ohnny Bower was my hero. He led the Leafs to victory. The year I turned eight, the craggy-faced goaltender backstopped the Toronto Maple Leafs to their third straight Stanley Cup triumph. Watching him on the CBC, I cheered as he hoisted the silver trophy above his head and I laughed when the cameras caught him in the dressing room wearing nothing but a toothless grin and champagne-soaked underwear.

Throughout the sixties, I dreamt of being Bower—of stopping pucks for the Leafs, of being named first star on Hockey Night In Canada, of skating around Maple Leaf Gardens with Lord Stanley's mug held aloft. But the year I turned eight and wore skates for the very first time . . .

The Leafs are playing the Canadiens tonight. "Les pepsi des Montreal," Pa calls them. He hates the flying Frenchmen almost as much as I do. He's asleep on the couch in the living room. His pre-game nap, he calls it. All the players nap before games, he's explained to me. Even Bower.

Ma's at the kitchen table patching holes in the corduroy trousers that my brother, Vito, no longer wears. Lucky me. I get to wear them next. Although I'm six years younger than Vito and a foot shorter, I weigh as much as he does. Ma's become an expert at shortening the legs and letting out the waists of his old pants.

Vito's out shooting pool at DeSanto's Billiards on College Street. If Pa asks where he is, I'm supposed to say he's at the library studying—otherwise he'll get heck when he comes home. Vito says if I scratch his back, he won't kick my butt. But my brother's okay. He scratches my back too, once in a while.

I'm in my bedroom building a house of hockey cards on my orange-crate night stand. The cards cost a nickel a pack. You get five players and a square of sugar-coated gum in each pack. I can't afford to buy cards very often because I hardly get any allowance. But I've got one hundred and fifty-seven cards. I won most of them playing closies, flipsies, topsies and other card games in the school yard.

My most valuable cards are my five Johnny Bowers. I don't play games with them. I got three of them buying cards. I traded four duplicates—Keon, Howe, Hull and Beliveau—for one. And I found the other under a heap of yellowing newspapers in the lane way behind our garage while fishing for a tennis ball that Vito shot wide of my net.

I'm a pretty good laneway goalie, for a chubby. If you look at Bower, you've got to figure he was once a chubby too. I flop a lot and throw my boots, arms, chest and stick in front of every shot. That's why Vito calls me Kamikaze. Everybody calls Vito Stick because he's almost as thin as the shaft of a hockey stick. He keeps his black hair slicked back in Brylcreem-coated waves and if I do anything dumb, like let in a soft goal, he shakes his waves and glares at me.

I had to play goal with a broom until Vito swiped a hockey stick for me from Danny's Variety next to DeSanto's. I wish I could've seen him shove the shaft down his pants and slip the blade under his arm. Even though I have a stick, I still get stuck hacking in the lane way with the little kids whenever Vito and his buddies play pick up on Grenadier Pond in High Park. That's because I don't have skates.

I've got the walls of my card house stacked three-high when the phone rings and wakes Pa. I hold a glass against the bedroom wall, like Vito taught me, to eavesdrop on my father.

"Bene, Antonio. Et tu?"

Pa's talking to his younger brother, Tony, who owns Capelli's Garments on Spadina. Pa's worked there since he got laid off from his construction job a few years ago. I think he cuts material for socks and underwear. Socks and underwear are the only clothes I don't get as hand-me-downs.

"Stasera?" Pa asks as I press my ear firmly against the glass. "Ah, con Pietro."

Peter's my pain-in-the-ass cousin who's only eleven but thinks he's a grown-up and acts just as dumb. Vito only lets our stuck-up cousin hang around us because he always has money for smokes and cokes. He has skates too and he plays hockey at Grenadier Pond. Vito says Peter's pretty good, but he hardly ever scores on me when we play in the lane way.

"Buono, Antonio. Uno momento," Pa says then calls my mother. Turns out a supplier is taking Tony and Peter to the hockey game; Tony has two extra tickets—for the ballet. He wants me and Ma to go to the ballet with his wife, Emillia.

"Nicky!" Ma bursts into my room like a tornado. Shirts, pants, socks and underwear fly everywhere as she scrounges through my closet. "We're going to The Nutcracker. What a treat. Put on your Sunday best. Clean underwear too."

I turn my back on her and knock over my house of cards.

While Ma's in the bathroom getting all powdered up, I plead with Pa to let me stay home. I even speak Italian to him.

"Per favore, Papa."

He shakes his head and cracks open a beer.

"But Pa. . ."

He cuts air with a harsh wave of his free hand and says "Nicky!" in the deep voice he usually reserves for when Vito gets home late. I'm not brave like Vito who would just stand there without blinking. I'm not stupid either. I scramble out of the living room.

In the taxi, I ask Ma why we have to go to the ballet.

"It's a Christmas tradition here," she says. "In Italy, when I was your age, I went to ballet and opera whenever I could. How I miss Figaro."

I don't ask her what a Figaro is.

