The Pepper Dog

Sunday was a sad day in our home; we had to say goodbye to our wonderful puppy dog Pepper. For a smallish dog, she has been such a huge part of our family for more than 15 years. A good friend once commented that she was a very sweet dog, and that is the perfect description of Pepper – she was a very sweet dog, and will always be remembered by us as such. After our previous dog passed, we agreed that we would wait some time before even thinking about a replacement, but not three weeks later, we went on a ‘casual mission of discovery’ just to see what was out there. Well, second place we went, we saw Pepper, and all of us agreed that we should bring her home. 

In a short time, she was my companion, and she was G’s best friend – or maybe G’s little girl – or maybe both. Technically, she was J’s dog, and she was always glad to see him whenever he came home for supper, laundry, etc. She had it in her head that maybe she could claim a spot higher in the pack hierarchy than S – so for 15 years, they eyed each other with suspicion. All dogs are different, and they all have their own unique personalities.
At different times, she was a very nervous dog, a frisky dog, a silly dog, a smelly dog, a bossy dog, a suacy dog, and like all dogs, sometimes an annoying dog. At this time, I don’t know whether or not we’ll get another dog – the pain of her loss is too fresh – but certainly, there will never be a sweeter doc than our dear Pepper…

The Mount Rushmore of hockey

Saw an interesting article in a Facebook post a while back (it asked 'who were the best hockey goalies of all time'), and it got me thinking about who were the actual best hockey players ever. So here it is - The Mount Rushmore of hockey - Who were the greatest four hockey players in hockey history?

How do you quantify the best players? There are forwards who are counted on to do the scoring, defense who are responsible mostly to defend, and goalies who have to stop the puck. I am arbitrarily eliminating goalies from the top-4 list because the top players need to be compared in some similar ways. Plus, I was a goalie, so I'm comfortable with it.

The numbers that I think matter are goals scored in a season, scoring championships, and league MVP honors. The best players should really be scoring a lot of goals, and should be voted as most-valuable in their best years. Only makes sense.

So who are the players?

Maurice 'Rocket' Richard
I wanted to include Rocket Richard in this list due to his big-game presence, and his record 50 goals in 50 games. His super intensity also carries weight (see this image of him in a game against the Rangers). It took almost 20 years for another player to score 50. Some might say that he got his 50 when the league was watered down - many star players were absent during the war. But it was still a big deal. Digging into the stats, we see that he led the league in goals scored five times, but he never won a scoring race. He also won the league MVP only one time. 

Gordie Howe
Compare Rocket's numbers to contemporary star player Gordie Howe - Mr. Hockey also led the league in goals scored five times, but also won the scoring race six times. He was also voted MVP six times. Howe was the first five-tool hockey player - he was very fast, he was very good with his stick, he was a heck of a shooter, he scored big goals, and he was big and tough. So tough that even the fighters didn't want to fight him, let alone non-fighters, or other star players (see this image of Howe with Richard).  I think Howe's numbers put him significantly ahead of Richard. 

Howe was a great player, but he was also perhaps the most feared player in the game - the "Gordie Howe hat-trick" is named after him - a goal, an assist and a fight in a single game. I had to also throw in this extra image of Howe, playing for the Whalers in the late 1970s, roughing up another tough customer - while Howe was in his 50s... (The Quebec Nordiques player is in his 20s...) On top of that, his longevity was legendary. He was still an effective player in his 50s, in a sport where some players lose their effectiveness by age 30...

Bobby Hull
I also wanted Bobby Hull on the list of four greatest players - I was always a huge fan of the Golden Jet. He led the league in scoring seven times (eight if you count his WHA years), and won the scoring race three times.

Bobby Hull was the second player to score 50 in a season, and did it four times. He broke the Rocket's record of 50, and set the new record at 52, then 54, and then 58. He then scored 77 goals in a season while playing for the WHA Winnipeg Jets. But Bobby only won a single MVP, losing out a few times to other star players, and even a teammate a couple of times. 

