Bob Gainey – The Last True Hero

Tiger Woods renewed my faith in professional athletes when he putted onto the world’s green stage more than fifteen years ago. He appeared to be everything that the boy inside me wanted in a hero.

He was talented, good looking and most importantly – he performed miracles! Time after time, Woods not only won – it was the way he won. In the first ten years of his career he dominated, and when he was not dominating with his play, he was dominating  mentally in the minds of his opposition. They knew and we all knew that if Tiger was within six strokes going into a final round that the “hero” inside of him would forever save the baby from the burning building and win the tournament.

Now that we have discovered that Tiger is Peter Parker on crack, I have reflected on the times and searched in vain to discover a hero. One by one, they have fallen. Roger Clemens, Lance Armstrong, Barry Bonds, Kobe Bryant ….the list goes on and on. Sure there are some athletes that perform and appear to have impeccable lives, even Wayne Gretzky’s legacy has been tainted due to his affiliation with Rick Tocchet and Bruce McNall. Then suddenly, after many sleepless nights wrestling with the moral decay of the sporting world, my aging memory came to a sudden stop when it happened upon the name of Robert Michael Gainey.

Bob Gainey.

Most of the sporting world knows him by this name if they know him at all.The younger generation of hockey fans know him as the recently resigned general manager of the Montreal Canadiens and former GM of the 1999 Stanley Cup champion Dallas Stars. Older fans will recognize that he coached and was the GM for the Minnesota North Stars and more wrinkled fans will know him as a former Captain and Stanley Cup winner with the Habs.

True hockey fans know that he won five Stanley Cups as a player in the bleu, blanc et rouge colors of Le Club de Hockey Canadien. Fans who are not seen by their wives or husbands  between September and mid-June every year are aware that Gainey was the reason for the invention of the Frank J .Selke award, the trophy handed out for the league’s best defensive forward each season and that Mr. Gainey was also the winner of the Conn Smythe trophy as the playoff M.V.P in 1979.

Puck  fans that reside in a basement apartment and have been relegated to paying a healthy alimony payment each month are aware that Anatoli Tarasov , the father of Russian hockey named Gainey as the most complete player to play the game at the time.This from someone who has witnessed some of the finest  talent in the history of hockey  –  Kharlamov, Tretiak, Fetisov, Larionov and Krutov to name a few.

The “Swanson dinner crowd” also know that Gainey’s “student” in Montreal –  former line mate Guy Carbonneau, also went on to win the Selke trophy three times and win three  Stanley Cups – one as the Captain of the Montreal squad.

All these accomplishments without a single blemish on or off the ice. No drug arrests, no drinking and driving charges, no spousal abuse and no escorts to be seen. Does this make Mr.Gainey a hero? Not at all.

In 1995, after endless operations and radiation treatments, Cathy Gainey, Bob’s wife died at the age 39 of a brain tumour leaving Gainey to raise four children on his own. Colleen and Laura, the two youngest were most affected as Colleen battled depression and spent some time in a clinic while Laura, the elder of the two also battled depression and eventually lost herself in a cocaine crowd. Bob Gainey, twice, in one weekend said he had dragged his daughter out of a house where he thought drugs were being used.

In an age where drug use among teens is rampant as absent parents work long hours to finance SUV’s and big screen TV’s, Bob Gainey made sure that his daughter received  the tough and tender love she needed to beat the demons all the while dealing with the daily responsibilities of the Dallas Stars and the trials and tribulations of his other children. In a way, he had thirty children to raise and most men would crumble. If anyone had a reason to lose it and go out drinking or pick up a drug habit , it would have been Gainey then. Instead his daugher won the battle and his Stars won the Cup. Does this make Mr.Gainey a hero? Not at all.

In December 2006, in the middle of turning the Montreal Canadiens back into a contender – the family suffered a second tragedy when Laura Gainey died.

Laura, who had regained her “self”  after a decade of soul searching had discovered a passion in sailing and was aboard the ship Picton Castle when a wave swept her to her death. Another tragedy for Mr.Gainey and his family. He took some time off and considered ending his reign as the General Manager of the Montreal team. In press conferences you felt for the man, tears were behind those stoic, proud eyes. Men wanted to reach out and hug him, an entire hockey loving nation wanted to bring the guy home, feed him and put him to bed in a warm and comfortable place.The man surely needed some rest. Instead he carried on with his hockey duties and created The Gainey Foundation to honor  Laura and her late mother, Cathy. The foundation is dedicated to funding environmental and arts programs for youth, two passions shared by Mother and Daughter. The foundation’s goal is to raise $2 million by 2010 in support of this objective, building a lasting legacy for two special people.

Does this make Mr. Gainey a hero? Not at all.

In March 2008 – a Montreal team, built mostly by Gainey in the five  years since he became GM , jumped to first place in the East, marking the first time they have led the conference since 1993. The same year that Gaimey’s prize pupil Carbonneau captained the team to it’s last Stanley Cup. Then on April 6, Les Habitants claimed their first Conference title since the 1988-89 season and for the first time in many years they were favored going into the first round. After a hard fought series win against the Bruins the Habs succumbed in five games to theFlyers in round two. The future seemed incredibly bright as Montreal entered its 100th birthday season, yet too many of it’s young stars succumbed to the tempting Montreal nightlife and the on ice club suffered as the off ice clubs prospered through a highly disappointing season. Gainey stepped in and replaced his buddy Carbonneau as head coach toward the end of the year, but the combination of tough and tender love did not work with this batch of Gainey’s “kids”. Gainey had enough and preceded to replace ten of his mostly young players with older and much more character players. Players who were cut from the same cloth as him in the likes of Gionta, Gomez, Gill and Metropolit. The “new” team soared to the final of the Eastern Conference this past season, three wins away from Stanley Cup final and although Gainey resigned his post after Christmas – this was Gainey’s team. Does this make Mr.Gainey a hero? Not at all.

On May 21,1979, Les Canadiens defeated the New York Rangers four games to one to claim their twenty second Stanley Cup Championship. I was fifteen years old. It was a Monday and the following morning I received a call from a buddy of mine asking if I wanted to go to Bob Gainey’s home and congratulate him on his victory. Gainey lived in Kirkland, Quebec at the time as did my friend Mike and I. We were not invited as I soon found out, and preceded to let Mike know that the idea of intruding on the Gainey household the morning after a Cup win was crazy and that he was even crazier for concocting such a hairbrained scheme. I went on to inform him that a) Bob Gainey will be hungover from the previous night’s celebrations or b) he will not be there from the previous night’s celebrations and c) his wife will not be too happy to see us at 9 a.m. in the morning. Mike had the gift of gab and twenty minutes later I found myself on Gainey’s doorstep. We knocked and I was on my way toward the driveway and a quick getaway to avoid embaressment when the door opened up. It was Cathy Gainey and she had a beautiful smile when she asked if she could help us.

We informed her of our motives and instead of being told to go home – she asked us to wait as she entered her house only to re – appear three minutes later asking us to follow her. She led us through the house and into the backyard where we were greeted by Bob Gainey and a trio of kids. Bob graciously asked us to sit at the patio table and several seconds later Cathy appeared with a pitcher filled with Kool-Aid. For the next half hour or so – Bob, Cathy, Mike and I talked about hockey as Mike and I took every word that Bob spoke as the Word of God. Then Gainey stood and annonced that he had things to do and politely asked us to leave. We thanked them and left the house in a state of awe and confusion.The entire thirty minutes were like a dream that lasted for days. Does this make Mr.Gainey a hero? Not at all.

Robert Michael Gainey was mowing his lawn when we arrived in his backyard. That’s what makes him a hero.