Book dives into hockey life with McKenzies

The 5-year-old Mike McKenzie had no idea he would play college hockey someday. He just didn't want his father, Canada's top television hockey analyst Bob McKenzie, to take him to power skating.

"I was crying in the front seat because I didn't want to go," he said. "He'd tell me 'You're not going to quit something you started.'"

Crazy? How about this?

"It's definitely got to be the stick measurement game," McKenzie said. "I'm 13 years old. We're down 5-2 in the third period with five minutes left and (Bob) had walked by the other team's locker room before the game and happened to notice a couple guys had huge banana curves on their sticks. There was a rule for that.

"So late in the game — he was the assistant coach — he said that these guys had illegal curves and wanted to call one. He called one, and we scored on the power play. Two minutes later, we're still down by two, and he said 'The kid's still using the same stick.' He called another one and we scored on a power play and were down one. Then he told the head coach that another kid was using the same stick and to call a third one. The coach said we'd be fine, and we scored with a minute left. Then, we won 20 seconds into overtime.

"The kicker is that same team is coached by a guy who, when we were in major novice, we won a playoff game to eliminate them and they protested the game to the league a day after because our coach was suspended and went in to tie his son's skates before the game. He wasn't supposed to be in the room. They overturned the game and we lost the game and our season was over. I think it was a little bit of Karma. Some say crazy, I say Karma."

Bob looked at it a little different.

"The only reason I called two was because the coach wouldn't let me call a third," he said. "It was payback for when the team protested a game and won."

Both stories are among those in Bob's book, "Hockey Dad: True Confessions from a (Crazy?) Hockey Parent." In it, he discusses the swings of raising two hockey boys, one of whom had to quit the game at 14 years old due to concussion-related injuries.

"It was a range of emotions," Bob said. "It's a first-person account of taking two boys through the Canadian hockey system."

It documents what it was like for Mike's brother, Shawn, when his hockey life was taken away and how he coped. It chronicle's Mike's rise to the college ranks and how he got there without necessarily Bob's help.

"I can't take too much credit," Bob said. "He went through some tough years. He's pretty much done everything himself. In some respects, playing at this level is amazing."

Bob has barely missed a game. He's able to travel to road games and catch everything inside Appleton Arena in Canton.

"You can count the games he's missed in the span of four years on one hand," Mike said. "It's awesome to have him here so much."

That's all winding down, however, as the crazy hockey parent is all too aware.

"It's hard for a kid senior year and a dad senior year," Bob said. "I really enjoy going."

His book, ultimately, is about that: Enjoying and teaching life lessons and values to his sons through their lives in hockey.

"It was never supposed to be just about the hockey," Bob said of writing the book. "Whenever I kind of lost my way as a hockey parent, it was because I wanted them to embrace those values."

"Hockey Dad" is available at bookstores everywhere and at the Brewer Bookstore on the St. Lawrence University campus. Bob held a book signing last weekend both at the bookstore and before SLU's game with RPI. It was released in September and took just over a year to complete.

JOHN HANCOCK

St. Lawrence University alum Bob Graham will be signing his book, "Go Saints!" from 1-3 p.m. on Dec. 5 at the Brewer Bookstore.

"Go Saints!" chronicles the history of St. Lawrence University hockey from the mid-1920s through 2001.

Graham spent eight years researching and writing the book, which was a gift to the college.

Sportswriter Daniel J. Cassavaugh covers St. Lawrence University men's hockey for the Times. For more coverage, visit the "Casstle of the Saints" blog online at watertowndailytimes.com. You may reach him at dcassavaugh@wdt.net.