The Code Read Online Free Page A
Author: Gare Joyce
debilitating back injury who shot five-over for thirty-six holes.
I spent four years in the mire and developed a deeper appreciation for just how awful people are. I worried that I was becoming one of them, that mid-life crisis was an infectious condition. At my lowest point, Hunts threw me a life preserver. Supposedly the owner was impressed that he had a real-life detective on the payroll, though that billing vastly overstated the case.
4
----
Canadian customs was a walk in the park. I dropped my bags in the hall of my tight little apartment on the Danforth and checked my voicemail. My absence hadnât sparked an international manhunt. Ten calls in five days.
Five of them were someone trying to get me to switch banks or phone services.
Three were where-are-yous from Sandy. She understands the scouting dodge, plans made, plans torn up, new plans made again. With each call her concern escalated minutely.
One was a thought-you-were-coming-back from Lanny, my daughter, calling from her boarding school in Wisconsin. She wanted to talk about a tournament her team won in upstate New York. She had a stack of hockey scholarship offers from schools in the States, so her boarding school tuition was sort of a front-loaded education. She wanted me to further front-load it by wiring her spending money. Which I was fine with, so long as it kept her a distance from her mother, who could better afford tens of thousands than I could C-notes.
The last call, from two days ago, was an invitation to an old-timers game in Peterborough. It was being organized by Vis Hockey Enterprises, an outfit that had started with the purchase of a kidsâ hockey organization in Woodbridge and grown into a multi-million-dollar business with teams and arenas across the province. Like everything else out of Woodbridge, Vis was as Italian as grandmaâs ziti. And like a lot of things in Woodbridge, it was a family business, with gobs of money from sources unknown, suspect, or shady. Vis was founded and run by Giuseppe Visicale, ostensibly for his sons, four tanks who never won a sportsmanship trophy, tough enough to play pros but with less than half the skills to pull it off.
I was advised that Vis Hockey was organizing this charity old-timers tilt to raise funds for a hospital. I suspect that Vis was looking to get a piece of the publicly owned Peterborough arena. And once Vis Hockey Enterprises got a piece of something, it generally ended up with all the pieces.
Before I checked in with the women in my life, I got back to the organizers of the game. Yeah, I was free the next evening, St. Patrickâs Day. Sure Iâd come out.
F AMOUS STORY: About twenty years after they last played the game, Rocket Richard and Teeder Kennedy wobbled down the red carpet to do a ceremonial puck drop one night at the Gardens. They didnât make eye contact and didnât shake hands the whole time they were out there. Thatâs how it is. With guys who play in the league, hateâs always there. Even after their playing days are over, it doesnât pass. It ages like Scotch.
Iâm the last guy they call for old-timers games, and the first to jump at the chance. Most people didnât notice that I was in the league, never mind that Iâm gone. Still, Iâm as public-spirited as the next guy, more than most who pass through the league.
Iâm young enough and my Arthur isnât bad enough that I canât get through a bunch of half-speed shifts with fifty-year-old men whose knees are ten years younger than mine.
Truth is, itâs a voyeuristic deal for me. When I accept that invitation I am witness to a secret spectacle. Yeah, at any intersection of twenty former players in a dressing room youâre bound to find four- or five-decades-old hatreds, and I get a kick out of watching them try to set aside blood grudges, rub scars the other guys left, and smile through gritted teeth, all for a good cause. Accept an invitation?
I spent four years in the mire and developed a deeper appreciation for just how awful people are. I worried that I was becoming one of them, that mid-life crisis was an infectious condition. At my lowest point, Hunts threw me a life preserver. Supposedly the owner was impressed that he had a real-life detective on the payroll, though that billing vastly overstated the case.
4
----
Canadian customs was a walk in the park. I dropped my bags in the hall of my tight little apartment on the Danforth and checked my voicemail. My absence hadnât sparked an international manhunt. Ten calls in five days.
Five of them were someone trying to get me to switch banks or phone services.
Three were where-are-yous from Sandy. She understands the scouting dodge, plans made, plans torn up, new plans made again. With each call her concern escalated minutely.
One was a thought-you-were-coming-back from Lanny, my daughter, calling from her boarding school in Wisconsin. She wanted to talk about a tournament her team won in upstate New York. She had a stack of hockey scholarship offers from schools in the States, so her boarding school tuition was sort of a front-loaded education. She wanted me to further front-load it by wiring her spending money. Which I was fine with, so long as it kept her a distance from her mother, who could better afford tens of thousands than I could C-notes.
The last call, from two days ago, was an invitation to an old-timers game in Peterborough. It was being organized by Vis Hockey Enterprises, an outfit that had started with the purchase of a kidsâ hockey organization in Woodbridge and grown into a multi-million-dollar business with teams and arenas across the province. Like everything else out of Woodbridge, Vis was as Italian as grandmaâs ziti. And like a lot of things in Woodbridge, it was a family business, with gobs of money from sources unknown, suspect, or shady. Vis was founded and run by Giuseppe Visicale, ostensibly for his sons, four tanks who never won a sportsmanship trophy, tough enough to play pros but with less than half the skills to pull it off.
I was advised that Vis Hockey was organizing this charity old-timers tilt to raise funds for a hospital. I suspect that Vis was looking to get a piece of the publicly owned Peterborough arena. And once Vis Hockey Enterprises got a piece of something, it generally ended up with all the pieces.
Before I checked in with the women in my life, I got back to the organizers of the game. Yeah, I was free the next evening, St. Patrickâs Day. Sure Iâd come out.
F AMOUS STORY: About twenty years after they last played the game, Rocket Richard and Teeder Kennedy wobbled down the red carpet to do a ceremonial puck drop one night at the Gardens. They didnât make eye contact and didnât shake hands the whole time they were out there. Thatâs how it is. With guys who play in the league, hateâs always there. Even after their playing days are over, it doesnât pass. It ages like Scotch.
Iâm the last guy they call for old-timers games, and the first to jump at the chance. Most people didnât notice that I was in the league, never mind that Iâm gone. Still, Iâm as public-spirited as the next guy, more than most who pass through the league.
Iâm young enough and my Arthur isnât bad enough that I canât get through a bunch of half-speed shifts with fifty-year-old men whose knees are ten years younger than mine.
Truth is, itâs a voyeuristic deal for me. When I accept that invitation I am witness to a secret spectacle. Yeah, at any intersection of twenty former players in a dressing room youâre bound to find four- or five-decades-old hatreds, and I get a kick out of watching them try to set aside blood grudges, rub scars the other guys left, and smile through gritted teeth, all for a good cause. Accept an invitation?
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