Hockey Towns Read online

  India was incredibly hot. The children had to be very careful because of all the snakes in the area, and there was something in the air, so they all had sore and watery eyes.

  While Martin fought in Montecito, Italy, his family settled just outside of Arusha in Tanzania, seventy miles from Nairobi. They were on the first transport to arrive. The children loved it there. They went to school from eight o’clock in the morning until two in the afternoon and played soccer in the big fields nearby. Zenon especially loved all of the sports, and he became fluent in the local language. There was a high wire fence around the camp to protect them, but it was normal to see lions, giraffes, baboons, African buffalo and gazelles. The mosquitoes were very bad, and everybody got sick with malaria, but the quinine tablets they took daily did seem to help.

  When the Polish soldiers joined the Allies, both England and the United States promised they would be able to return home after the war. But that became impossible. Poland was under communist rule, and the few Polish soldiers on the first transport home from Italy were arrested once they arrived and were taken back to Russia as enemies. Martin and many others felt Poland had been betrayed by England and the United States at the Yalta Conference, a wartime summit meeting between US president Franklin Roosevelt, British prime minister Winston Chuvrchill and Stalin in 1945.

  Stalin wanted Poland. He said it was not only a matter of honour but also “a question of security.” He said Poland was a corridor for Russia’s enemies. Roosevelt wanted Russia to participate in the United Nations and to join the Allies in the Pacific War, so he acquiesced. It wasn’t until three weeks before Roosevelt’s death that he understood he had made a deal with the devil. He told his advisors, “We can’t do business with Stalin. He has broken every one of the promises he made at Yalta.”

  The war ended, but the odyssey of the Konopka family continued. Katarzyna and the children stayed in Africa until 1947 before finally joining Martin in England. Martin had a choice of going to either Canada or the United States, but because he felt Roosevelt had betrayed his country, he chose Canada, where after the war Polish soldiers were contracted to work on farms. In exchange, they were offered citizenship, wages and accommodations for their families.

  Martin’s family arrived in St. Catharines, Ontario, in November 1948. Martin had a cousin there. When he completed his farm labour contract, he got a job at General Motors, where he worked until his retirement. He missed his country, but fortunately, there were a number of Polish veterans around St. Catharines, so Polish clubs sprung up throughout the community and people adjusted.

  When Zenon arrived in Canada with his mother and sisters, he was nine years old. Zenon loved everything about his new country, especially hockey. He couldn’t afford skates, but one day he found a discarded pair that someone had put out with the garbage. They were too small, but it didn’t matter—he was just so excited to own a pair. He was really musical as well. He could sing and play all kinds of instruments, including the accordion and piano. He joined Polish clubs and the Polish Legion as an associate member and played trumpet with the orchestra.

  Having lived through the toughest conditions possible didn’t harden him or take away his joy in life. It made him resilient. He backed away from nothing. In the 1960s, it was common for a fight to break out at a community dance. Zenon wasn’t a big man, but he was powerfully built and handsome, with Slavic blond hair and lashes. He also had the biggest hands you ever saw and a presence that warned others not to mess with him. If any of his friends were threatened, he would stick up for them with his fists.

  Zenon was twenty-seven years old when he spotted Arlene at a Polish club dance in Buffalo, New York. He asked her to dance, and they talked a bit. Afterward, Arlene really didn’t think much about it. She was only sixteen and was dreaming about her upcoming prom. All her girlfriends had boyfriends, but nobody had a car to get there. And then she remembered Zenon. He had a car. She knew he belonged to the Polish soccer club, so she wrote him a letter. She lied to her mother about his age, telling her he was only twenty-one. But at the prom, something unexpected happened—Arlene fell in love with him. They married when she turned eighteen.

  After two beautiful daughters, Cynthia and Celeste, they had a boy. They called their baby son Zenon, after his father. Zenon’s friends called him Big Zee, and so the kid became Little Zee. When he was born, Little Zee was all Zenon talked about at work. He was so proud and excited. He made a promise to himself—his son was going all the way to the NHL.

