Phil Esposito

From the spring of 2008...

Although the Montreal Canadiens won the Stanley Cup in the year of Power Players, another team, the Boston Bruins, was slithering in the background and dramatically struck the following season by winning the Cup. If the term glamourous could be applied to any team during this period, it would be to the Bruins. Bobby Orr, perhaps the greatest defenseman in league history, revolutionized the way the position was played. Matinee idol Derek Sanderson was emerging as a star, and a supporting cast of players, some prominent, some merely there to play specific roles all gelled to create a fearsome machine who collectively came to be known as The Big Bad Bruins.

Most hockey experts would agree that Orr was the team's best player.  An unassuming superstar from Parry Sound who let his play do the talking for him, in person Orr was shy and reserved, with a workmanlike personal typical of small-town Ontario. As a counterpoint, the team's other star was a big, flamboyant center from Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. Phil Esposito had quite simply evolved into a hockey celebrity of unprecedented proportions. In that one season, Esposito single-handedly smashed the NHL record for goals in one season. In the 1968/1969 campaign, Bobby Hull of the Chicago Black Hawks potted 58 goals - a record may believed was unassailable. Just two years later, Esposito, who used to center for Hull before being cast off by the Blackhawks in a trade to the Bruins, did the unthinkable and scored 76 goals.

The magnitude of the feat instantly propelled Esposito to super-stardom becoming the game's most recognizable face, a role he relished. With his swarthy good looks and a persona matching his on-ice stature, he instantly became a media darling. On the ice, he instilled fear in his opponents; every time he touched the puck in the offensive zone, opponents and their fans collectively held their breaths hoping he wouldn't do what had become customary - putting the puck in the net. Wherever he went, he was surrounded by bright lights with microphones with long cords thrust toward him. This was no meek and polite Canadian - Esposito exuded confidence, flair and a zip of panache, ingredients that formed the foundation of something called media savvy. Phil Esposito relished every moment of his fame.

No matter where the Bruins played, arenas sold out just so those fortunate enough to get tickets could catch a glimpse of this mega-hockey star. Kids everywhere who followed hockey now looked to Espo as the man, and tried to copy every little move or gesture they might pick up on television. Of course I wasn't immune, as I soon was caught in his spell. My second season of Don Mills Civitan house league hockey began in the fall of 1972,  and came just weeks after the conclusion of the Canada/Russia series. Next to the star of the series, Paul Henderson of the Toronto Maple Leafs, the second most important fixture for the Canadians was Phil Esposito who balanced the team's offensive attack.

Hockey is a game built on a rich tradition, so if a date or an occasion is particularly significant, it is often marked with a pre-game ceremony. Usually, such ceremonies occur at center ice when each team lines up on their respective blue lines to participate. During the Russia series, a memorable moment occurred prior to the start of game five in Moscow. This was the first of four games played in the Soviet Union, and to welcome the Canadians, the Russians pulled out all the stops. The festivities began when Olga Barinova, a star from the Moscow Ice Ballet skated onto the ice to offer the Canadian team a traditional gesture of hospitality to guests of the Soviet Union - a loaf of bread with salt on top. This was followed by the presentation of flowers by 44 figure skaters who presented one flower to each player on both sides. Once the teams returned to their respective blue lines cordially faced each other, the PA announcer began player introductions. With each introduction, the player whose name was just called skated a few strides forward, acknowledged the crowd with a simple nod and moved back. The sixth player called out was Phil Esposito - remember, the entire Soviet Union and all of Canada were glued to their television sets; Esposito made a few strides forward, but suddenly lost his footing and fell right on his behind.

Always the showman, Esposito added his own brand of improvisational flair to his live pratfall. As he landed, he extended his legs skyward in an exaggerated V, and as he got up, bowed to the crowd, including a sweep of the hand holding the flower that had just been presented to him that was befitting of a Shakespearean actor asking a maiden for her hand in matrimony. The crowd ate it up. It was magic, and at that moment, the only person in the world who could have pulled it off was Phil Esposito.

