Nilan25

The quiet man who could speak with soaring pride about his children DAVE STUBBS The Gazette Monday, December 11, 2006 Igained a genuine appreciation for Bob Gainey sometime between his demonstrating a drunken-chicken cooker and my discovery that not one bowtie in his bedroom closet is a clipon. It was late January 2005, the National Hockey League lockout 4 months old, and it wasn't quite two years since Gainey, the Canadiens general manager, had returned to the only city where he skated and checked his way into the Hall of Fame. He had accepted my request to meet away from the Bell Centre, for a discussion about his life that would include hockey only in parentheses. Why not in his condominium? Gainey suggested. It's a 15-minute stroll from both his Bell Centre office, to the southeast, and the Forum, to the northwest, where he was finding himself still magnetically drawn, if now only to watch a movie. This morning, Bob Gainey is dealing with another tragedy in his life that has seen far too many of them. His daughter Laura was lost at sea Friday night, swept from the deck of a ship off the coast of Cape Cod. It will be 12 years in June since he lost his wife, Cathy, to cancer, leaving him to raise children Colleen, Laura, Steven and Anna, age 10 to 17 when she died. In 2001, he gathered pledges for his run in the Boston Marathon, and he raised $50,000 for cancer research in Cathy's memory. Don't waste your time, a few colleagues told me when they learned I would meet Gainey away from the arena. You'll learn nothing, they insisted, about a quiet man who hasn't much to say. But I learned a great deal over four hours that January evening as Gainey laid bare his life while we sat at his kitchen bar and ate the dinner he had prepared. He spoke of profound values instilled in him by his parents, saying he had learned order from his father, George, a war veteran and Quaker Oats factory worker in Peterborough, Ont. "A man tends to see more of his father in himself, and vice-versa, as he grows older," said Gainey, who turns 53 on Wednesday. "I remember my father's comfort in his life. He moved through the things he needed to move through. "He served in the army and he brought certain traits back with him from the war. Maybe I downloaded some things from there." Gainey shared the tea-biscuit recipe of his mother, Ann; he loved surprising Canadiens staff with a batch he'd whipped up in a home that shelves more cookbooks than hockey books. He spoke of how he's recognized in this city, of mapping out a few walking routes between home and office, of the double-takes from Canadiens fans. "By the time I tell them I'm not Larry Robinson," he said mischievously, "I'm gone." And for maybe an hour, Gainey spoke with soaring pride about his three daughters and his son, who had endured and sometimes greatly struggled with the death of their mother. Cherished, he said, is the time his far-flung family spends as one at the country place he had built near Peterborough. "This is what we do when the family is together - we bring in the food and cook," Gainey said, tossing the salad. "It's a communal thing, a way to nurture a bit. If you're not really soft and cuddly other ways, you can cook some tea biscuits and it's OK." From beneath the counter, he pulled what looked to be a mutant Bundt cake pan. He'd bought it at a Texas flea market while managing the Dallas Stars. "It's a drunken-chicken cooker," he explained. "You fill the middle with beer, sit the bird up on it, plug the neck and put it in the oven. The vapours moisturize it and everything runs down into the reservoir outside. "I've brought maybe 15 up north and given them as gifts. The guy at the flea market knows me. He'll phone me." Then, with a Texan's drawl: "He'll say, 'Bob, how the hell are ya? So whuddya do with all those damn chicken cookers?!' " Then, as a helpful chef: "You might also do this on an open beer can, but isn't this a classier way to get the bird drunk?" The man who never smiles was laughing robustly. On his nightstand was one of the books he was enjoying: The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, a practical guide to understanding change in life. It remains a personal reference. As we shook hands that night, Gainey gave me his cellphone number should I have any more questions. A few days later, he called and asked, almost apologetically, if I would please discard it. "If any reporter asks me for my cell," he said, "I'd like to be able to tell them that no one has it. And I want to be telling them the truth." dstubbs@thegazette.canwest.com © The Gazette (Montreal) 2006 Copyright © 2006 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved.