  The youngest group of players in organized hockey in St. Catharines was seven years old, but Zenon signed his four-year-old son up anyway. Little Zee didn’t touch the puck once the whole season. The next year, he scored a goal. At six, he scored a lot more, and then, when he was seven, the kid scored eighty goals.

  Zenon figured that the more Little Zee played, the better he’d be. So by the time his son was seven, he belonged to five different teams. He played in St. Catharines in a house league and for a select team, for a team in Merritton (a community in St. Catharines) and on house league and select teams in Niagara-on-the-Lake. He had ice time nine times a week. Little Zee would finish a game at Niagara-on-the-Lake and his dad would simply pick him up off the ice, throw him over his shoulder, strap him in the car—still dressed in his equipment and skates—drive him to St. Catharines, carry him into the arena, where a new game was already in progress, and drop him right on the ice to play.

  Hockey ruled their lives. Between games one day, Arlene and the girls were in one car and Zenon and Little Zee were in another. The road was slippery and Zenon’s car slid into a ditch. So he grabbed Little Zee and traded vehicles with Arlene. He told her, “Wait here with the girls for CAA—we’ve got to get to the arena.”

  Before Little Zee was old enough to play novice, the family took a winter vacation in Florida every year. Then Big Zee decided that hockey was more important, so there were no more winter trips. Father and son were together every minute that Big Zee wasn’t working. Every day was taken up with baseball, hockey and roller hockey.

  In the car, they listened to music that Little Zee liked, unless it was between 7 and 8 p.m., when one of the local stations played an hour of Polish music. When Little Zee got older, it would drive him up the wall. He’d say, “Tata, why are we listening to this garbage?” And Big Zee would reply, “It’s not garbage, it’s where you came from!” And then he’d launch into the family history and how his son should be proud of his roots. If Little Zee continued to complain, Big Zee would weave down the road, singing loudly to songs like Frankie Yankovic’s “Who Stole the Kishka?” just to make Little Zee laugh.

  Zenon’s son saw him as a loving but very intimidating person. There was never a shortage of hugs and kisses for his children, but he commanded a room. When he came home from work at three thirty, if the kids were watching TV, Arlene would yell a warning—“Dad’s home!”—and the TV would be off. By the time he was through the door, books and homework were out on the table.

  He wasn’t extravagant, but he bought his son the very best skates and sticks. There was never debate about eating. Whether or not you liked Brussels sprouts or broccoli, you finished your food. The little boy who’d hidden pierogies in his pockets so his family wouldn’t starve didn’t spank, he just had to give a look.

  Zenon worked his way up to manager of the tool grind at General Motors. He saved his money and managed to buy fifty-three acres of farmland plus another fifteen acres of fruit trees on the outskirts of Niagara-on-the-Lake, three minutes from St. Catharines. The Konopka family grew apples, grapes, pears and plums and had 2,800 apple trees. The region was part of the wine boom in the Niagara fruit belt. Now, instead of a nine or ten-hour day, Big Zee worked fourteen.

  He worried that his son wouldn’t be tall enough to play hockey. There weren’t a lot of tall people in the family. Big Zee claimed he was five foot eleven and a half, but he was really five-ten or so. He heard that sleep would help a boy grow, so he wanted Little Zee t
o sleep an extra hour in the mornings. So every day, instead of taking the bus, the kids were driven to school by Arlene. Big Zee also heard that whole milk instead of two per cent would add height, so they bought only homogenized milk. Someone told him lentils make you strong, which meant Little Zee ate vats of lentil soup and drank shakes with brewer’s yeast. Thanks to his diet, sleep and constant exercise from playing sports, when Little Zee was twelve he was getting noticeably bigger and stronger.

  Father and son would never miss Hockey Night in Canada. During commercial breaks, they’d often wrestle around. When the game came back on, Big Zee would say, “Okay, enough.” But one time, Little Zee said, “No!” and kept on wrestling. Big Zee said, “No, enough, you’re done.” But Little Zee ignored him. Suddenly, Big Zee grabbed him by the back of the neck and put his forearm up against the boy’s throat. It got to a point some might consider a little bit over the line, but the message was received loud and clear. “Okay, I guess we’re done.”