Fast forward to the following spring, and I found myself on a house league team that burned up the entire season posting win after win. The team, Peck Jewellers, was so good in that we made it all the way to the league finals. The only thing standing between us and a great big trophy was a team sponsored by a local radio station called CHUM-FM. This was a team led by a superstar player who by all rights was way too good for this league named Brett Lawrence, a multi-sport wizard in our neighbourhood, and any hopes that our team had of tasting glory were dashed by his superior play. When we lost, we had our own centre ice ceremony following the game.  Members of the winning side were presented with gleaming trophies while we had to settle for some nicely embroidered crests. After our teams lined up and my name was called, I skated over to collect my consolation prize, but as I was reaching to receive it, fell down right at center. I pulled a Phil Esposito only a few weeks after the maneuver had been invented. When I got back up, I tried to do my own Esposito-like bow - unfortunately, I lacked the requisite amount of gravitas required to pull it off, and all I heard was pin-drop silence. All these years later, memories of that incident still make me squirm.


Big Phil Esposito's impact extended to our home too.  On one particular Saturday afternoon during the season following the big series, my older brother received a call from a friend asking if he would be interested in attending the Leafs/Bruins game that evening at Maple Leaf Gardens. Getting tickets to a Leaf game was next to impossible under the best of circumstances, but on the a night when the Bruins came to town?  Forget it - absolutely the hottest ticket in town.  Though not really a hockey fan, my brother accepted on the spot, and used the opportunity to rub his good fortune in my face. That evening I watched the game knowing full-well that my brother had great seats and was watching the Bruins live and close-up. I'd have to wait until the next day to get the details.

When morning arrived, and we gathered at our pale yellow linolium table designed at the height of the jet age when anything was possible, and our mom served us up a stack of pancakes. "You're not going to believe what happened last night at the game" he started, as he stuffed a triangular morsel of six pancake layers that had been stabbed by his fork into his mouth. "What? What?" I implored. He was deliberate in taking his time chewing and swallowing, wiping his face with his sleeve, and taking a big gulp of milk.

"So our tickets last night were almost at ice level but beside one of those tunnels that takes you under the Gardens, and that tunnel led to the Bruins dressing room (hockey players stopped using the term "dressing room" in around 2004, and replaced it with the term "locker room", thus erasing a small vestage of its gentlemanly roots). Just before warm-ups started, you could tell the players were about to come out onto the ice. Our whole section didn't even seem to be paying attention, but then all of a sudden, guess who walked out of the tunnel and just stood there beside us?"

"Okay, I know, but who?" I said.

"Big Phil Esposito." By this point, he was dripping with smugness and continued.  "Yup, Espo was standing there, and it was like one of the Beatles had come out. Everyone in the whole section just stopped what they were doing and just began staring at him. Of course he was loving it, but pretending that he didn't notice. So then, guess what I did."

"Tell me, tell me!"

"With a bunch of people looking, I looked right at him and said 'Hey...Phil'"

"You said 'Hey Phil' to Phil Esposito? No way! What did he do then."

"He looked at me, and nodded."

"Phil Esposito nodded at you?" I couldn't believe my ears, this was even more significant that Neil Armstrong walking on the moon, or seeing one of the Toronto Maple Leafs in person.

"Oh yeah." He said. From the way he described the entire scene I could just see how this one guy could just lasso an entire crowd through the aura he radiated. It was like that proverbial person who they say lights up a room when they walk in. No matter the importance of any other event. That person just showing freezes everyone else. Phil Esposito was that unstoppable force of nature who had the world on a string in the 1970's.

Tim Horton's Donuts & Hockey - 4.93

This piece was originally written in 2005, but published in 2019...

I don't think a weekend ever passes by without my daughter asking if we can go to Tim Hortons. Like many children, a Tim Hortons is a ubiquitous site on the Canadian landscape, but more significantly, if I ever ask her what she thinks about when I say "Tim Horton" she says it is a place where she gets donuts and her parents buy coffee. At one point, she also asked me why the place was called Tim Hortons in the first place, so I decided to give her as many details as I could.

