No. 180: BOB COLE I / Over the course of the longest day in my career & the wee hours the morning after, I cheated death at least a couple of times.
It was a rewriting of Murphy's Law: Everything that could go wrong did ... and only got worse.
A few weeks back, I posted a reminiscence of witnessing a small sporting miracle on a trip to Newfoundland: a 34-year-old senior league player being recruited to play for the Toronto Maple Leafs’ AHL affiliate and, in fact, being one of the best players on the ice. Check out the SubStack entry linked here: No. 173: TERRY RYAN & ANDY SULLIVAN / One went back home after it came undone & later found stardom of a different sort. The other couldn't bear to leave, but still had his chance to hear the cheers. One of my favourite stories to write, one that I stumbled on completely by chance, which regular readers could tell you is a recurring theme.
Now in No. 173, I make a cursory mention of the reason for my trip and the logistics involved.
I had flown out to Newfoundland in February of ‘96 to talk to Bob Cole, the legendary Hockey Night in Canada play-by-play man for a profile to run in the Globe and Mail. To get a cheap flight I had to stay a few days in St John’s, which meant that I was going to have to come up with other stuff to file back to the sports department. Back in the ‘90s St John’s was home to the Toronto Maple Leafs’ American Hockey League affiliate and I figured I could take in an AHL game or two while I was out there if the stars lined up. For once I was lucky: The Cornwall Aces, then the Colorado Avalanche’s affiliate were in town with back-to-back games.
I should note here that I lucked out in booking a few nights at the Hotel Newfoundland, because I left Toronto with a ferocious dose of the flu and hadn’t been able to keep food down for 48 hours—and yeah, the message from management was suck it up because the ticket was non-refundable.
I was understating the case here.
As you can figure out by reading between the lines of the piece below the paywall at the foot of this entry (paid subscription necessary), my work-up on the Bob Cole profile started on a Saturday night in Ottawa—Hockey Night in Canada had landed at a Sans game which dovetailed with a front-office reboot, the dawn of the Pierre Gauthier-Jacques Martin era. The flu hit me a few hours before the puck drop and by game’s end I had sweated right through my shirt up on press row. So, in fact, thoroughly flu-ridden, I had to drive back to Toronto from Ottawa on a chilly Sunday in a VW Golf with a wonky heater. Then I had to be up at about 4 a.m. Monday to make my flight.
On the flight I requested blankets (plural) from the flight attendants and sipped on water—a whole swallow would have me heaving. My body was in full revolt and the flight attendants were appalled, one of them asking me what business I had getting on the flight in this condition. I’m presuming she thought I wasn’t legit sick, just wickedly, possibly terminally hungover. About the flight I remember little except that when I woke up everyone had evacuated the seats around me for fear of catching whatever I had.
When I got off the plane, I had a half-hour wait for my suitcase and another half-hour wait for a cab—the temperature that morning was minus-11 with gale force winds making it feel like the better part of minus-30.
I was dropped at the Hotel Newfoundland well before lunch, but I was filled with dread that I was going to be told that check-in wasn’t going to be available until 3. I was told, though, that a room was available and for this I was relieved and thankful. Yup, this time I caught a break—the first and last of the day as it would turn out.
I got to my room and turned the thermostat to a tropical temperature. Then, fully clothed, I fell on the bed as if shot, assuming the fetal position and pulling the covers up over my head. I thought that a full 24 hours wrapped up just so might put me on the road to recovery—if it didn’t I figured I’d just head over to emergency.
For dozing off for what I presumed would be six or eight hours or so, I thought it would be best to ring Bob Cole and let him know that I had arrived in St John’s. I figured it would come as good news to him that we were going to start to talk on Tuesday. Not how it played out, and as would be a recurring theme, so much for my best-laid plans.
“Bob, it’s Gare Joyce here. I just want to let you know that I got to St John’s and I’ve checked in at the Hotel Newfoundland …”
Before I could say something to the effect of “looking forward to meeting up with you … would tomorrow for lunch be too soon etc” Bob Cole interjected in his signature broadcast style.
“Well, sir, I’ll be right over …”
I couldn’t summon the strength or resolve to beg off. Besides, I thought it was bad form and not the best strategy to put off until tomorrow—the flu was going around and it might have been him who’d be sick the rest of the week, blowing up my story but good.
“… wait for me in the lobby.”
Okay, thought I. We can just sit in the cafe, hopefully close to a fireplace. No such luck.