  Big Zee had been extremely tough on Little Zee when he was six, seven and eight years old. After a hockey game, he’d yell and scream at him about his performance. The team played in Welland one time and lost 3–2, with Little Zee scoring both of his team’s goals. Big Zee was angry and ranting, and Little Zee was crying and defending himself. Big Zee shot back, “Well, you didn’t win, did you?” When Little Zee turned nine, his father did an about-face. No one was sure why, but there was no more yelling, it was just, “You played well. You tried your best.”

  Big Zee wanted to sign his son up for boxing lessons. However, Arlene was dead set against it. She said, “I don’t want him getting hit in the head.” Big Zee told her not to worry. “They’ve got the helmet on and all this gear.” But she put her foot down. So he took Little Zee to classes without her knowing. The kid was good at it. He had a knack. Big Zee thought knowing how to fight would come in handy in the schoolyard. Young Zenon had a bit of a temper and got into a lot of fights. One time at the rink, he was trading punches with a kid who scratched up his face. Big Zee demanded to speak with both of them. He stared at them sternly as they stood in front of him, and then he said, “Okay, now let’s finish this fight. No scratching this time.”

  By 1993, Young Zenon was playing Peewee Minor AAA in Niagara Falls with the Niagara Falls Thunder. It was a good team, but they hadn’t won the OMHA championship in twenty years. With a population of only 75,000, Niagara Falls was too small to compete against cities of 120,000, like Oakville, or 250,000, like Brampton. Normally, the Thunder would get to the provincial semifinals and just get hammered. Then, when Little Zee was twelve years old, a friend of Big Zee’s, Al Boone, became their coach. Zenon was named captain, and the team went all the way, beating Barrie in the provincial finals. It was a Cinderella story. The Thunder headed back to Niagara Falls and celebrated at a pizza place until 5 a.m., playing pinball, eating pizza and wings and sneaking celebratory sips of beer from Big Zee. Little Zee couldn’t stop smiling. Life just didn’t get better than this.

  Big Zee loved celebrating the Victoria Day weekend. Each year, they’d invite all the kids’ friends and neighbours over to enjoy Polish food and fireworks. Their house on the farm was on a hill, with a basement walkout. It was a perfect place to set off a spectacular display. By Victoria Day weekend in 1994, Big Zee was a month retired from General Motors and he’d just bought another little farm. Young Zenon’s class was going to Quebec City for a school trip that weekend, but Big Zee vetoed it. Arlene said, “What’s the big deal?” And Big Zee replied, “One, a waste of money. Two, he should stick around here, maybe practise some sports.”

  On May 23, as Big Zee got ready for the party, he pulled Little Zee aside and gave him a top-of-the-line hardball bat, a black aluminum Louisville Slugger TPS. He said, “You’re going to hit a lot of line shots with this.”

  It was a fun day and night. All the cousins and buddies were over, the fireworks were bigger and better than ever, and they built a huge bonfire. The celebration didn’t end until the wee hours of the morning.

  The next morning, Big Zee slept in, which was extremely rare. When he came into the kitchen, he was in a great mood. He hugged Arlene and danced her around a bit. They had a coffee together, and then he said, “I’m going to go to the barn for a bit.” She smiled and tapped his cheek. “You know, I don’t think anyone is married twenty-nine years and so in love as we are.” Big Zee kissed her again and said, “That’s true, Mama,” and walked out.

  Arlene was bustling around, cleaning up after the party, when she heard all the sirens. She looked out the back window and could see fire trucks whizzing by. She thought, “Wow, it must be something big happened.”

  A few minutes later, the doorbell rang and there stood a policeman. Thinking he was there for some kind of fundraiser, Arlene turned to grab her purse but stopped in her tracks when he said, “Mrs. Konopka, I’m sorry to tell you there was an accident and your husband was involved.” Arlene said, “What? He just went to the barn about a half hour ago.” She looked out into the yard. “No, that’s impossible. You’ve made a mistake. My husband’s van is here.”