The first time I encountered Tim Horton was actually through Power Players, but about a day after getting the Horton stamp for my album, Murdo Campbell, the father of my childhood friend Mike Campbell (who himself would go on to have a successful career in the CFL) and lived behind our house in Don Mills said that Horton may have been a Ranger now, but he would always be remembered as a great Maple Leaf. He stood about 5'11", but was one of the toughest players to ever have laced on a pair of skates.

As tough as he may have been on the Leaf blueline, Horton was really boxed into the same circumstances as any other player of the day. At that time, a player effectively was the property of the team that drafted him (remember, this was at a time long before free agency), and the earning potential of that player was limited. An average player made about the same amount of money as a guy who managed a parts factory in any part of Canada. It is fundamenatlly for this reason that the degree of connection was so strong between players and their fans: if they were any good, they were assured of playing for the same team year after year; and, because they lived in the same socio-economic bracket, the common man could relate to these kinds of guys; hell, they could even be one of your neighbors.

The downside risk of this kind of arrangement, was that there were no mechanisms in place to protect a player were he to be injured. There were no players unions to provide insurance, and whether or not a team opted to pay a player in his absence was purely at the discretion of the club. In an era with flimsy equipment and no helmets, the risks were often so great that the players would often take summer jobs to maintain their cash flow, or build up a nest egg for the time they would leave the game.

Players would routinely spend their summers in their hometowns working construction or in sales. Early in Tim Horton's career, he would go back to his home in Timmins Ontario which was 10-12 hours north of Toronto where he would work construction. Given the physical demands of the work, he decided that a better way to make money and manage a business at the same time would be to open his first restaurant, a hamburger stand in Timmins called Tim Horton's hamburgers. After some time, Horton had to close the business given the slow volume of traffic in a remote Ontario town, but clearly, he had been bitten by the restaurant bug.

In the early 60's, Horton sustained a serious shoulder injury and this affected his cashflow with the Leafs and their stingy owners. The only way to maintain his lifestyle was to find a sustainable side business, and the opportunity he had been looking for came about when he entered into partnership with a cop from Hamilton Ontario named Ron Joyce to open a single donut shop. Well before The Simpsons of television fame lampooned the idea of cops hanging around donut shops, Joyce knew from his own experiences that this was potentially a winner. They opened their first shop in Hamilton - Joyce would do the legwork, and Horton would largely lend the name. The shop was a hit, so they undertook a modest expansion.

Horton would recover from his injury and remain a stalwart on the Leaf blueline, but the age of expansion brought about change. Soon, Horton found himself in unfamiliar territory, as a member of the New York Rangers but still his reputation as a team leader was so well known, that he was immediately named as an alternate captain to the team. He would eventually end up playing close to Toronto again, this time with the Buffalo Sabres.

After Power Players initiated me into the great game, I developed a much greater awareness of who the players were. In 1973, our family moved from Don Mills to York Mills (about 2 miles north), and within no time, I got my first job as a paperboy for the Toronto Star. On my first day on the job, I was given my route sheet that showed that I had 63 customers - 62 of them were spread out over 3 streets, and one outlier lived a little further away. In those days, the only ways in which a paperboy got paid was to physically go out in the evening every second week and collect money for their subscriptions. In the case of this one outlier the good news was that I didn't have to collect from them, as they "paid to the office." I had no idea who these people were until the fall of that year when one of my friends who lived close to that mystery house called me, told me to drop whatever I was doing and ride my bike to his house. By the time I arrived, three more members of our gang were already there. We got on our bikes, and within two minutes, we had all parked our bikes across the street from house number 63 on my paper route.

We marveled as the owner of the house was buffing up his brand new Ford Pantera - a rare German-built sportscar that was only 44 inches high . He was a big strong guy, who was completely focussed on making his new car look as good as it possibily could. He was Tim Horton - and he lived in that house at the corner of Stubbs and Woodsworth. I also seem to recall that maybe at Halloween, or around then, Tim Horton was at his house handing out candy to kids with a smile - somehow, we all felt a little star struck on that day.

