There's a Shark in My Hockey Pool (6 page)

But Marcotte isn't drafting players for an
80-game regular season. He needs them for one game. He was heading
up an all-star team of players who, for the most part, he'd never
seen. It was similar to the old method of choosing up sides for a
hockey game. The players dump their hockey sticks in a pile at
center ice. Half of the sticks are then tossed toward one blue
line, half towards the other. When the players retrieve their
sticks, they know what side of the rink they're defending. This
method of selection may date back to the purges of Stalin.

The plum contract with Quick Pucks would go
to the winner, while Derek's advertising business was the other
"beer" this game was being waged over. He wouldn't want it any
other way.

The clock on the wall said 11:10. They'd been
at it for two hours and had an impressive game of Brite-Lite going.
The map of the country was slowly filling itself in with an
illuminated checkered red and white pattern. There was a strange
patriotic flare to it. The lights looked to be blazing red and
white remnants ... from a maple leaf flag that had been blasted by
a Spanish trawler. An immigration official might argue it was a
melting pot that had been sitting on the fire too long.

One keystroke later, Bittman turned the
Wetaskiwin zone in Alberta red. The wee rectangle continued to
blink, proud and beaming at being the latest area selected. These
flashing red lights took their turns as distress signals to Derek.
Little lighthouses that knew not the rocks from the Rockies. Each
time they lit up, he had three minutes to make his selection. They
blinked monotonously, a stop light stuck on red -- yet signalling
go. Hurry! ... before it's too late.

It all seemed too surreal. It was the flip
side of Salvadore Dali's The Disintegration of the Persistence of
Memory, with a dreadfully lackadaisical time piece hung out to dry
on a desert tree. Time falling apart ... too weak to stand still.
Seconds, minutes and hours ... with all day to spare. Derek wished
it would do just that for him now.

No. The red and white pockmarked map of
Canada blinked away. It was his turn. Again. He remembered a day at
the races.

The bell at the race track signaled two
minutes til post time. His dad quickly folded the racing form down
the seam and just as quickly made a second fold down the middle of
the page. The numbers of the horses were circled and the wagers
were penciled in at the top. Derek knew his father would change one
or two of his selections while they stood in line. As they neared
the ticket window, his father gestured outside, beyond the
grandstand and said, "you have to watch the tote board to see where
the smart money is going." Derek stared at the long rectangular
sign on its side.

Every eye in the grandstand was glued to it,
yet the board was devoid of advertising -- or even advice on how to
pick a winner. It was the tote board that wasn't going anywhere.
Weighed down by a wall of light bulbs in crazy-eight patterns,
every minute the bulbs churned out another dizzying, digital wave
of information.

Derek came to appreciate numbers. Years later
he reckoned those days at the track had kept him in a few math
teachers' good graces. He could still feel the firm nudge on his
shoulder from his father. It meant to step lively and stay close
until the bets were in. These nudges and other nuances of
father-son bonding had come fifteen minutes apart, ten times every
Sunday afternoon during racing season when he was growing up.

Before the afternoon at Herculean was over,
Marcotte felt like he'd emptied out a huge bank account of nudges
stored from those Sunday afternoons from years past. Only the
nudges came every three minutes now ... and they weren't gentle
reminders to come along. These were hard shoves, triggered by the
flashing red lights, urging him to stay back, far back, lest he be
trampled.

The pushing would only stop when the
two-color neon country before him was paid in full. Or would it?
But there was something different about these nudges. The urgency
was there as it had been before. Missing however was the quick fix
of anticipation a two-dollar wager brings.

These were negative nudges, fresh from
yesterday's argument with his father. Each one urging him not only
to rethink his selection, but what the hell was he doing there in
the first place. Nudges from a hard-core mechanic meant ... grease
stains. Derek caught himself looking down the front of his spotless
three-piece suit, sure he'd find enough oil to send
environmentalists scurrying.

