All the Way (23 page)

I got along great with everyone in the dressing room. But it was a different kind of atmosphere. Nashville was the only NHL team I'd been with, and I guess every team has a different way of going about things. The players in Nashville were always around each other. There were a lot of team functions. You didn't just see each other at the rink. Away from the rink, guys in Nashville were hanging around a lot whereas in Detroit it was totally different. I only saw the other guys at practice and at games. So, that was a little bit of a shock to me. But I was new to the team and that was how they did things there, so I'd just have to adjust. The players kind of lived their own separate lives, and everyone lived far away from the rink. In Nashville, I lived ten minutes from the rink—in traffic. In Detroit, I was thirty minutes away without traffic. During all of that time I spent
in my car, driving, I thought about a lot of stuff. When things started getting a little tough toward the end of the season, that drive seemed even longer. It was definitely hard. I put a lot of miles on my vehicle and I spent a lot of time thinking about everything that was going wrong.

It was different during games as well. The biggest thing I noticed was that the fans in Detroit really understand the game. They have a history with the sport. In Nashville, every time we touched the puck I think the fans thought we were going to score a goal. They made noise all the time. In Detroit, it was the opposite. Sometimes you could hear a pin drop out on the ice. You wouldn't have known there were twenty thousand fans in Joe Louis Arena. Regular-season hockey there is kind of blah. They know they're going to make the playoffs, so they save all of their energy for then. As it got closer to playoffs, you could feel the intensity in the arena start to build up. And then when the playoffs came around, it was like, Where were those fans all year? The raw emotion would bleed out of the stands to us.

For the first thirty-five games, I was in the lineup every night. Because of the lockout, it was a shortened season. We were playing every other day. Guys were getting injured and going in and out of the lineup. I was playing through injuries. Mentally, it was strenuous, but I kept going.

And then it just petered out from there. When I signed with Detroit, the biggest reason was because I knew there wasn't another player like me and there wasn't any question that I was going to be playing. But then I started playing fewer and fewer minutes. I was a healthy scratch on a lot of nights.
Communication is very important to me. Im guessing it's important to everyone. When you communicate, it makes things a lot easier. But I didn't find there was a lot of communication with the Red Wings. You were on your own, and you had to figure things out on your own. It's tough when you feel like you're in limbo.

I started to question myself, to ask what I wasn't doing right, what it would take for me to get back in the lineup. I started wondering about myself and doubting myself. They brought me there to bring them the physical part of the game. Then they told me I wasn't producing enough and they had to take me out of the lineup and try something new. And yet they told me that I'd done everything they'd expected.

I wanted to be in the lineup every night and I did everything I could to make that happen. When you're told you're not going to be playing, it kind of stabs you in the heart.
Should I fight more? What am I doing that's not right?
No one had any answers for me.

Then the playoffs came around. We had finished seventh in the Western Conference, just squeaking into the playoffs by a point, and were matched against the number-two seed, the Anaheim Ducks, in the first round. Obviously, they were the heavy favourites. For the first game in California, Babcock put me in the starting lineup. That made sense, because I'd played in almost every playoff game for the Predators when I was in Nashville, and they told me they were going with experience, which was a good thing for me. Then we lost, 3–1. I took a cross-checking penalty in the first period, and the Ducks scored
on the power play, but otherwise I thought I had done okay. I played only a little over six minutes the entire game. No one else on the team played less than ten.

And then, the next day, my name wasn't even on the lineup sheet. When I asked why I was out, I was given the old “we're going to switch things up.” And that was pretty much it. Frick, when you're told that they're going to switch things up and then they switch things up and it doesn't work, you figure you might get another chance. But after that, it was like I didn't exist. They were putting skill guys who weren't grinders on the fourth line, and all I could do was skate after practice with the other guys who hadn't dressed for the game, all the time thinking,
Geez, why the hell did I even come here?

Players like me go to war for their teammates and do whatever it takes to be there for them. Once the playoffs come around, it's all about having a group of guys who are willing to go to war for each other. I know that I'm a guy who will do anything for his teammates. I felt I got shafted by Detroit. In my mind, it was like,
Thanks for coming out, thanks for helping us get to the playoffs, but now we're just going to go with the guys we have.
I felt like I'd fallen off the face of the earth.

We won that series with Anaheim in seven games, and then we took the Chicago Blackhawks to seven games in the second round before losing. The Hawks went on to win the Stanley Cup. But I didn't play another second after that first game against Anaheim.

After we were knocked out of the playoffs, we had a year-end team meeting. Babcock told us that if anyone wanted to meet
with him individually, he could call and set something up. He said, “My phone is always on, but, otherwise, have a good summer and we'll see you in the fall.” I was so furious that I just wanted to fuck off. I wanted to get out of Detroit as fast as possible. I hadn't played in a month and a half and I hadn't had any real communication with anybody in the Red Wings organization during that time. There was no way I was going to call Babcock. Why would I meet with him? What did I have to say to him—even though, deep down, I had a lot to say to him. But I thought,
Fuck it, I don't want to see him and I don't want to talk to him.

But then I called my agent and talked to him a bit about it. I cooled off and we both decided it would better to make the call and sit down with Babcock, so I ended up having a meeting with him. And to be honest, it felt like a brush-off at the time. There isn't a hockey player in the world who doesn't want more ice time. I knew I could contribute. All my life, I've been a guy who was counted on to contribute. So it really got under my skin that Babcock didn't see things that way. But once I cooled off a little, I figured I had to try to see things his way. I realized that Babcock didn't
have
to take that meeting with me, didn't have to explain himself at all. I see now that he wasn't there to talk hockey. He just wanted to shake hands and part ways on good terms. Whatever our differences of opinion, I have to respect him for that.