During a routine practice in early February of 1974, Horton took a slapshot from Sabres forward Rene Robert square in the jaw. Given the composition of a hockey puck - roughly 3 inches in diameter and 1 inch thick of concentrated vulcanized rubber, and the speed the puck must have been travelling - let's say 90 miles an hour - to say the pain must have been excruciating would almost be an understatement. Regardless of the injury, and true to his form as one of the toughest players who ever played the game, Horton would not miss a game. He did, however, have a noticably swollen jaw, and to treat the pain began taking strong pain killers

In later part of the month the snow had already gone through a few thaws. The Sabres played a game against the Leafs on a Wednesday night. On this night, I stayed up and saw that Tim Horton was named one of the stars of the game. At the end of the game, instead of boarding the team bus, Horton was granted permission to go back to Buffalo on his own, as he had to tend to business matters with Ron Joyce at their office in nearby Oakville, Ontario - a point between Toronto and Buffalo. Although he only had a little to drink on that evening, when he got in his Pantera after the meeting with Joyce ended, the painkillers started to react with the alcohol. A police cruiser clocked him going well over the speed limit on the Queen Elizabeth Way, a four lane stretch of highway that connects Toronto to Buffalo. A chase ensued, but Horton thought he could outrun the cruiser. When the chase reached St. Catherines, Ontario, only a few miles short of Buffalo, Horton lost control of the Pantera.

The next morning when I arrived at school before the 9 o'clock bell, I heard the news that seemed unthinkable: Tim Horton - the same guy who I delivered papers to, who I watched buff up his new Pantera, and who was named one of the stars of the night before had died in a single car accident on the Queen Elizabeth Way on his way back to Buffalo.

A week ago, I took my daughter to a birthday party and one of the parents I bumped into moved to the same neighborhood where Tim Horton lived so many years ago. She was introduced to me by the birthday girl's mother Helen, who introduced me by saying "Tony used to live in the neighborhood, and he's the guy I told you about who used to deliver papers to Tim Horton." The woman immediately said "Oh my God, you have to meet my husband, he learned that that was once where Tim Horton lived, so every day he passes the house, he crosses himself because he considers it a shrine.

"What is a little suprising," she continued "was that that little house was supposed to be Tim Horton's dream house. Does that seem like a dream house to you?" I decided not to get into my rant about the time when players who played the game, did so for the love of the sport, and their idea of a dream home was very much like what our own expectations would be. Tim Horton had indeed purchased his dream house, a dark brick bungalow built on street corner that was on a gentle hill. His backyard had a huge bay window upstairs that faced south and the walkout basement below opened up to a pool that was nestled just above a small ravine. Prior to his death, this was indeed the scale of a house that consituted the extent of an athlete's dream, long before a time when the notion of an athlete's home has taken on cartoonish proportions often containing indoor bowling alleys, discos and compounds in the back designed for super-secret activities. When Tim Horton died, his chain of donut stores was very modest and it would be Ron Joyce who would transform the idea into an empire. Based on the simple comments made by this woman, who was approximately my own age, Tim Horton was more an iconic chain of Canadian donut shops than he was a hockey player, and the thought that professonal athletes could be just like us was probably foreign. To my daughter, however, Tim Horton will just be a place where she gets her donuts.

I've often heard it said that one of the great generational divides that has emerged if you're a Canadian is simply measured by what one thinks of if they hear the name Tim Horton. So true indeed - for my daughter and her generation, the name Tim Hortons is simply a great donut shop. To me, Tim Horton is not only the name of a hockey player, but is a name associated with the loss of innocence on that cool February morning before the bell rang.