Gaineys no strangers to glory - and grief Wave sweeps Laura, 25, into Atlantic RED FISHER The Gazette Monday, December 11, 2006 Only the mothers and fathers among us can even begin to imagine the horror, the torture, the grief that Bob Gainey is going through now. Parents aren't supposed to lose a child. There is no pain greater than this, and nobody, not Gainey, not anyone, should be confronted with it. The story of a 25-year-old Canadian woman being washed over the side of a Lunenburg, N.S.-based tall ship by a rogue wave around 9:30 on Friday night appeared on this newspaper's Page A6 yesterday. Important stories normally are carried closer to the front page. The woman was not identified, so the story was scanned and the page turned. It didn't involve anyone you know. Yesterday, it involved someone everybody knows when the Canadiens confirmed that Gainey's daughter Laura had been identified as the missing woman. The report left me breathless. How could this happen? Why? I have known and been close to Gainey for more than three decades. I still remember the day he joined the Canadiens family. "Who did the Canadiens take in the draft?" I asked a colleague at the Montreal Star on this June afternoon in 1973. "A kid named Gainey ... Bob Gainey." "Who?" "They say he was a pretty good defensive player with the Peterborough juniors." "Never heard of him," I said. "I guess (Canadiens GM Sam) Pollock did," was the reply. Pollock's strength as a GM was that he always put his personal stamp on draft choices. Pick the right player and he could be a franchise leader. Choose the wrong one, and it could set back a team for several years. Pollock would listen to his scouts, but the buck and the puck always stopped with him. Reaching out for Gainey largely because of his defensive credentials might have been the best decision Pollock made in his years with a team that always has relied heavily on offence. His selection was a surprise to everyone - but Sam knew. Pollock was in Halifax to watch his first-round choice in the exhibition season's first game. The Boston Bruins were the opposition. The Canadiens were the reigning Stanley Cup champions, the Bruins had won in 1971-72, but were still very much the Big Bad Bruins. Bobby Orr was on the ice to start the game. So was Peterborough alumnus Gainey. Orr jumped on a loose puck in his zone and then, in the classic Orr skating style, slipped beyond one man and then another. On the opposite side of the ice, rookie Gainey gathered his legs beneath him, picked up speed with each stride and crashed into hockey's best player. Orr went down in a heap, blinking into the lights as Gainey skated away. In his seat, no more than 20 feet away from the collision of the rookie and the legend, Pollock smiled thinly. Sam knew. Nobody ever has been more right about a player. Gainey's first NHL bodycheck was an omen of things to come in his 16-season career, eight as team captain. He made defence and punishing bodychecks fashionable among NHL forwards. He controlled games. He was as much of a winner and a game-breaker as any of his contemporaries who enjoyed 50-goal seasons. No defensive forward in the league came within a rink-length of him when he was a runaway winner of the first four Selke trophies. He was simply the very best at what he did. "You watched the way Gainey worked," Larry Robinson once told me, "and you had to go out there and try to work the way he did. There was no other way," he said. In his years in hockey, glory has not been a stranger in the Gainey household. Neither has grief. Now this. I have never met Laura Gainey, but I know a lot about her, starting with a call her father received about 16 years ago. It was after a pre-game skate, and the youngest of his three daughters was on the line. Colleen, who was only 5 at the time, was crying. She had been kept home from school because she wasn't feeling well. "We'll have a nice nap together," Bob's wife, Cathy, had promised her daughter. "You'll feel lots better. I'll be with you in a minute." Seconds later, Colleen heard a crash, and when the child rushed toward the noise, she found her mother unconscious on the bathroom floor. Now, a terrified Colleen wailed over the telephone: "Daddy! Daddy! Mommy is on the floor in the bathroom. She's not moving ... she's on the floor. What do I do, Daddy?" The news was as bad as it gets: a brain tumour. Malignant. Cathy's only slim hope for survival was massive surgery, followed by five weeks of radiation, five days a week. Five years later, after more major surgery, after too many weeks of chemotherapy and discomfort and tears, Cathy Gainey was taken away from her family. She was only 39. The depression that preceded and followed her mother's death put Colleen into a clinic for a month. Laura, who was 14, plummeted into the ugly, mind-bending culture of hash, marijuana, acid and speed. She was only a teenager, but in its own clawing, gnawing way, in her mind these terrible drugs were the only way out. "What she was doing was burying feelings of anger and depression," Gainey told me in a gripping, one-on-one interview on one of his visits from Dallas. "Anger over her mother's illness. Isolation. Abandonment. The kids, I think, take something like what happened to Cathy ... as being deserted. They know on a conscious level that their mother didn't ... wouldn't desert them, that the last thing in the world she'd want to do is leave them. "Laura bottled up some of the emotions. Others, she acted out in the wrong way. She started to cover the pain by dropping out on drugs for a few hours at a time, and that slowly increased until it was almost constant." There was denial, Bob told me. He would bring up the subject, and then there would be more denial. More anger. More drugs. Laura, the teenager, eventually won the fight of her young life. She was a volunteer on the Picton Castle, whose captain described her as a "a well-loved crew member, very dedicated, very hard-working and very passionate about being on the ship." Gainey is strong. He is brave. He played through more pain, I think, than any athlete I have ever known. How, though, does he get through this? How does any parent? He is a private person who picks his friends carefully and always has made it a point to do the same with words when he's not completely comfortable with people he doesn't know well. But few people I know have a better way with words when the occasion demands it. One such occasion came in the form of a letter he wrote to me while he was still with the Dallas Stars. A mutual friend, a noted agent in Boston named Bob Woolf, had died suddenly. Gainey happened upon the column I had written about our friend's death. "Every now and again, something reminds me that this letter is in my head and really should be written," Gainey wrote. "My working relationship with Bob lasted four to five years, but my friendship with him was ongoing until his death. The things I learned from him will last my lifetime. I may have told you in the past of how I met him and how our relationship and friendship progressed," he added. "What is more important were the things I learned from him. Honesty, integrity, humility. "So, with his passing, I felt a disappointment in not having expressed these feelings to him during one of my visits to his office in Boston," Gainey wrote. His handwritten letter continued: "You are another person who has had an effect on my life. And rather than write this letter to your wife or children 'someday' - as I did with Anne Woolf - I decided to write it to you. "This is where this letter becomes more difficult to write. I just liked you and respected your views and assessments of our day-to-day happenings. You didn't want people to shy away from the hard decisions or the tough areas on the ice. By following your advice and learning from your assessments, I was often pointed in the right direction. "I know that you were a strong supporter of mine and I tried to make that easy for you - but the fact is that your support is not forgotten or unappreciated. It is very much the opposite," he wrote, in part. I must tell you I have received letters from only a few athletes during the past half-century. I don't expect them to write letters - but Gainey's is the only one I've kept. When I heard yesterday's horrific news, I had to read it again. It left me tingling all over - to a greater extent, perhaps, than the first time I read it more than a dozen years ago. I weep for him and his family. rfisher@thegazette.canwest.com © The Gazette (Montreal) 2006 This site is a part of the canada.com Network.