The taxi pulls into a driveway where my aunt is waiting, wearing her long fur coat. Ma straightens my polka-dot bow-tie as Emillia squeezes in beside me and almost knocks me out with her perfume.

The Nutcracker is held at the O'Keefe Centre, a huge auditorium named after the beer Pa drinks. The ballet is as dull as I figured it would be. Although the Mouse King is neat, especially when he fights with the Nutcracker.

Things really get boring when a ton of frilly snowflake prance around so I close my eyes and pretend that I'm at Maple Leaf Gardens watching Bower take on the Canadiens.

Beliveau shoots. Bower's gloved hand flicks out, catches the puck quick as a cat captures a mouse. Richard's in on a breakaway. Poke check—Bower's master move—leaves the Pocket Rocket shaking his head and cussing the maskless wonder. Toe save. Chest save. Splits. Bower's ballet gives the Canadiens fits . . .

I hear applause and open my eyes. The dancers take their final bows and we head for the exit.

"What did you think, Nicky?" Ma asks.

"I wonder who won the game?"

"Hockey," she sighs.

As Ma tucks me into bed, she whispers, "Remember to thank Uncle Tony for the ballet tickets when you see him at church tomorrow."

I thank Tony but keep my fingers crossed because I don't feel thankful. Cripes, the Leafs beat the Canadiens two-to-nothing even though they were outshot forty-two to twenty-one. First star? Bower, of course. And guess who brings an official Maple Leafs hockey program to church? Peter. On the cover of the program, making a perfect poke check, is Johnny Bower. And scribbled across the cover is his real-life autograph. . .

On Christmas morning, Uncle Tony almost makes up for stiffing me with the ballet ticket. He gives me a pair of black skates with steel toes, ankle supports and smooth laces with plastic-tipped ends for easy threading. My folks give me a goalie stick they bought at Honest Ed's. And Vito gives me—I don't believe it—a Toronto Maple Leafs' hockey sweater. It's so new it smells like a warehouse full of fresh underwear. On the back of the sweater, there's a big number one. Bower's number.

As I slip my new sweater over my head Vito says, "You got skates just in time, Kamikaze. We need a goalie tomorrow."

"You want me to play at High Park?"

"I'm on any team you're not on," Peter says, "so I can whip your butt."

I shove a fist in his face.

"Hey," Vito says, making like a referee and separating us. "Save it for the game."

I sleep in my Maple Leafs jersey and dream of poke-checking the Canadiens at Maple Leaf Gardens while Bower sits in the stands, a huge grin on his face.

In the morning, Vito, Peter and I ride the College streetcar to High Park. The ice covering Grenadier Pond gleams in the sunshine like our kitchen floor shines right after Ma has waxed it. Clustered around a picnic table near the pond are some familiar faces from lane way hockey and a few older guys I don't recognize.

"Hey," Vito calls out.

"Did you find us a goalie?" somebody asks.

"Kamikaze," Vito says. He pats the back of my Johnny Bower sweater and I shiver.

Vito and Ernst, an older guy who is smoking a cigarette, are chosen as team captains. "I get Charlie," Ernst says, "you keep your brother and pick first." Charlie is the other goalie. His stocky build is exaggerated by the shoulder pads under his New York Rangers' sweater.

Vito picks Alex, a guy who lives a few doors up from us. Ernst points to Peter. I'm shocked that anybody would pick my idiot cousin first. As Vito and Ernst continue to pick, I take off my rubber boots, untangle my skate laces and force my feet into my skates. I tie my laces as best I can and stand up. My ankles buckle and I almost fall.

"It's Johnny Bow-legged," Peter says as he skates to shore and breaks, sending a shower of ice shavings in my direction.

Once he's through selecting his team, Vito sits me down, pulls my laces tighter and ties them in a double-bow. I stand, keeping my knees stiff, and take a hesitant step forward. My ankles hold. I shuffle closer to the edge of the pond and stare at the frozen surface.

"Go for a skate," Vito says. "We'll build your posts."

With an effortless push, he glides away while I take my first step on ice. I wobble like a ballerina with a sprained ankle. Thud!

I hit the ice. Vito swoops around me like a hawk.

"You gotta stay on your feet, Kamikaze."

"I'll be great, Stick."

Ignoring my bravado, Vito guides me to what feels like the centre of the universe. As teammates drop boots on either side of me to mark my posts, I try to glide forward. Thud. My teammates snicker and skate away.

Peter cuts through my crease. "No fair," he says. "You're fat enough to block anything." He takes off and I stick out my tongue at the back of his Canadiens' sweater.

Down ice, Charlie dances between his posts as players pepper him with shots. He catches pucks with his webbed glove, knocks them away with his blocker and kicks them out with his shin pads. I pluck woollen mittens from my coat pockets and slip them over my cold hands.

As I get up, Peter stick-handles towards me and takes a shot. I tumble back and land on my seat as the puck dribbles wide of the net.

"I'm gonna have a field day," Peter says.

"Suck eggs."

"Calm down, Nicky," Vito says as Peter streaks away. "It's just a game."