Hull also revolutionized the game by making the slap shot the most devastating shot in the game. He didn't invent it, but he perfected it, and scored so often with the slap shot, that after Hull, all players could shoot using the slap shot. Arguably, one could say that the emphasis on the slap shot resulted in less emphasis on other very important aspects of the game, like skating, stick handling, etc. Young players would work on the slapper before perfecting their skating and stick handling skills. He was also hockey's golden boy - he was the Robert Redford or Brad Pitt of hockey. Either way you look at it, Bobby Hull made a huge impact on the game of hockey.

Mario Lemieux
Mario was maybe the most dynamic and skilled player ever. He had speed, size and skill - all three more than most other platers. Some were bigger (very few), some were faster (even fewer), and nobody had as much skill in terms of stick handling, making teammates look good, and embarrassing opposition players. Mario was the original highlight-reel player; it was almost like he specialized in embarrassing opposition players. No defenseman wanted to be faced with a one-on-one against him. No goalie wanted to face him on a breakaway, or even worse - shudder - a penalty shot... Mario led the league in goals three times, won the scoring title six times, and was MVP three times. He battled cancer during his playing career, and led the league in goals twice after that. Mario, too, had impressive longevity. He retired for three years, and came back to finish second in MVP voting at age 35.

These are the 'bubble' players (as if you can count any of these great players anything else but great). However, there are two players who are locks in the top four. 

Bobby Orr
One, Bobby Orr, never led the league in goals, but won the scoring race two times - AS A DEFENSEMAN. If Bobby Hull revolutionized the game with his shooting, Bobby Orr revolutionized the game by making the position of defenseman a dangerous offensive weapon. It didn't matter which Bruins players were on the ice -- if Orr was on the ice, the opposing team HAD to focus on him. He was a feared puck handler - more than any defenseman before or after him. Many people will say that he was the greatest player of all time; and it would be tough to argue against that. As if that weren't enough, he was also a pretty tough customer - if you wanted to drop the gloves with Bobby, you'd better be ready, because he didn't lose many fights... In his injury-shortened career, he was MVP three times, and was voted the best defenseman eight times - failing to win it only once, as a rookie (and he finisher third in voting that year). 

Wayne Gretzky
The other lock is 'The Great One' - and his numbers are unparalleled. He led the league in goals five times (and holds the season record of 92 goals in 82 games), and won the scoring title 11 times. (Yes, 11 times.) He was league MVP nine times. His numbers put him at the top of the list, and it's not close. Gretzky was an enigma. There were faster skaters (at least three on his own team!!); there were harder shooters (plenty); there were bigger players (again, plenty); there were niftier stick handlers, but there was nobody better. He was in on big goals all the time. Few could break a game open like he could. Nobody could control a game like he could. Nobody could pass the puck like he could. Nobody could see the ice like he could.  Experts say that in his prime, he could see plays developing before they happened. It wasn't fair! 

He dominated so completely, that in hockey pools, you couldn't pick Gretzky - you could only pick Gretzky Goals or Gretzky Assists...

Here is a numbers summary:

Player   Most-Goals Scoring-Titles MVP
Rocket   5           0             1

Howe     5           6             6

Hull     7(8)        3             1

Mario    3           6             3

Orr      0           2             3
Gretz    5          11             9

I surprised myself by rating the top 4 players in hockey history - I always said Orr was the best, and that Bobbly Hull had to be there too, but the numbers are convincing. 

The hockey Mount Rushmore players:

1. Wayne Gretzky

2. Gordie Howe

3. Bobby Orr

4. Mario Lemieux

Pat Lakanen

One of my best buds suddenly passed away recently; I’ve known him for 40 years, and it's surreal to think that he's really gone.

He was my first roomie when I left the nest while in college, and effectively was my unofficial big brother. He had a great sense of humor, which is how we initially became friends. Pat, myself and another college friend, Bob Hill, spent a lot of time together in college days, especially on Friday pub nights, Saturdays at the pubs, and I guess other nights, too. Those were good times, to be sure. One day in 1981, I mentioned to Pat that another friend of mine had backed out of finding an apartment near the college, and he immediately suggested he take his place. Pat was living in an apartment in Vanier at the time with “a bunch of ants” as he put it - plus it would cut his rental costs in half, so it was a win-win situation.