The Iron Man Cometh

One of the more annonymous figures included in the Power Player collection was a fresh faced player on the Detroit Red Wings with a thick plume of blond hair named Gary Unger. Unger's career had begun only two years before as a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs, but in another one of the moves made by Toronto GM Punch Imlach to remove any player whose ego inflated to the point where it might undermine the former's authority they would be unceremoniously given the heave ho. In Unger's case he wasn't the culprit, but Frank Mahovlich was. Unger, who until then was a largely untested commondity by the Leafs was thrown in to ensure the deal would be completed.

Unger would only play for the Red Wings for a year, before he was shipped off to the St. Louis Blues. This time, it was Unger who was proving to be a distraction in the dressing room, but it wasn't because of his ego; it was simply because he refused to get a haircut. To the Red Wings' coach, Mr. Mod had to go, and during the '70-'71 season, Unger was shipped off again - this time to the St. Louis Blues. Unger wasn't even 24 and he was on his third NHL team in two years, a trend if it continued would permanently attach the dreaded label "journeyman" to his profile. Seems as though St. Louis was a good fit, because Gary Unger would go on to represent the Blues in seven all-star games but more significantly, Unger would go on to play in 914 consecutive games, smashing the NHL record.

Maybe the intensity on Unger's mug on his stamp forshadowed his determination to play hard without missing a game for the next eight years, but then again we were young. Looking back at that picture now, it was clear that the Iron Man had arrived.

An Homage to Mr. Hockey

There are so many places where I could really get this blog going, but really, could there be any other place than starting with Gordie Howe? Right off the bat, I'll tell you that my exposure to Mr. Hockey (in a Red Wings uniform that is) was brief, and from what I saw, I didn't like the guy because he had this distinct penchant for mixing it up in the corners with his elbows (hey, that has a familiar ring to it!). I was in a roundabout way attached to this guy because all my hockey equipment was made by TruLine - a brand of hockey equipment put out by Eatons, endorsed by noneother than Mister Elbows himself.

Anyway, I do remember that in the spring of 1971, there was a center ice ceremony at Maple Leaf Gardens where Leaf captain Dave Keon presented Howe with a plaque to commemorate his service to the game of hockey. Really, what better time to make this presentation than to have it coincide with the Wings final appearance at the Gardens that year. Here's what they wrote about Howe in the album:

Two names - Jack Adams in the front office and Gordie Howe on the ice - dominate the history of the Detroit Red Wings...Many stars have helped Detroit to be the most successful of any NHL team based in the United States, but Adams and Howe are the biggest.

Howe is one of the "greats" in the history of hockey and the record book is a testimonial to his massive talents. The 1970/71 season was Howe's 25th in the NHL and, starting that record year, he owned every career record available - most games 1,624; most goals 763; most assists 994; most points 1,757.

If this didn't have the makings of setting up a Howe swan song, I don't know what would have. But being the feisty competitor he always was, he would prove that there was lots left in the tank.

A year or two later, Howe was convinced to join the upstart WHA and play on a line with his boys Mark and Marty for the Houston Aeros. Somehow, he kept going, and when the pieces of the WHA were merged with the NHL in 1979, there was Mr. Hockey still going strong and plying his trade for the New England Whalers, who were rebranded the Hartford Whalers when they made their NHL debut. In the irony of ironies, when the Whalers made their innaugural appearance at the Gardens in the 79/80 season they were led by three of the brightest NHL stars from another era: Bobby Hull (who was nearing the end of his career), and none other than Dave Keon and Gordie Howe - the same guys who played a prominent role in the center ice ceremony in the year of Power Players, 70/71.

How the Fun Began

I was 7 years old in the fall of 1970 - about a year after I started collecting hockey cards, and then it happened. The new season of Hockey Night in Canada kicked off and as usual, it was sponsored by Imperial Oil. To a kid, that meant nothing until that particular year, because it was then that Imperial did a deal with the NHL and Alan Eagleson's NHLPA and created this great little promotion to get dads to switch their pump allegiance from Sunoco, Shell, Gulf, Texaco, Supertest, BP, Canadian Tire, or Fina to Esso.

Come to Esso, they were told, and you could get these packs of 6 hockey trading stamps called NHL Power Players. These came with little blue plastic wallets to hold your traders, and an album to put them all in (a soft-cover edition that had some stamps already printed in, and a deluxe hard cover album that required your getting all of them).