Just a game? How can you say that? It's Hockey Night In Canada. I'm on skates. I've got a goalie stick and I'm wearing my Maple Leafs sweater with Johnny Bower's number on my back. It's not just a game. It's the Stanley Cup finals. It's life and sudden-death. It's everything I've always wanted and now all I want to do is throw up.

I get up without help and slap my stick on the ice just like Bower does. The game begins.

Vito wins the face-off and passes the puck to Alex who feeds a player breaking down left wing. Vito cuts for the slot and receives the return pass. He shoots. Charlie makes the save, robbing Vito point-blank, and smothers the rebound. I stay on my feet as the play remains in the opposition zone. I haven't faced a shot on net and already goaltending is a lot tougher than Bower makes it look.

Peter gets the puck and doodles around several of our players before passing it to Ernst who breaks in on right wing. I step out to cut down the angle and fall to my knees. Ernst laughs so hard he fans on his shot. The puck dribbles by me.

Please dear God let it be wide.

"He shoots. He scores." Peter's voice rings in my ears. "Beliveau on a picture-perfect pass from Richard."

Vito helps me up. "Do you want to wear your boots?"

"No," I spit through clenched teeth.

"Be cool. I'll play back."

Except in goal, the teams are even. We score next—Alex on a wrist shot. By accident, I belly-flop on a loose puck during a scramble in front of my net. When I get up, Vito smiles and taps my shins with his stick just like in the big leagues.

On the next play, a long shot hits my stick and knocks me off balance. As I spin around like an awkward ballerina, Peter snaps the rebound at my net but the puck hits my ass. I topple over and land on the puck.

"All right," Vito says. "We've got ourselves a goalie." My teammates cheer.

"Dumb luck," says Peter. "Dumb, fat-assed luck."

Because of my two saves, Stick gets daring and doesn't play back. He gets caught up ice as Ernst feeds Peter a long pass. Breakaway.

Peter's eyes are as black as two tiny pucks as he moves in on me. I'm frozen in place. How close is he going to skate before he puts me out of my misery? He dekes right. What would Johnny Bower do? I dive forward and thrust out my stick as Peter shoots. The puck ricochets up off my stick and strikes me in the one place a goalie does not want to get hit.

"Nutcracker," Peter shouts as I sprawl face-first on the ice.

Where am I? My face is pressed against something cold and smooth. The Mouse King has my head gripped in his claws and is trying to twist it off. I can't breathe.

A distant voice calls. "Get up and skate it off."

"Protect my net, Stick."

"He's delirious," Peter says.

"You gotta skate it off." Vito rubs snow across my forehead. "Help him up," he says.

Hands help me to my feet move me towards the shore. I sit in a snow bank and let cold dampness seep through my corduroys. It relieves some of the pain.

Vito removes one of my mittens and wipes tears off my cheeks and snot from my nose. He could desert me on the shore and go back to the game, but he doesn't. He waits for my sobs to subside then takes me home and helps me into bed.

"Vito? Vieni qui." My father's deep voice rumbles in from the living room.

I look at Stick who shrugs. "Sleep it off," he says. Then he leaves to answer my father's call.

Although the pain I feel makes it difficult for me to concentrate, I grab my listening glass and place it against the bedroom wall. I can hear Uncle Tony.

"Vito," he says, "the Maple Leafs' hockey sweater you gave to Nicky. Where'd you get it?"

Stick doesn't answer.

"An expensive hockey sweater was stolen from Danny's Variety," Tony continues. "Danny e mio amico, Vito. He's very upset."

My brother says nothing. I imagine him standing before the men, staring at them.

Then Pa's voice erupts in my glass. "Stupido! Bastardo!" I hear a loud smack, like the sound of a Frank Mahovlich slapshot bruising the backboards. My head throbs. The glass slips from my hand.

I am naked, playing goal at Maple Leaf Gardens. The Canadiens, in tights and ballet slippers, score and score at will. Johnny Bower, seated in the stands, scowls and pulls his sweater over his face . . .

"Nicky?" Vito's whisper rouses me. I crack open my eyes. "Are you okay?" he asks.

I nod. My head hurts. The rest of me doesn't feel so hot either. Father's hand print is branded on Vito's cheek. He sits on the bed beside me. "I'm grounded and banned from Danny's," he says and fishes my Johnny Bower cards off my orange-crate night stand and shuffles them.

"Grounded? For how long, Stick?"

"A month. Tony's pissed off and that means Pa's mad too."

"But you gotta play. And you gotta teach me how to skate." I grab the collar of my Maple Leafs' jersey and jerk it over my head. "Tell 'em you gotta play, Stick." I shove it at my brother. "I don't want it if you can't play."

"Thanks Kamikaze," he says tossing a hockey card at me.

"Sorry I was such a lousy goalie," I say.

"Are you kidding? Your save left Peter tangled in his jock strap."

I giggle, which hurts like hell. "Poke check," I say. My brother laughs. He drapes the Maple Leafs sweater over his arm and heads out to face off with Pa and Uncle Tony once again.

© Paul Lima