Hockey Jacket  (The Flying Frenchmen)    

Michael Parent

             Hockey was the game we "French-Canadian kids" were expected to play well. By the time I reached high school, good players often tried to follow the athletic scholarship detour away from a life in the textile mills.

            We'd played only a few games my senior year when we realized that this very well could be "our year."  St. Dominic's High School had dominated the State Championships for so long that our loyal followers had gone into a state of prolonged shock when we'd lost in the State Tournament the two previous years.

            We opened the season with a few wins against our usual competition.  But our fans began to scream much louder when we beat the Bowdoin College freshmen on their home rink.  Then we piled up seventeen consecutive wins, and were hailed as the heroes who would set things right.  Brother Sebastian, the principal, commented on the games during morning announcements.  Even cool guys like Butch Grenier started wearing the school colors.

            One Sunday, at suppertime, after we had beaten Dixfield in an afternoon game, Ma said

"You did so good at the game.  All the neighbors we're talkin' about it." 

            "Oh Yeah? Well, thanks, Ma." 

            Pa, as usual, didn't comment. 

            Ma could find something good to say about even our worst games. The previous year, after a truly hideous performance by the whole team, she had said:  "You did a good job -- we're very proud of you."               

            "But Ma, we lost 7 - 2!"                                  

            "That's O.K.. The announcer on the radio said your name a lot."                                   

            "Ma, I'm the goalie. When the other team scores, I'm the guy they shoot the puck past. 

They're bound to say my name."

            And I'd wait for a comment of any kind from Pa.

            But he hardly ever mentioned the games. Once, after we'd beaten Edward Little High and I'd played well, I turned into the living room, wondering if Pa had listened to the game.  He rocked in the chair that was so much his chair that it felt like an illegal thrill to sit in it when he was at work or at the Club. He sat, smoking his pipe.  "Allo, Boss," he said. "Allo, Pa," I said. I waited for him to say something about the game.  But he re-lit his pipe and started fiddling with the radio tuner, so I went into my room.  I hadn't invited him to a game since my sophomore year, when he and Mr. Lemay , sharing a fifth of bourbon, had had such a swell, loud time. 

My teammate Dickie Lemay and I had both wanted to hide in the locker room for the last period of the game.  When I'd come home that day, I told him I never wanted him to come to a game again. And he never did. Ma always said "We’re proud" but I couldn't bring myself to ask if that meant he had listened to the broadcast too.

            The season rolled along, and so did we, making the right plays at the right time, all the way into the State Tournament. Fanatics like Gaston Beaulieu and Cecile Plourde openly clutched their rosary beads and screamed themselves hoarse. When we won a close, well-played game against our arch-rivals from Lewiston High to regain the State Championship, St. Dominic fans walked around as if the earth, thrown off course for two years, had been set right and order in the universe had been restored. Ma was ecstatic. Pa was silent.

            I saw Gaston Beaulieu a few days after the State Championship game, and he assured me that his  prayers would carry us to the New England Championship, which no team from Maine had won in almost fifteen years.   

            In the first game, at Boston Garden , we won a close game against a favored Rhode Island team. The Boston sportswriters called it luck, and predicted that the Arlington , Massachusetts powerhouse we'd face in the Championship game would beat us, and hold us scoreless. Urged on by busloads of Mainers, perhaps aided by Gaston's prayers, we scored first, played the game of our lives, and won 4-0.

            We whooped and hollered all the way back to Maine .  Large crowds lined the streets and cheered as we rode in open convertibles to the victory celebration at the arena. I waved to friends and relatives, and looked for my Pa. But I didn't see him, not along the parade route and not inside the arena.                                  

            The following weeks were a blur of banquets, rings, sweaters, and trophies.  Life-size photos of team members stared out from storefront windows all over town.  We were the "Flying Frenchmen," the Champs, the toast of the town.  The textile mills were closing, and many people were out of work.  But, as my cousin Freddie said, "There's plenty of towns in the same pickle. We're the only ones that's New England Champs."

My Pa said nothing.

            We soon began speculating about the arrival of our championship jackets.  State Championship jackets were almost commonplace, but a New England Championship jacket was a rare sight.  Maybe my Pa would finally say something about what we'd done, about what I’d done.

            Finally, in early May, we were called to the Principal's office. There they were!  The sturdy winter jackets were in our school colors, black, with shiny white leather sleeves that ran all the way up the shoulder to meet the striped collar. One patch on the left sleeve featured a crossed hockey sticks and puck motif and contained each player's jersey number. The chest patch, cut in the shape of the New England states, announced our accomplishment. Ma gushed over the jacket. Pa didn't seem to notice it.

            Most of us wore those jackets every day till school let out. Some guys wore them under their gowns at graduation, even wore them with their Red Sox caps and swim trunks every day that summer. I put mine away in the living room closet in mid-July and looked forward to showing it off again in the Fall.

            About a month later, I was sitting in my Pa's chair by the living room window, looking down Middle Street , listening to the radio sports to find out how the Red Sox had done that day. We could sit in Pa's chair till he came in. It was the same "chaise a Papa" I'd always known, the chair where he’d sung me, and later my brother Norman, to sleep with "Bimbo" or "La Bastringue."

            After he finished his 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. shift driving taxis, Pa stopped in at "the Club," and usually turned the corner down at Middle and Oak, walking slowly and smoking one of his many pipes, at about 6:30.  Tonight he was wearing his usual narrow-brimmed felt hat, brown pants and matching suit coat and, WHOA!!!  I suddenly lost all interest in the Sox.

            "Ma, hurry up!! Come look at this!!"

            She came in and stood next to me.

            "What's he doing, Ma?"

            "He'll explain when he comes in."

            "You think so?"

            He didn't look up to the window, just kept walking down the street at his usual speed,

smoking his pipe. The door finally opened and Pop said "Allo" to Mom and Norman in the kitchen,

then he turned into the living room.

            "Allo, Boss." (I'd never seen him looking sheepish before this moment.)

            "Allo, Pa.   Comment ca va?" (I moved forward in his chair but didn't get up.)

            "I 'ope you don't mind me wearing your Champion 'Ockey Jacket, enh?"

            "No, Pa. Looks good on you."

            "I won’t make it a habit." (He pulled a wooden hanger out of the closet.) 

"See, the reason I wore it today is that, ah ..."

            "Pa, you don't have to explain if you don't ..."

            "I want to!"

            "OK, go ahead!"

            "Well, you know it's been quite a while since you been to the club with me, enh?!"

            "Ah...Yeah?"

            "Ever since you was little, enh?!"

            "Right."

            "So, ah, I wanted to wear your Champion jacket . . .     well, it's because the guys down there,

I ah,  . . .  I wanted them to see it."

            Then he hung up the jacket and we went into the kitchen for supper. It tasted good.

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