The hook seemed simple enough, tug at the heartstrings of Canadian boys born between about 1957 and 1964, and tell them that the only way they could get these little gems was to have their Dads fill 'er up at Esso. I suppose that's what made them so special - with cards, you could just go to the corner store with a pocket full of dimes and buy cards to your heart's content. These were different - you could only get them with a fillup of gas - so there was this built-in scarcity factor that was built in.

I had the soft-cover edition (as did most kids) - only a few selected kids actually had the hard cover - but over the years it gradually disintegrated into many pieces. I tried to explain to my wife how special these things were, but without physical evidence, they became nothing more than a cherished memory.

Enter one Paul Greenstein. The whole idea for this project came about because Paul Greenstein or PG, my best friend since childhood came by our house one evening for dinner to say hi to my family before leaving for Europe and Japan. For the last fifteen years or so, he has become an expert antiquarian book dealer, who has this uncanny ability to walk into a used book store and find undervalued books that he in turn will sell to buyers in all corners of the world. The fact that he found his way into this profession is little suprise to me because he has been an expert collector all his life. This began, by collecting coins and hockey cards, and not suprisingly in 70/71 he collected Power Players as well. Because he has known me since kindergarten, and was party to the same schoolyard wheeling and dealing of these little stamps, he always knew how much I coveted them. In fact, there were more than a few times when I declared that if I could ever find an album that was intact, I would pay a thousand bucks for it. It really meant that much to me. So what did old PG lay out for me a vitage copy of the hardcover edition of Power Players. To say that this was in mint condition would be an understatement. It was simply pristine.

I suppose with all those years of collecting under his belt, he knew a good specimen (often sight unseen) when he came across one. The more puzzling question was, how did he know that this would be the perfect gift? The answer to this lies first in understanding the gift giver.

Search high and low, I don't think it's possible to find an individual quite like Mr. Greenstein. His grandparents were European Jews who emigrated from Poland and Russia in the early part of the last century. His grandfather, John David Greenstein or "Jack" quickly learned the ropes of the new country and after marrying his sweetheart Mary Rosenfeld, gradually settled into his role as one of Toronto's most prominent furriers. His operations began modestly, but by the 1940's his operations comprised two floors of the Fashion Building in Toronto's garment district. Jack was the king of fur and seemed to know everybody. When we were kids, he used to tell us that two of his more prominent customers were legendary broadcaster Foster Hewitt, and Leaf owner Conn Smythe (he made it a point to mention that whenever he saw him, he would call him "Connie"). As Jack aged, he also told us that he used to babysit Connie, so perhaps his advancing years were becoming a factor in his recollection (an observation validated one day shortly before his death when a group of us took him out to dinner, and upon passing Canada's most prominent museum, The Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Jack casually remarked "this is where they slaughter them cats").

Jack and Mary had two boys, Murray and Leonard and the family settled in the Beaches section of Toronto, an unusual choice for a Jewish family, as most of the residents were of British ancestry. Although Jack and Mary consciously made to decision to locate in that part of town, life for the boys wasn't always easy, as they had to endure a steady stream of anti-semetic tuants and abuse. Murray could do one of two things. He could either cower and bury his head in hopes that the abuse would end, or stand up to it. He chose the latter. His chief tormentor during high school was a stocky bully named Bill Kirk, who simply put did not like Jews and let Murray know it every day. After putting up with this abuse for what seemed an eternity, one day Murray decided to fight back. Before an English class the two shared at Toronto's Malvern Collegiate, Kirk came in and started to make comments that it would be only a matter of time before Hitler came to Canada, and when he did he would be hunting down the Greenstein family. With this, Murray flung his desk aside, went to Kirk's face, drew his right arm back and landed a blow square to his nose. Blood poured out and the tought oppressor meekly retreated. Murray was never bothered by Bill Kirk again.

