Ice Guardians Page #7

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You look at a heavyweight boxer,

he'll fight once or twice a year.

And those are with gloves on.

And you look at NHL enforcers,

and these guys fight uh, 20, 30 times,

Bareknuckle.

On skates.

When you're young,

and you're 18 and 17

and you're doing it,

and you're 24, you're still doing it,

25, next thing you know, you're 30

and 20-year-olds comin' around.

Usually guys, when they get older,

around my age like 32, 33, 34,

they're like "Holy f***,

I'm done with this sh*t!"

How did I ever do that?

How'd I do it for eleven years?

It's a lot more emotional and wearing...

On that player or on those people

Than what people think of it as.

Two heavy hitters at centre ice

and Martin knocks Kostopolous

to the ice.

And Matt Martin is calling over

the training staff.

The biggest fear in the role we

had is just being embarrassed.

We never wanted to let

our teammates down.

Just getting knocked out.

Simple as that.

In front of 20,000 people.

National TV.

I was afraid every game.

I was afraid to lose.

I was afraid, if I dropped

the gloves with somebody,

they were King Kong.

The injury part is a big thing for us.

Whoever says they're not worried

or not afraid of it

is lying to your face.

Because I feel like I'm not

afraid of anything,

and I don't let it control me,

and I'm not worried about it

every single second.

But it's always there.

You get knocked out.

Y'know, not knowin' where you are.

It happens to everyone.

I messed up.

I grabbed the wrong hold

or something, it came across

and I was out cold.

I was lyin' on the... lyin' on the ice.

Bambi-legs tryin' to get up.

There's somethin'

in the back of your mind

that kinda knows what's goin' on.

Obviously you're a little... out of it.

But it's like...

It's scary when

you're kind of watching the fight

and you see y'know, the ref

immediately, kind of...

over him motioning for medical

staff to come on to the ice.

I remember seein' my wife first after

and it was basically like

"I'm so sorry."

Just a shitty feeling

to know I'd gotten beat

and to know that the people

that care about me most, like,

had to see it.

I would definitely say that was

one of the tougher...

...things that being the

wife of an enforcer

that I've had to go through with him.

Is just watching him go through that.

Fred Shero gave us a quote that said,

"If you do not want to be criticized...

When I read that I went,

"Well I should expect to

get criticized."

So... go ahead.

'Cause I don't wanna be nothing.

Certain media guys try and do their best

t'understand it.

There's a...

A handful of 'em that don't want to

and they're right to have their opinion.

Unfortunately for the guys

that are the biggest naysayers...

They don't get in the

locker room other than when

you're in your underwear and a towel.

So they don't really know.

Some people out there

who have opinions about hockey,

all they know is Slapshot,

the Bertuzzi incident,

the Brashear incident

and these black smudges on the game

that we're more pissed-off about

than anybody.

Well, Slapshot 's an

amazing movie, however...

If I was gonna answer honestly,

I would probably say no.

They haven't portrayed them accurately.

Just because they don't have a clue

what's goin' on in that locker room

or, or what they mean to us

as people and players and teammates.

When that guy walks in the room,

everybody gets up.

The team captain will say

"what a great job by so and so."

When you're gettin' respect

from your peers,

I think some of the media guys

should understand that.

I think I know what it's like

to win the Stanley Cup.

But I don't know.

I don't really know.

I think I know.

So if you've never been in a fight

or never known what it's like

to have a guy on your team

that's been in a fight,

don't tell me you know what it's like!

American hockey

particularly loves statistics.

They invent new terms like 'winning-est'

which doesn't actually exist.

And you've got stats on everything.

So we can see things like

whether enforcers have

increased or reduced ice time

based on their performance.

We can see how much time they spend

in contact with the puck

and what their plus-minus statistic is.

All that kind of stuff.

But none of that is going to tell you

what motivates them.

None of that is going to explain

the culture that they exist in

and the culture that

encourages their violence

and sort of... often

criticizes them at a later point

for their violence.

Any news story has a narrative

and so they pick their narrative

and they have to commit to it.

This is not to say that the

narrative they've picked

is uh... wrong.

It's just only one side of it.

They go out there and, y'know,

2 million people or

5 million people in that city.

It gets picked up across the country

are reading about it and

influenced by it

so they just jump on board and

say, "There's another dummy."

Are enforcers goons?

Uh...

You could say yes and no.

Wh, wha..what is a "goon?"

I don't even really understand

what a goon is.

I just don't know why

I don't like that name.

It just sounds so sloppy or something.

Are accountants "bean-counters?"

If you went up to an accountant

and called him a bean-counter

he probably wouldn't like it.

The polite word is "enforcer."

This guy is a goon.

If you haven't seen the movie,

you don't have to bother.

This is a goon.

It's Scott Parker with that goatee,

Steve Konroyd

He looks like he's just been

released on a weekend furlough.

Looks like he could own a Harley

and a leather jacket

and everything else.

A goon implies that - the player

has no, no ability...

Or can't even think.

You know, 'cause what the f***

is a goon?

Didn't George Parros

graduate from Princeton?

George Parros and I

are Princeton graduates.

Speaking with him I think he got

a lotta the same questions, where...

"So you're an enforcer,

but you went to Princeton?

Like, what's that all about?"

I'm whatever you wanna call me.

I don't care.

I just did my job.

If other guys are offended,

then so be it.

They did bring up, throughout the years,

back in the 80s and 90s,

when toughness was

very important to a team,

they did bring in players that...

Were there for one game,

one reason, one shift.

Those players might only have

lasted 1, 2, 3, 5 games.

The enforcers,

the ones that really made

a difference to teams,

lasted 5, 10, 15 years.

The truth is that anybody

whose name you've heard

was not a goon.

If they stuck around

long enough to be there,

they were able to play hockey.

Is there a virtue...

That's overlooked by those

who look at hockey?

You bet.

But you don't know it, until you

step into the dressing room

and interview one of these guys.

You think that this guy is a monster.

You think that he has no

compunctions about breaking arms

breaking legs, smashing out teeth.

You think he's merciless.

That he should be exterminated,

he's a cockroach of the gang.

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