The Goal of My Life (2 page)

Thank you, my friend, for being my linemate and my brother in the Lord. I am truly grateful for the journey we have travelled together following that life-changing event on March 3, 1968.

Ron Ellis
Toronto, Ontario
January 10, 2012

W
HAT IS THE GOAL OF YOUR LIFE
?

That’s a question nobody ever asks me because they all think they know the answer when it comes to Paul Henderson. They all just assume that the “goal” of my life was the one I scored on September 28, 1972.

I slid a puck past Vladislav Tretiak that day to give Canada the Summit Series win over the Russians in Moscow, and that goal certainly changed my life forever. No doubt it was the biggest goal I ever scored in a hockey game, and because of it, a lot more people know who Paul Henderson is than would have if I hadn’t scored it. It’s been called the Goal of the Century, after all, and being the player who scored it certainly gives me some instant recognition in our wonderful and hockey-mad country.

Before that epic series in 1972, you had to be a fairly dedicated hockey fan to know the name Paul Henderson. I had a good, solid career, don’t get me wrong, but that goal gave me a stature in this country that would not have
been possible unless I’d converted that rebound in game eight.

It certainly was the goal of my life on the ice. When something you did is recognized as the Canadian sports moment of the century, well, it’s very satisfying. When that happens, you can do two things – run away and hide from it or embrace it. I made a conscious decision to embrace it, and I have done just that all of my life. So yes, The Goal certainly was the goal of my life from that standpoint.

And I will talk about it later on in this book, as I have talked about it for many years. I never get tired of hearing somebody’s story of where they were when the goal was scored and what the goal meant to them, or being asked yet again what happened leading up to it. I love talking about all aspects of it. Like I said, I embrace it.

But if you ask me the question, “What is the goal of your life?” then you might be surprised to hear my answer. That goal was my on-ice highlight, without question – how can it not be? – but I read that question differently. The goal of a person’s life has nothing to do with the kind of goals a hockey player scores on the ice; the goal of a person’s life is their purpose, their personal answer as to why they are on this planet and what they want to do with their life.

It took me a long time to answer that question for myself, and a lot of soul-searching. But the goal of my life has nothing to do with any hockey game.

J
UST LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE WHO IS OLD ENOUGH TO
remember Thursday, September 28, 1972, I have a Paul Henderson story about where I was when The Goal was scored.

I was fourteen years old, in grade eight at LaSalle Catholic Comprehensive High School. Unlike some other students, I didn’t take the day off school to watch the game, even though I was a huge hockey fan (still am to this day, of course). I didn’t have to because there were television sets at school so students could watch, as there had been all week.

Because of the time difference, it was the middle of the school day while the games from Russia were on, and the ever-wise teachers at our school decided that if students knew the game was on
TV
at school, maybe they’d actually go to school instead of skipping class. That fact – and the fact that my mother would definitely not have approved of skipping class to watch a hockey game – ensured I was at school when game eight from Moscow was on.

Even though there were televisions all over the school, if I remember correctly, the prime viewing locations for the game were in the gym or in the library.

We had a teacher at the school named Edna Gardner who was a stern disciplinarian. You did not fool around with Mrs. Gardner, but even she realized that the magnitude of this hockey game took precedence over the run-of-the-mill day at school in late September.

She was stationed in the library, where there had to be hundreds of kids gathered around the
TV
taking in the final minutes of the game. Clearly she did not approve of such a mass of students in one area, and normally she was so stern that she’d just stare any student down who dared not to be in class at any given moment in the day (I was scared to death of her, I freely admit that now). But even she laid low, just surveying us all with her steely eagle eyes while we watched the final minutes unfold.

When that Paul Henderson shot slid past Vladislav Tretiak, the library, normally a sanctuary of silence, exploded into a crescendo of noise that only several hundred students delirious with joy could have possibly made. I mean, so help me God, the walls in that room shook from the eruption of sound.

I remember the delirious cheers, I can even remember Foster Hewitt’s infamous “Henderson has scored for Canada!” call. But I can also remember Edna Gardner’s screams too, as she demanded that we all calm down as she snapped off the
TV
set in an attempt to quell what I’m sure she thought was going to be a riot.

She needn’t have worried. There was no anger in that response, just pure joy mixed in with a palatable sense of
relief. We all believed that there was no way Canada was going to lose that Summit Series to the Russians, and by God, we didn’t. Thanks to Paul Henderson, of course.

So fast-forward nearly forty years later, and my friends at Heritage Hockey ask me to help to put together the story of Paul Henderson in time for the fortieth anniversary of the Goal of the Century. We’ll call it
The Goal of My Life
, they tell me, which is a sort of double entendre of The Goal in Russia and Paul’s ultimate goal of the purpose statement that he follows in his life.

To many Canadians under the age of forty, Paul Henderson is as much known for being a Christian as he is a hockey player. To those of us on the north side of forty, he’ll always be better known as the player who scored the biggest goal in the history of hockey in this country (and sorry, Darryl Sittler, Mario Lemieux, and Sidney Crosby, his goal was bigger. Trust me, you had to be there to understand. There is really no argument – if you were alive in 1972, you know why).

So my task was simple: meet with Paul Henderson as often as possible, listen to his stories, and write eighty thousand words in his voice. And the end result of that is what you hold in your hands today.

This was my pleasure, believe me. In many ways it was my honour, without trying to sound too sappy about it. Paul Henderson’s final story to the world, in his words, all about The Goal of His Life – I was just thrilled to do it.

Paul has lived a dynamic and fascinating life both on and off the ice. He beat the odds just by making it to the
NHL
out of Lucknow, Ontario, and enjoyed a solid professional hockey career. He scored the most important goal in Canadian
hockey history, but he battled demons after that for several years. He finally found his calling to his ministry, but only after being denied careers as a broker and as a broadcaster. It was an interesting road he travelled.