The valuable take-away Murray learned from this incident was that the world could indeed be a mean place, but the only way to address such issues was to tackle them head on. Murray became very resilient after this incident, and would maintain the good fight throughout his life (even after he was diagnosed with brain cancer shortly before his 80th birthday). Tragedy struck the Greenstein family when Leonard died as a teenager of the flu, so it was up to Murray to carry the mantle and maintain a watchful eye on his parents as they grew older. He enlisted with the Canadian military at near the end of World War II, and although he didn't see action, spent a substantial amount of time preparing at Camp Borden, a detachment about two hours north of Toronto. When the war ended, one couldn't avoid being caught up in the euphoria that followed. These were halcyon days indeed, and for a a wide-grinned bachelor just released from his military duties, it was time to celebrate.

During the 1950's, he snubbed his nose at his parents' expectations of him becoming a pharacist or an accountant and instead went into sales. This career choice fit him like a glove, and he began rolling in the dough so he could live the good life. While many of his friends were now chosing to get married, Murray had no intentions of settling down and instead chose to live life to the fullest. He regularly cavorted with his still-single buddies from childhood, regularly taking vacations to exotic ports of call including Miami Beach, Acapulco or Havana. When he was back home, he bought a boat and he and the boys would regularly hop in the car and head down to the Catskills with their bathing suits, record player, a collection of 78s and finely pressed white dinner jackets.

Like all good things, the party had to end at some point, and by the end of the decade, he was one of the last single guys from the wrecking crew he had assembled. But cliches work the other way too, because good things come to those who wait. Shirley Stern was a beautiful young actress from a touring company based on Canada's east coast. Her mother's family had deep roots in New Brunswick, and her father was an enterprising adventurer from South Africa. When Shirley moved to Toronto and met Murray, the rest was just a formality. They were married in 1960 and had two boys, Jeff and Paul. To say Murray and Shirley's approach to parenting was unconventional would be an understatement. For starters, Shirley insisted that from the time they were born they be treated as peers. There was going to be no goo-goo, ga-ga action with the boys, but casual and loving peer interaction. When the boys were young, they were encouraged to look past the suburban sensibilities of the 1960's and look to appreciate all there was in the world.

There was a small street that ran perpendicular to their driveway on Wetherfield Place called Bixby Court. At 3 Bixby Court lived the first Indian family in Toronto, the Gills (no relation), consisting of two brothers and their Nepali wives. It was a lively and unpredictable household, but from the perspective of any other resident of Don Mills, this was about as ethnic a household as there was. Despite the seemingly endless raucous incidents, the strange smells, and the strange clothes worn by the women that to the casual observer looked like living room drapes slung over their shoulders and wrapped around the body, Shirley was intrigued, so intrigued in fact that she walked over to introduce herself and satisfy her curiosity about her exotic neighbors. Shirley and the sisters would become good friends, and all the while the boys had been watching.

I first met PG in kindergarten but didn't become better friends until a few years later. Unlike some other kids who met me for the first time and didn't quite know what to make of me, PG treated me with respect and exhibited the same curiousity his mother had for the Gills. He was quite the renaissance man. He was the best baseball player we knew (a southpaw - by the time we reached high school he was our team's starting pitcher - of course I was his catcher), he could strike a golf ball with deadly accuracy by the time he reached grade 7 (by which point he was shooting in the 80's), he knew every player in the NHL and their stats by heart, and he could tell you any academy award winner (the major categories) since the ceremony's inception. He was also the first one of our group who had the courage to ask a girl out. In grade 5, in front of myself and three other friends, he called a pretty girl named Elise, chatted her up with the banter of an old pro and on the weekend, they made a date to go play pinball - this Greenstein guy was one serious cat.