Half an hour later in the lobby where I was in state of near collapse, Bob Cole walked in with a bounce in his step. I feared all along that he’d be a reluctant subject, but he in fact seemed genuinely excited by the prospect of being profiled in the Globe and Mail. Unfortunately, he wanted to be portrayed in situ, as if an ambassador for the Newfoundland and Labrador Tourist Board.
“Let’s blow this pop stand as they’d say. Let me show you some Newfoundland hospitality.”
We piled into his car for what I thought would be a drive-around, a private tour. Not the worst position for conducting an interview of this sort. Yeah, no such luck.
“It would hardly be a trip to St John’s if we didn’t go to Signal Hill,” he said.
Precisely what Signal Hill was, well, I didn’t know, but as I feared this was going to require getting out of the car. From the online brochure:
“Breath-taking” doesn’t do it justice. Bob climbed these hills like he was half-man and half-goat. The winds whipping in off the Atlantic were at this point going right through me. This hour of exploration was utterly useless for interview purposes—it would have been like Hillary climbing Everest to do a Q & A with Sherpa Tenzing..
By the time we got back to the car, I had a single line of detail in my notebook—my pen had ceased to work, presumably frozen. Bob set to driving and I passed out. He shook my shoulder when we arrived at the Basilica of St John the Baptist.
Dazed, I thought he wanted to pray for me to make it through this trip or, the way things were trending, arrange a memorial service. No, this was just another stop on the tour and, yes, he wanted me to get car once more.
You can see where this is going and at this point even I did: Over the next two hours we made five more stops along the way. The highlight was Cole family fish cannery, where the aroma had me heaving once more.
I was at no point physically rallying when I finally convinced him that we should stop at a bistro of his choice and conduct a formal interview. Bob ordered a coffee and I ordered tea, asking for the tea bag to be set on the side just for appearances’ sake—I sipped on hot water. Here’s how the Q & A started:
“Do you mind if I record this?” I said, pulling out my micro cassette.
“Mister, it’s what I do for a living.”
“So you were born in St John’s?”
“Yes, sir. The Cole family home was atop this hill. Why you could step outside and set a quarter rolling it would come to rest right where we’re sitting.”
“And what year were you born?”
He looked down at the recorder.
“Now we’re getting into some difficult territory.”
I turned the recorder off and put it away. Likewise my notebook. Two questions in, and Bob Cole was clamming up on me. His discomfort was palpable. So it was that for the next hour or so we chatted and at 15-minute intervals I excused myself to go to bathroom. He must have thought I had an over-active bladder, but I was in fact in a stall heaving and, when at rest, stealthily taking notes of our conversation as I best remembered them.
At four p.m. or so we headed back to the Hotel Newfoundland. At the front door I effusively thanked Bob for his time and quietly thanked God that this day was at an end.
When I returned to me room, I once again assumed the position I had been in when I made the mistake of calling Bob Cole: fully dressed, under the cover, fetal position.
I was too nauseous to sleep, as it turned out.
I had too much time on my hands and my thoughts also turned to my assignment—I was expected to write a couple of local-colour stories while in St John’s. To this end and for the first time since I was assigned the Bob Cole profile I realized I knew only one person in the St John’s area and him only vaguely: Terry Ryan Sr., the father of the Canadiens’ first-rounder I had profiled at the draft. Not that I had a number for him. Not that it mattered.
I dialed 411 (probably would have been better dialling 911). The conversation with the operator went like this:
“This is just a stab in the dark, but do you have a listing for a Terry Ryan in Mount Pearl?”
“Do you mean Terry Ryan the hockey player or Terry Ryan, the teacher?”
My luck I was speaking to someone who knew them. I didn’t realize it was my bad luck. I should have at this point, I guess.
My conversation with Terry Ryan went like this:
"“Terry, it’s Gare Joyce from the Globe and Mail. We talked at the draft in Edmonton. I’m in St John’s this week and I thought …”
“Where are you staying?”
“The Hotel Newfoundland.”
“I’ll be right over. Wait for me in the lobby.”
By now you only think you see where this going.
Terry Ryan Sr. shook my hand and then gave me a bear-hug that left my coughing violently. He then ushered me to his idling car.
“We better rush,” he said. “We’ve only got so much daylight left.”
Yes, it was Terry Ryan’s idea that he too should show me some Newfoundland hospitality and he took me on pretty much the same tour as Bob Cole. First stop, Signal Hill. I didn’t have the heart or in fact the strength to tell Terry Sr that I had been all through this. Out to the water’s edge I went once more, feeling like I should just throw myself into the frigid surf and be done with it.