Soon after he moved in, he insisted on going out for a sandwich, and suggested smoked meat at Nate’s - I’d never had one before, but he insisted that I would love it. He was right. 

One night we were up all night cramming for an Electronics 4th semester exam (while listening to Van Halen’s first LP over-and-over). It was a key/central course in the program, and one could not afford to flunk that. Neither one of us was confident going in - on the drive to the college in the morning, we were coming up to the Queensway on-ramp, and he said “Let’s forget this and go to Montreal for breakfast.” I was quiet for a second (and carefully considered it), but I came to my senses and said ‘no’ just in time, and we proceeded to the college to write the exam. As it turned out, we both did well on the exam - I guess ‘well enough’ is more accurate. That could easily have gone a different way.

I entered the college co-op program that year, so we weren’t in the same classes anymore, but still lived in the apartment - and I was ‘rich’ for the four months of my work terms, so we ate and drank better in those times.

Often, we would go our separate ways on Friday nights, and would come home to find the other asleep on the sofa or the bean-bag chair we had. One Friday I came home to him snoring away on the floor, and I quietly and slowly began to close a monkey wrench on his nose - that woke him up fast, and I had to duck a good roundhouse. Another time he found me snoring on the sofa, so he started hitting me with this stuffed teddy-bear-like snake he had - I awoke to that treatment countless times. 

He told me some interesting things about his family life, including imprisoning one of his sisters in her bedroom by placing an old transformer (harmless) in front of her bedroom door. He also had some interesting and unique sayings and terminology - 

• Bob the Giraffe (I can’t remember the context, but was used many times)
• ‘Wherever you go, there you are’...
• ‘A good time, not a long time’...
• ‘Losing is fine, but winning is grand’...

His phone calls always ended with... ‘bye, now’...

Eventually he graduated and got a job in Burlington, and was gone. We kept in touch though, and he was back in town occasionally, and Bob Hill and I went down to Burlington a couple of times. In 1987, the three of us met for beers at the Mayfair pub off Elgin street the day after Christmas, and decided at about midnight that we would drive to Florida the next morning. We did that, and 21 hours later, we were checking into a beach-side resort (off-season rates). During our time there, Pat and I checked out the beach, and found a pelican on the pier. Also drove down to the Kennedy Space Center - that was very cool. Later, I think the three of us may have had beers at several pubs - that was a great trip.

At about that time, his career took him to the US for several years, where I believe he did quite well financially - his analytical mind made him an excellent tech professional. He eventually wound up back in Ottawa, working for one or two tech firms. He went entrepreneurial for a couple of years, doing POS software (displacing mechanical cash registers with computers and software). I think he did quite well at that as well. After that job ended abruptly, he took a job at another Ottawa tech company, where he enjoyed more success.

After several years, he was laid off, and a government placement functionary told him to get out of tech. I thought that was bad advice, but he went with it. He then went into the home renovation business, which lasted 20+ years. He was a very skilled craftsman, much better than most. At some point 10+ years ago, unfortunate circumstances saw his fortunes change for the worse. I was very worried for him at that time, the ordeal seemed to weaken him and to visibly age him. 

Eventually he got past that, and his financial situation improved somewhat. He spoke about getting back into tech off-and-on - he talked about smartphone software and IT security - he would have been a natural at either one. But he worked long hours in the reno business, and never found the time to push his way back to where he belonged professionally (that's just my opinion). 

I last saw him before Christmas - I needed some plumbing work done, and he was the obvious person. He worked at my place for a couple of days - I took him to lunch, but he refused to let me pay, and insisted on paying for me. He was looking forward to spending time with his sister north of Toronto over the holidays. On his way back, there was a head-on collision that killed him instantly. What a terrible shock. 

I’ll miss you, my friend, and I will not forget you... bye now...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/algonquin-park-fatal-crash-1.6722011

https://ottawacitizen.remembering.ca/obituary/patrick-lakanen-1087067275/