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Authors: Charley Boorman
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it would be. Reggie told me that
when he was a professional player he used to go to training camp to get in shape for the season, whereas now the pro players
have to be in shape just to get to the training camp. He reckoned the pro players would spend forty minutes every day working
on those sprints alone, again and again and again. Though Reggie never claimed to be the fittest player on the circuit, he
could score goals – it’s a bit like in football, I suppose; there are those players who just seem to have the knack. And Reggie
most certainly did; his shots were clocked at an average speed of 115 miles an hour, so fast the goaltender could barely see
the puck, never mind save it. What really blew me away, though, was that when Reggie was playing you didn’t have to wear a
helmet – that rule didn’t come in until 1980. I took a moment to think about it: being hit in the headby a puck at over a hundred miles an hour. I doubted you’d come out alive.
These kids were just one of several groups Reggie coached. He told me that many First Nations parents encourage their children
to play hockey, not necessarily because they have grand designs on the kids becoming NHL players in the future, but because
they want to give them a focus, to keep them out of trouble. There’s a drink and drug problem among youngsters in Canada just
as there is anywhere else, but the fitness requirements of hockey alone would help prevent them getting into that. In his
own youth Reggie made lots of mistakes – he had a serious drink problem – and his goal now is to pass on some of what he has
learned to his people, to give them a sense of purpose regardless of whether it leads to the professional game. He has lots
to teach them; not only his hockey skills, but also the resolve to overcome life’s difficulties. He told me he’d joined Alcoholics
Anonymous in 1985 and had been on the wagon ever since.
I really liked Reggie, and although becoming a professional ice-hockey player has had to be scrubbed off my list of unfulfilled
ambitions, I learned a lot, and not just about the game. Reggie is one of those cool people who, although he had plenty of
talent, knows how fortunate he was, and has spent his life since retiring trying to give something back.
It was a welcome relief to be back on a bike the next day. We were travelling first to Winnipeg then to Thunder Bay, where
we would hook up with some guides from Northern Soul Wilderness Adventures, who were taking us on a river trip.
We were still riding along Yonge Street, and plugging thecoordinates into the GPS, when I discovered we had six hundred kilometres ahead of us. We’d already ridden eight hundred on
Yonge Street since Toronto. One of these days I’m going to do all nineteen hundred, maybe with my wife Ollie and the kids.
So it was back on the highway, with the railway and a massive freight train on my left and the tarmac unravelling under the
wheels. The Atlantic was behind me and the Rocky Mountains ahead. So far the only boundary we had pushed was the Atlantic,
and that left both the south and the north before we rolled into Vancouver. We passed through small towns beyond which the
land seemed flat and featureless, and the traffic grew less and less until it seemed I was the only person out there. It was
mind-blowing to think I’d been on the same stretch of highway all the way from Toronto. I was contented, really deep-down
happy. This was my signature, it was what I did: the road unwinding as I winged my way west on a GS1200 with off-road tyres,
panniers and top box.
The weather was rubbish, though; since Toronto it had been raining pretty much non-stop, and that kind of damp can get you
down. It didn’t let up either; when we woke the following morning, the sky was still a mass of black rain clouds and it was
cold outside. With the river trip coming up, I was beginning to wonder if we’d get rained on the entire way.
when he was a professional player he used to go to training camp to get in shape for the season, whereas now the pro players
have to be in shape just to get to the training camp. He reckoned the pro players would spend forty minutes every day working
on those sprints alone, again and again and again. Though Reggie never claimed to be the fittest player on the circuit, he
could score goals – it’s a bit like in football, I suppose; there are those players who just seem to have the knack. And Reggie
most certainly did; his shots were clocked at an average speed of 115 miles an hour, so fast the goaltender could barely see
the puck, never mind save it. What really blew me away, though, was that when Reggie was playing you didn’t have to wear a
helmet – that rule didn’t come in until 1980. I took a moment to think about it: being hit in the headby a puck at over a hundred miles an hour. I doubted you’d come out alive.
These kids were just one of several groups Reggie coached. He told me that many First Nations parents encourage their children
to play hockey, not necessarily because they have grand designs on the kids becoming NHL players in the future, but because
they want to give them a focus, to keep them out of trouble. There’s a drink and drug problem among youngsters in Canada just
as there is anywhere else, but the fitness requirements of hockey alone would help prevent them getting into that. In his
own youth Reggie made lots of mistakes – he had a serious drink problem – and his goal now is to pass on some of what he has
learned to his people, to give them a sense of purpose regardless of whether it leads to the professional game. He has lots
to teach them; not only his hockey skills, but also the resolve to overcome life’s difficulties. He told me he’d joined Alcoholics
Anonymous in 1985 and had been on the wagon ever since.
I really liked Reggie, and although becoming a professional ice-hockey player has had to be scrubbed off my list of unfulfilled
ambitions, I learned a lot, and not just about the game. Reggie is one of those cool people who, although he had plenty of
talent, knows how fortunate he was, and has spent his life since retiring trying to give something back.
It was a welcome relief to be back on a bike the next day. We were travelling first to Winnipeg then to Thunder Bay, where
we would hook up with some guides from Northern Soul Wilderness Adventures, who were taking us on a river trip.
We were still riding along Yonge Street, and plugging thecoordinates into the GPS, when I discovered we had six hundred kilometres ahead of us. We’d already ridden eight hundred on
Yonge Street since Toronto. One of these days I’m going to do all nineteen hundred, maybe with my wife Ollie and the kids.
So it was back on the highway, with the railway and a massive freight train on my left and the tarmac unravelling under the
wheels. The Atlantic was behind me and the Rocky Mountains ahead. So far the only boundary we had pushed was the Atlantic,
and that left both the south and the north before we rolled into Vancouver. We passed through small towns beyond which the
land seemed flat and featureless, and the traffic grew less and less until it seemed I was the only person out there. It was
mind-blowing to think I’d been on the same stretch of highway all the way from Toronto. I was contented, really deep-down
happy. This was my signature, it was what I did: the road unwinding as I winged my way west on a GS1200 with off-road tyres,
panniers and top box.
The weather was rubbish, though; since Toronto it had been raining pretty much non-stop, and that kind of damp can get you
down. It didn’t let up either; when we woke the following morning, the sky was still a mass of black rain clouds and it was
cold outside. With the river trip coming up, I was beginning to wonder if we’d get rained on the entire way.
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