.
    However, he changed his personality when he had to sell thegame, not merely play it. When bankruptcy threatened to destroy this franchise and take the millions of