  The policeman looked at her. “Oh my God,” she said. “Was there a tractor involved in this accident?” Big Zee would sometimes take the tractor from the barn and go down the side road to the next farm to pick up manure for the field.

  He said, “Yes, there was a tractor involved.” Arlene held her hands over her face, “Oh my God.”

  The officer moved toward her. “Can I please come in and call someone for you?”

  She grabbed his arm. “Is he okay?”

  The officer shook his head. “I’m sorry to tell you that he passed.”

  Arlene said, “No. Maybe he’s in the hospital. How do you know?”

  He said, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Konopka. They called the air ambulance, but before it got there, he was gone.”

  Zenon’s three sisters came quickly. Arlene fell into them, crying. “Zenon’s gone. Zenon’s gone.” The girls were in shock—their big, strong brother gone? “What? No. It can’t be.”

  Arlene would tell the story again and again over the next few days. Zenon knew that the richer your soil was, the better your fruit was going to be. About two kilometres down the road, there was a horse farm. Zenon had made a deal with his neighbour to trade apples in exchange for horse manure, which he used as fertilizer. That morning, Zenon was driving down the road on their big four-tonne tractor. He was turning left into the neighbour’s farm when the car behind him decided to pass. The tractor was across the road, almost in the driveway, when the car hit the big back wheel. The tractor started to spin, so Zenon dove into the ditch. His arms were stuck in the mud up to his elbows, but he was alive. And then the tractor hit a tree and somersaulted backward, flying through the air. The spreader bar came down on the back of Big Zee’s neck and broke it.

  News of his death hit the airwaves fast. Arlene sent her in-laws to the school to pick up her girls before they heard about their dad from someone else.

  Little Zee loved that he could sleep in, because when he was sleeping, it meant he wasn’t picking apples or working on the farm. His bedroom was downstairs. The ringing of the doorbell woke him, but he pulled the covers over his head and went back to sleep. A little while later, something was happening upstairs. He could hear the commotion, but he closed his eyes and went to sleep again. Finally, he got up and walked past the bottom of the stairs on his way to the bathroom. He could hear his aunts crying. He thought, “What the hell is going on in my house?” and bounded up the stairs to investigate. When he entered the living room, his mom grabbed him and said, “There was an accident.”

  Everyone was crying. He looked around for Big Zee, but he wasn’t there. He threw his arms around his mom and held her for a long time. By the time he’d let her go, his childhood was gone.

  People say you’re in shock the day you hear news like that. Young Zenon suspended it, for years. He didn’t want to talk about it, didn’t want to deal with it. T
he old-school European mentality held. Don’t wear your emotions on your sleeve. Move on, get past it. He didn’t want to hear anything about his dad, and he didn’t like it when people talked about their dads, either. It hurt.

  Hundreds and hundreds of people showed up for the funeral and crowded inside the forty-three-year-old local Polish church, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, a red-brick building with two impressive white spires and colourful stained-glass windows. As the family entered, Zenon saw all the kids from Denis Morris High School, which he and his sisters attended. They created a hallway of candles as they lined both sides of the tall stairway and all the way down the carpet on either side of the pews.

  At the viewing, which took two and a half days, Young Zenon, now the man of the family, stepped up, shaking hands and accepting condolences. The other men in his family and his father’s friends all came up to him and reminded him, “You have to be strong for your mother and sisters,” and yet, when they said it, they were crying. Hundreds of men were openly weeping.

  Arlene came into Young Zenon’s room a few days after the funeral and noticed a little handmade sign he’d tacked up on his wall. It had three letters—NHL—coloured in with crayons. “Oh that’s nice,” she thought. “He has that dream.”

  But when hockey season came around, Little Zee just didn’t seem to have the same heart for it. As soon as he’d get on the ice he’d feel upset, bitter and confused.

  And politics in kids’ hockey being what they are, after the Thunder won the championship a year earlier, the president of the local minor hockey association decided he was going to coach the team, so his dad’s friend Al Boone was out. When that didn’t work out, the president stepped down but gave the team to his nephew to coach, and the team still struggled. Finally, when Zenon was fifteen, the nephew quit and Boone was invited back, and Zenon started to get his mojo back.