Paul Henderson’s life story can teach us a lot of things about perseverance and discovering what really matters in life. But it taught me – or I guess I should be honest and say it reminded me, as I’ve always really known this – that no good or bad things happen to us: everything is indifferent. It’s our attitude and how we react to life’s challenges that make an experience good or bad for us.

Paul had a challenging relationship with his father, for instance, which can be bad; but without it, he knows he wouldn’t have become the player that he became. His father was clearly a driving force in his life, but he was also a demanding man, as you’ll read later, and could be very hard on Paul. As Paul says many years later, he spent a lot of his life, especially his younger life, trying to please his father.

Paul Henderson scored the biggest goal in Canadian hockey history, which can be great; but that fame led to perhaps the darkest period of his life. He was denied careers as a broker and broadcaster, which can be bad; but those roadblocks led him to his true calling and a satisfaction that he could never have achieved without that adversity.

What a story it is, and what a challenge this will be, I thought as I sat down to help him put it all together. Now, where to start? Well, as the ever-wise Dorothy said in
The Wizard of Oz
, the best place to start … is at the beginning.

I
T IS WISE TO FOLLOW YOUR PASSION IN LIFE
. I
F YOU
aren’t passionate about something, there is little chance you can be excited about it and enjoy what you do.

As a young man, I had a passion for sports, and for hockey in particular, so I chose to follow my passion. From the time I started playing, I dreamed about being an
NHL
player, right from the very start. I loved the game of hockey and I was good at it. You get confidence when you are good at something, and I was good at hockey. But like anyone who is fortunate enough to make it to the National Hockey League, the road for me wasn’t a direct one by any means.

I was born on January 28, 1943, in Kincardine, Ontario, on the eastern shore of Lake Huron. My dad, Garnet, had gone overseas with the Canadian Army the previous September, and my mother, Evelyn, was visiting his parents at their farm in Amberley. She went into labour at the worst possible time, just as a massive snowstorm hit, blocking all the roads. The nearest hospital was in Kincardine, ten miles
away. It was left to my grandfather, William Henderson, to hitch up the horses to a sleigh, venture out onto the frozen surface of Lake Huron, and try to make it there, in freezing-cold temperatures. Mom gave birth to me on the sleigh before we made it to the hospital, and by the time they finally arrived, I had started to turn blue. Quite the first day of my life, to be sure, but I made it.

When I was three, my father came back after the war and returned to his job as a station agent for the Canadian National Railway. He worked for them in Kincardine, Exeter, and Port Colborne, before we finally settled in Lucknow, just north of Goderich.

Garnet Henderson was an imposing man who was over six feet tall, weighed more than 280 pounds, and had a quick temper. You didn’t want to mess around with him – although he never hit me or my brother or sisters, I was petrified of the man. He could pick up two ninety-pound milk cans in one hand when he was just fifteen years old, and later on, while he was working during the winter at the
CN
station in Lucknow, he single-handedly lifted a car that had skidded off the station’s platform onto the tracks. Was he strong? He also once hoisted a six-hundred-pound barrel of salt off the floor and onto a scale just on a dare, if you want strong!

But although I wasn’t as strong as my dad or didn’t have his temper, I did inherit some things from him, including his drive and determination, along with some natural athletic ability.

Dad was an okay athlete, certainly not a star who played several sports, but he was exceptionally fast on his feet. But there was no way he was going to develop any kind of a career since he grew up on a farm, got married at an early
age in 1941, and then went off to the Second World War. When he returned, he had a young family to look after.

Dad really enjoyed coaching baseball and hockey. Although he might not have been the greatest strategist as a coach, he would do anything for the kids who played for him. He was always there to help them out in any way possible, and all his players really appreciated his commitment to coaching and to them as people.

Dad was a big-hearted man, and at the railway station he would often give people their
COD
packages even when they didn’t have the money to pay. They’d promise to pay later, but he’d often wind up having to cover it himself. There is no doubt in my mind that his compassionate side taught me to be understanding of the needs of other people too.

Like many men of his era, I guess, Dad was tough to talk to on a serious level. He was guarded, and I was afraid of him, so we never did develop a real closeness like I have with my kids today.

While in Germany during the war, he barely survived a mortar shelling that killed eight other men. His jaw was smashed, but a surgeon did a marvellous job of reconstruction. That wound healed, but the memory of it remained buried inside him, as he just wouldn’t talk about his war experiences.

He had his limitations as a coach, and his temper often got in the way, especially when dealing with young kids. But I never doubted that he was really proud of me and the player I was becoming. I would need better coaching down the line for sure – I was basically getting by on raw ability as a kid – but he helped me a lot, especially in building my confidence. I have him to thank for my career in the
NHL
.
I think he wanted me to make the
NHL
as much as I wanted to make it.

I was nine years old before I got my first pair of skates, and they were used ones – we couldn’t afford new. I took to skating quickly. I always had great speed on and off skates, and that certainly was a major asset to me in the game, especially when I got into pro hockey.

Mom was always worried about injuries, as many moms would be. But she supported me and did what she could do to help me along the way, always being the encouraging one. My mom and I were very close, so similar in personality, and we were a fairly close-knit family. My parents tried to do what was best for me, my brother Bruce, and my sisters Marilyn, Carolyn, and Sandra. We didn’t have a lot of money, but our parents did provide a good home for all of us.

Dad suffered a serious stroke at the age of forty-two, which I think was mainly due to stress and a terrible diet. He never recovered from it fully; the doctors told us he had likely experienced one or two minor heart attacks prior to the stroke but had just fought them off and kept going. He was only given a year to live after the stroke, but he fooled them all until dying at the age of forty-nine in 1968.