In grade 6, we were fortunate enough to have one of the coolest teachers a kid could ever have. His name was Robert Brown, had a big afro and bushy moustache, and taught by exposing the class to educational television and playing rock and roll on a small record player he kept in our class. On one particularly cold December day prior to the Christmas holidays, all the kids went outside for recess (as per their normal routine). All of us that is except for one who decided it was too cold to go out and time would be better spent reading the teacher's copy of Canada's National newspaper, The Globe and Mail. What better place to read it than the teacher's desk because the chair allowed him to recline and put his feet up on the desk. When recess was nearing an end, Mr. Brown came back to the class after enjoying a coffee and a cigarette and found his pupil still sitting there reading the paper. Paul had heard Mr. Brown coming but sensed that Mr. Brown would appreciate his free-wheeling tendencies, so didn't flinch an inch when he saw the teacher approach (this would simply be uncool).

"Greenstein, what are you doing?" the teacher asked. "Reading the Globe" replied Paul. "Why didn't you go out for recess?" the teacher continued. "Because it was too cold."

Yes indeed, that little incident may have scored my friend some brownie points, but not on that day at least. Mr. Brown ushered him down to the principal's office where he spent the rest of the day.

By the time we reached junior high, many of the kids who were part of my circle of friends became more and more influenced by the effect of peer group pressure, and very few had any notion of individuality. This was the mid-70's and all of a sudden, and due to fundamental changes in Canada's immigration policy, massive swaths of people from other countries began arriving in Canada. One of the negative fallouts from this influx is that established Canadians from European backgrounds would scapegoat visible minorities for taking all the jobs. The brunt of the backlash was being absorbed by new immigrants from South Asia including India and Pakistan. The unfortunate fallout for me was that all of a sudden, I was lumped into this group of new arrivals and began being treated like a second class citizen or even worse. Many of those people who I thought were my friends began to distance themselves from me, simply because of the colour of my skin. As an eleven year old, I remember seeing the 1956 movie "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", a film about aliens who invade earth and gradually taking over the bodies of their human hosts as they sleep. A person once taken over would be devoid of any human feelings and would immediately look to those who hadn't yet been transformed as been possessed "the other."

This movie was always at the back of my mind when kids who were once my friends started turning away and started taking on all the visibile attributes of those crazy pod people. A few even would join small gangs who would physically intimidate me after school. Amidst all of this turmoil, there was one guy who wouldn't compromise his values. Perhaps it was the lessons he learned from incidents involving Bill Kirk, the Nepali Sisters on Bixby Court, or the immigrant experience explained to him by his grandparents, but Paul Greenstein's character was simply too strong to be swayed by influences that he saw as unjust. Whether he would stick his head into an escalating situation and say "lay off" or roll up his sleeves to get dirty and defend his friend, when any incident came to its natural end, he would brush it off as though nothing happened and say, "Let's get a game of football going." With this, we'd summon the last of the remaining good guys, who remain to this day the salt of earth.

Little wonder then that PG knew that in a hyper consumer world, where anybody with even a bit of money can shop for great things to their heart's content, a parting gift when he bid adieu to Canada was something he knew would be special. A couple of years later, I still absolutely marvel at what an amazing album Esso put together, and how fortunate I am to have had a friend like PG. It should be noted that today, whether it is my wife, my kids, my brother, his kids or my dad, all of us claim a little PG for ourselves. He's been an integral cog in the family for years.

When I began leafing through the album, it had struck me that I clearly remembered the names of the players, their numbers and thier exaact position in the album. More significant though, the sight of these stamps unlocked a flood of memories, not just of the players but the simple lessons I learned through collecting. These little life lessons or stories of the hockey players I followed so closely at that stage in my life formed the foundation of values, or provided early glimpses of the types of themes that would influence my own life as I grew older. As I looked at the stamps, I would see a player who I associated with an incident, and the thematic quality of that incident would paint my perceptions of many influences in life that would follow.

What a neat idea it would be then for me give that album a more thorough look and extract those memories and themes and when completed see if they could be stiched together to form a cohesive narrative that somehow might be able to describe the life I have lived so far. It may also serve to reveal the quality of the love affair this country has with its great wintertime game, and finally, define what it has meant to grow up in Canada at a time when the country was in transition and land up in the place it has today as one of the most well balanced and just societies the world has ever known.