Bonk is 1-13 on the faceoffs. He is getting eaten alive!

That was not my intent. It is obtuse to dismiss the French press"s antipathy does not have to do with the fact he does not speak French. It was an active discussion, you were wrong to sanitize it.

What ahppened to the Koivu thread?

Streit is consistently overmatched physically defense or forward. And I have never seen his so-called offensive skill

I am not happy about this recurring rumour. This guy has 10 goals, the hardest shot in the league, makes our power play decent which has been reponsible for a large part of our success. He always plays hard, is the first to step in for a teamate and is TOUGH. He is always chatting on the bench and just seems to display leadership. I don't get it.

We need the odd goal from Bonk, Begin, JOHNSON!, Samsonov. to get back in this game. Also. Markov has to step up. He is underachieving. God this hockey is so not physical. I sure miss the Kordic/Nilan days.

As I thought, Rivet played the most minutes... Why was played so much? Because he was no good? Wake up. This was a collective effort

Check on the minutes Rivet plays. That will explain it. Would you rather Dandenault? Carbonneau sems to not value him.

They are getting destroyed on the faceoffs. Bad penalties. I hate losing to this " were not allowed to fight" gaylord team.

Dandenault out of all the defenseman gets a lot of calls down low, he is generally outhustled and out muscled in the corners. I am looking forward to having Bouillion back for his ability to carry the puck up ice.

I am mystified as to why the Habs are penalized so much. They don't seem to be dirty, their skating is pretty much as good as any other teams which should cut down on holding and hooking. Their coach is known for discipline. Is it a plan by Carbo to improve the PK by experience? He seems to be using everyone as well.

Given the media coverage I would venture to say the circus is always there on a Saturday home game.

How in God's name did we look slower than the Leafs? We need someone on the 2nd, 3rd, 4th lines to contribute. What ever happened to the odd goal from the muckers? We really need Boullion and (dare I say it) Dandenault back. Streit and Ninima just are not cutting it. And Komisarek is playing too many minutes. God I hate losing to the Leafs!

A. Hainsey has no heart and was a flake. Latter day Bryan Fogarty. Talent and no drive. B. Streit is too small overmatched on most nights and I play with guys in pickup leagues that have a better shot.

Huh! I always thought Kostisyn was a prospect. Defensive forward or not usually high draft picks can score in the AHL. I don't buy that he is concentrating on his defense so he does not score.

Just checked up on our two prospects in Hamiltom. Chipchara 11 games 0 goals, Kostisyn 9 games 1 goal. What is up with that???

Now I admit this early in the season I have not paid my usual obsessive attention. BUT! The games I have watched I have not noticed this guy Ninima. Was he not offensively gifted? I have seen no evidence of this, he seems quite invisible, although I noticed he was -2 tonight in a 4-2 win. Also, completly mystfied by the criticism of Kovalev. HE IS THE BEST PLAYER ON THE HABS. Period. He was awesome tonight. My 2 cents.

I thought he looked far more comfortable and confident. If Gainey kept him there must be a reason. Signed, never been a Streit Fan

NO!!!!! He is a Euro with no heart.

Surely you can't be serious about sending out Dadenault in a game on the line over Rivet! Rivet is far smarter defenceman, I have seen little evidence of smart decisions in the past rather the reverse. He is at best a 12-18 minute defenceman. Suspect on the boards and underachieves offensively considering his skating ability.

Dadenault will never be our most consistent defenceman. He is consistently outmuscled, thats why he is called for so many penalties.

Higgins punks Peter Forsberg shootout wussie.

Why in God's name does he have Dadenault out there with 2minutes left. This is so predictable.