And so off I went, back to Kelowna for the summer. I did my best to clear my mind and get rid of my anger. Eventually, I decided that somehow the next season would be better, that I
wouldn't ask for a trade, that I would go to training camp and give it my best shot.

During the off-season, Jordin went back to Nunavut, returning to his roots, returning to the land, and shedding some of the frustration from the previous season. In addition to going home to Rankin Inlet, where he reconnected with family and friends, he embarked on what has become an annual tour of even more remote Inuit communities in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories, some of them far above the Arctic Circle. It's a way of rejuvenating himself and giving back to his people.

I have a big following in the north. How big? Well, it's hard to say. There aren't many people up there, but for those people I'm like a massive sports figure in America or maybe the president of the United States, who has millions and millions of people following him. When I fly into small communities in the north, I'm like that to them. When we're coming in, a lot of the time the pilot will make a couple of flybys to give us a bird's-eye view of how big or how small the place is. Usually there are just a few dozen houses in the middle of the tundra. From the air, you can see everyone running out of their houses and jumping on their quads or their bicycles and heading for the airport, knowing that I'm on that plane. It sends chills down my spine. It's just me. What's the big deal? Sometimes I don't get it, to be honest, because I'm just a small-town boy who grew up and was lucky enough to get to live the life that a lot of these kids wish they could live.

Visiting these communities is a way of saying thank-you for their constant loyalty and their commitment. They look up to me as a role model. They're people I can count on to be true, loyal fans, not fans of Jordin Tootoo just because he's an NHL player. They're fans because of who I am and where I grew up and the steps I've taken to be where I am today. A lot of those people have never had a chance to leave their little towns, let alone see an NHL game in person. It's an unbelievable experience for me, getting to travel across the whole of the territories. And given how the season with Detroit played out, that year's trip was especially good for me.

It's a part of the world that is very isolated from the south. Up there, you can kind of separate yourself from all of the commotion that goes on down south. These are communities of five hundred people, or three hundred people. It's very soothing for me to land in one of those places and get away from my cellphone and my other life. You're not completely cut off from the outside world, because every community is connected by the internet and has satellite television. But it's the mentality, the feeling of being apart—the same as I had growing up as a small-town boy. Life in the north is very simple. It isn't about being on a schedule. You just kind of go with the flow. I've lived in the south now for a number of years and life there gets pretty hectic. You seem to get caught up in your schedule, in what you have to do that day. In the north, it's a lot more relaxed—and it seems to get more relaxed the farther north you go.

It also does me a lot of good to go somewhere where people are real, loyal, humble, and true to themselves—where they're
not fake. I'm going somewhere where I can have a heart-to-heart conversation and not have to worry about bullshitting. It seems to me that, down south, a lot of the time people tell somebody one thing and then do another. That's just how the world works sometimes. You have to bullshit your way through it. In the north, there's no bullshit. It's plain black and white. There are no grey areas. So, being in the north is a time to heal all of the wounds before I have to get back to reality. Those northern communities are the places where I feel most at home.

They also give me a chance to go back to my roots and to give back. And it's very humbling. I'm just so thankful for the support system I have in the Arctic. Any time that I can go up there and do something for the people there, I'm more than honoured to do it. I understand that I'm a huge role model. It creates an uplifting feeling in a lot of these communities to have me visit and for the kids to see their local hero. In each school I visit, we have an assembly. And then in the evenings, we have a community gathering at the local hall. I speak to everyone and say my few bits, sign autographs, and take pictures. I'm not there to preach. I'm there mainly to interact with them and say thank-you. I'm not much of a public speaker. I'd much rather sign autographs and take pictures all night than make speeches. Before I speak, I usually sit down with the mayor of the community and find out what the local issues are, and then I try to talk about them. A lot of it is about education, about convincing kids to stay in school. I also talk about community involvement, in regards to helping each other out. Pretty much every one of these communities has issues with drugs and alcohol. They
know that I've been sober for three years. I talk about sobriety. I'm not a guy who is going to go out and preach about it. I try to lead by example. That's the kind of person I am. If I lead by example, hopefully a lot of these people will follow.

I understand what they're going through. I can relate. I've been there. I've seen it with my own eyes, and within my own family. Addiction. Abuse. For me to be able to speak about it and not be afraid is important, because I'm telling them not to be afraid to talk. Speak out. There's always going to be someone who is going to listen and will want to help. In these small communities, silent is the way to be. What happens behind closed doors is no one else's business. When you're in a small town and everyone knows everyone, you don't want other people knowing about your problems. People are scared to talk. People are afraid to open up. You can see it in a lot of people's eyes when I talk about situations I have experienced. I'm not directing my speeches only to the young kids; I'm directing them to the adults and the adolescents as well. I'm looking them straight in the eye, and sometimes they look away because they have experienced the same things. I need to make a point about opening up and not being afraid.

I understand now that, before I got sober, the message I was sending was pretty confused, and I wasn't setting much of an example. I was living in my own little world. I didn't understand the importance of being a role model to these people. I didn't understand how much of an influence I had in these communities, not only on the kids but also on the adults. I still made time for everybody but, mentally, I wasn't there. And I was definitely contradicting myself—talking about the importance of not
drinking and then, in the evening, going out and partying it up. Discretely, I thought, but they had to notice.

When I finally figured myself out, cleaned myself up, and took a few steps back, the trips north became an unbelievable experience. Over the last three years, I've soaked so much in. To know that all of those people are behind me 100 percent is just an unbelievable feeling. When I visit those communities, every eye is watching my every move. Now that my mind is clear, I realize the effect I have on those people on a day-to-day basis. Part of my motivation for sobering up was making sure that I give myself every opportunity to have those people look up to me—because they're the ones who inspire me every day to be the best person I can be, not only for myself but as a role model in the north.