Источник информации - "The Hamilton Spectator"
Local, Monday, May 17, 2004, p. A01
Bill Dunphy
Shades of '72 as peewee summit pits Russians vs. Canadiens
Bill Dunphy
The Hamilton Spectator
TORONTO - Outside the old Lakeshore Lions arena, the Russian boys loosen up in the long rays of the afternoon sun.
I count nearly two dozen of them: skinny, short-haired 12- and 13-year-olds dressed in long johns and hopping across the warm spring grass in pairs, or linking arms back-to-back and lifting each other off the ground.
They're focused, but not fanatical. There are laughs and jokes amid the grunts and groans.
The Moscow All-Stars are down three-games-to-none in this Canadian leg of the series
-- a kind of re-creation of the 1972 Canada-Russia hockey classic.
But a look at the scores shows the young visitors have been gaining steadily on the hometown team with each game: 6-3, 5-3, 3-2.
Game 4 starts in about 20 minutes and here they are out in the grass in their gotchies doing dry land drills.
The Canadian parents and grandparents -- including a Hamilton contingent -- stand sipping the inevitable Tim Hortons, some in the sun and some in the shade, chatting and smoking and watching the Russians with a certain bemusement.
Randy O'Connor, a Hamilton firefighter with a broad face and a ready smile, is one of them. He's there because his boy Ryan plays for the home team, the Toronto-based Jr. Canadiens. Watching the Russians he comments on their physique in a matter-of-fact way.
"They're all so skinny -- every one of them."
The Jr. Canadiens coach, Kevin O'Donahue, comes out of the arena eating popcorn.
I ask him what his boys are doing right now while their Russian opponents are out on the lawn getting all limbered up.
"My boys? They're back in the dressing room with a case of Coors Light."
He laughs and so do some of the parents.
He regards the Russians and shakes his head.
"I don't see the point of it. We do stretches in the dressing room and on the ice -- all they're doing is using up precious energy they should be saving for the game.
"And besides," he adds, popping a handful of buttery kernels into his mouth. "They look kind of goofy -- don't quote me on that."
The goofy kids head inside, suit up and swarm the Jr. Canadiens from the drop of the puck, scoring twice in the first two minutes, 17 seconds. They go on to win a heart-stopper of a game 6-5, handing the Jr. Canadiens their first loss since Sept. 2002.
Let me repeat that -- their first loss since Sept. 2002 -- a streak of some 75 to 80 regular season and tournament games.
Not surprisingly they were Ontario champs.
When Canada put together their best pro hockey players to face off against the Russian "amateurs" in 1972, it was a dream team -- although it came close to ending in a nightmare.
The Jr. Canadiens is as close to a dream team as you're ever going to see in peewee hockey, a powerhouse club backed by reputed billionaire Harvey Shapiro, former owner of Dynacare Labs. Shapiro is reported to provide the club with a $200,000 budget -- in addition to the $3,800 registration fees parents like Randy O'Connor pay to have their kids play.
The money buys them full-time coaching, superior equipment and plenty of ice time.
But it's not the money that makes the team worth it to Randy and his wife Kelly, who have to carve five- and six-hour holes out of their days four and five times a week. That's what it takes to get their son Ryan, 12, into town from their central Mountain home for games and practices.
"It's the coaching," Randy says, "Kevin's tremendous. They love him. He gets each kid to work up to 100 per cent of their potential and that's without the blood, sweat, and tears some coaches use."
Kelly, the emergency clinic manager at Mac, points out that Kevin used to be a teacher.
"The boys get along very well. There have been no fights or any of the trouble you see on other teams."
Big cities like Toronto have a way of sucking the talent and money and jobs from their neighbours in a spiralling self-fulfiling prophecy. Their size gives them a kind of critical mass that sets off a chain reaction of the region's top talent, seeking each other out in everything from arts to finance, politics to, yes, hockey.
"The competition in Toronto is much better than in the Hamilton leagues," Randy says. "They have that many more players to choose from."
Ryan got asked to sign on to the Jr. Canadiens because they were in the market for a strong defenceman. Ryan's strong, not afraid to hit, and -- chimes in his proud grandfather Jerry Clayborne -- he's got one of the hardest slapshots around.
"Every night he's down in the basement practising his slapshot. He was doing what -- 40 a night now -- Randy?"
Randy nods. He explains that their basement was partially finished but they pulled out the steel studs after Ryan began his slapshot practice.
"He just destroyed them," Randy says, that smile lighting his face.
Both Kelly and Randy say they don't pressure their boy.
"He could tell me tomorrow he was finished and that would be it, we'd be looking for the next thing for him to do," Randy says.
He's a good student at school and mostly does his homework, though Kelly sometimes has to chase him out of a street hockey game or flush him out of his basement shooting range and remind him to hit the books.
"He'd play hockey 24 hours a day if he could."
Inside the rink Ryan, who scored six goals in a recent tournament, assists on a goal and comes close to scoring twice.
But the Canadiens are outplayed by the fast-skating Russians who've finally added hitting to their repertoire.
"For the first two games they were terrified," Sergei Stepanov, one of the Russian parents, tells me through an interpreter. "In Moscow under 13s don't hit or play a physical game."
Several of the Russian players are almost magical, displaying puck handling that's all but disappeared from hockey here.
The game is fast, mostly clean, and hugely entertaining. It's very hard to believe you're watching 12- and 13-year-olds.
Even though they're outplayed, the Canadiens show their mettle in the loss; twice they fall behind by two goals when the Russians put together explosive bursts of offence, and both times they fight back, including scoring twice in the last three minutes of play and coming within a hairsbreadth of evening the game.
Kelly is gracious in defeat.
"I'm glad the Russians won one," she says, as the teams line up to receive series medals from a pair of Russian NHLers on hand for the game.
"It would be terrible for them to have come all this way and lost all four."
I ask how Ryan will take the loss and she grimaces.
"Not well. He hates to lose."
The Canadiens travel to Moscow in late August for the final four games of the series.
I wonder if Coach O'Donahue will have his boys limbering up on the lawns outside the Moscow arena by then.
bdunphy@thespec.com 905.526-3262
Illustration(s):
Photo: Cathie Coward, the Hamilton Spectator
Hamilton's Ryan O'Connor, 13, of the Toronto Jr. Canadiens, breaks away from Moscow All Star Dimitry Paramonov yesterday.
Photo: Cathie Coward, the Hamilton Spectator
Canadian and Russian peewee players receive medals after Game 4.
Category: Front Page; News
Uniform subject(s): Sports and leisure
Story type(s): Column
Edition: Final
Length: Long, 991 words
© 2004 The Hamilton Spectator. All rights reserved.