Next stop the Basilica and so on. You get the drift.
Just when I thought it was done and I’d be heading back to the hotel, Terry Sr asked me if I had plans for dinner. My plan was sleep and nothing more but I thought it would be rude to put such a fine point on it.
“Well, you’re coming to our place. I’ll pick up some fish and chips.”
Just shoot me now.
The whiff of the fish-and-chippery again had me seizing up. I picked at my newspaper-wrapped cod at the Ryans’ and stared blankly into my reflection in the grease. I begged off dessert and thanked Mr and Mrs Ryan for their kindness and told them that I could cab back to the Hotel Newfoundland. Terry wouldn’t hear anything of it. It was now about 8 p.m.
“I’ll drive you,” he said.
"Out the door we went and when we pulled out of the driveway, Terry Sr broke theban news to me.
“Your first time in Newfoundland, life’s too short. We’re going to have to Screech you in. Let’s go to Greensleeves, most famous bar in all of St John’s.”
He had it right about the brevity of life and, given that I was about 72 hours without food save a mouthful of cod, the Screeching ceremony only made the end of it all that much closer.
Terry Sr then asked if I’d be okay getting home from Greensleeves given that he had to be up for work in the morning and I thought I had my clean escape. We said our goodbyes, but like Al Pacino in The Godfather, it was the just-when-I-thought-I-was-out proposition.
As I noted in the Andy Sullivan piece, there were a couple of AHL teams in town that week and other hockey people hanging around Greensleeves that night—yup, there was someone at the bar I knew. This fella who cannot be safely named listened as I described my ordeals to him and took apparent sympathy on me. He told me that he’d get me back to my hotel if I could wait a few minutes. I told him that was very generous of him. He excused himself and, well, minutes became an hour, which became 90 minutes and then fifteen minutes to last call. At this point he returned, shirt akimbo and hair askew and sweaty.
“Sorry about the wait, buddy, I was in the back, banging a waitress,” he said.
Yeah, he was a legendary hound and I guess he had to keep up appearance. It was a perfect maraschino perched atop this awful day so close to its end. Or at least I thought.
The unnamed fella did drive me back to the hotel and dropped me at the door.
“You’re here the rest of the week?”
“I am.”
“What room are you in?”
“Room 437.” (I don’t remember the number of the room, so I’m citing the one from The Shining.)
“Well, we’ll see you soon.”
I stumbled to my room and for the third time in the course of about 18 hours jumped into bed fully clothed and pulled the covers over my head, assuming the fetal position. If I toured hell in a nightmare, it would have come off as a blissful interlude after all I had been through.
It was over.
Until it wasn’t.
Then came a knock on the door. I thought it might have been someone from the hotel who had seen me pinballing through lobby and wondering if I needed medical attention. But no, it was the unnamed fella and he was in the company of two coeds from Memorial University. (I’m guessing on this one. They might have been waitresses or flight attendants.) He of course had a bottle with him. I got under the covers in bed but sat up, lest I gave the wrong impression.
The unnamed fella decided he needed a shower and asked one of the young women to join him, so they excused themselves and took refuge in the bathroom. That left the other young woman sitting on the edge of my bed. There’s no guidebook for these situations, so I just said the first thing that came to mind.
“So are you originally from St John’s?”
She nodded and then asked: “Can I use the phone?”
“Please do, help yourself,” I said, presuming she’d be calling a cab. Why I thought it would end that easy I don’t know.
“Dad, it’s Shiela,” she said. “I’m with Vicki and [THE UNNAMED FELLA] and we’re at the Hotel Newfoundland with some sportswriter from Toronto.”
This I took as good news—if it took a hail of bullets from a protective father’s gun to end my day, I’d take it.
At some point the unnamed fella and Vicki emerged—thankfully the hairdryer hadn’t woken anyone up, nor any other background noise from the bathroom.
As the three of them headed out the door, he said: “So you’re around the rest of the week?”
“No,” I lied. “Change of plans. I’m leaving tomorrow morning.”
I kept my phone off the hook the rest of the week and didn’t return to Greensleeves for fear of seeing him or anyone like him the rest of the week.
I was pretty happy with the way the Bob Cole story turned out, but God I know it took years off my life to get it. Bob, well, I don’t know if he liked it. He did have only one comment when I saw him next.
“You’re some sort of strange reporter, mister. I kept waiting for you to take notes when I was talking.”
Lemme know what you think. Here you go.
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