Derek knew when his father's touch meant
business. He'd shaken his father's hands fewer times than he could
count on both of them. Grasping his father's hand had been like
laying your soul bare. On each of these few occasions, he'd
attacked his father's grip with strength, wanting to assure him he
was as good a man. When their palms did part, it was all too
sudden.

Derek looked at Artie. Artie had gone along
with the deal. Derek knew he would, though he was still somewhat
surprised. It wasn't like Artie to take a flyer on something like
this. But there comes a time when the matador has to put away the
red cape and uncap the barbecue sauce. May-Ja-Look had yet to bust
out.

Artie recognized this was their bull to ride.
Together, they'd scoured the pages of the Hockey Bible and made
some phone calls. They weren't in the typical hockey pool draft
chatted up around the water cooler. Here they were general managers
to living, breathing players. He and Artie would have to perform
like Sam Pollock, Bill Torrey ... nay, God himself ... just to put
together a team that could lace up the skates of the Herculean
club.

There had been no visions the previous night
as Derek slept. No divine interventions from Dick Irvin, Sr., one
of Montreal's many mentors ... or a visit from the ghost of
penalties past, Bill "Big Whistle" Chadwick, the foghorn-voiced
ex-referee. Otherworldy advice was needed if he were to have any
chance of exorcising the demons that had haunted him since the
accident. Yet a small voice inside told him to prepare for this
hockey game like no other. It would be the most sporting,
nationally accepted and humane method for exacting revenge on one
sonofabitch named Victor Erskine.

Artie tapped him on the shoulder and pointed
to his watch. Time to pick. Derek looked back to the map and its
flashing red light in Wetaskiwin. They hadn't bothered discussing
strategy. Bellwether Agency didn't have a portfolio on this one.
This was where inbred Canadian chromosomes ransacked a poolie's
stomach, coughing up "gut feelings".

This fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants approach
was one of their few options, given their shortage of funds. There
had been no advance legwork, no pre-draft scouting trips or
marketing blitzes. But hell, thought Marcotte. This was Canada. You
couldn't slap a puck without hitting someone who played the
game.

With time winding down, Derek decided to go
with the game plan that wayward hikers, Amelia Earhart and Canadian
pro football's expansion committee adhered to. Aim for
civilization.

"New Westminster," Derek said.

Seconds later, the Vancouver suburb turned
white.

"You may as well say New Guinea," Erskine
said. "You don't have the money to travel to either."

"Who's traveling anywhere? I'll be busy
logging frequent dialer minutes on my fax machine."

Marcotte knew they probably had enough money
to fly to the west coast, but he didn't want to tip his hand. Why
waste a trip to Vancouver when Erskine had the resources and
manpower to find half a dozen players in B.C. before Derek and
Artie could say Squamish? Besides, Derek had never been west of
Winnipeg. If he could get Erskine to thinking he knew his way
around western Canada it would allow him to sneak in and steal some
of the areas he was more familiar with in the east.

It quickly became a game of cat and mouse.
Erskine, the looming big game animal, waiting to pounce ... while
Derek played the prairie ground hog, popping up here and there
across the western half of the map.

Like a cartoon light bulb signalling an idea,
the twenty-cent light bulb protruding from Wetaskawin, Alberta had
triggered Derek's new strategy. After his partner's fourth straight
pick in northern Saskatchewan, Artie lifted his head from his
laptop, not quite sure what was going on. Had his partner detected
another Floral, Saskatchewan -- birthplace of Gordie Howe? A grain
exchange by the interchange, with more dogs than citizens ...
mortals and mutts with their tongues hanging out at the sight of
the local rink rat? With a wink, Derek let him know things were
under control.

The ploy worked. Erskine firmly believed that
where there was smoke there was fire. Red Herculean fortresses
quickly encircled the white May-Ja-Look zones on the map as Erskine
used most of his early picks to try and quash Derek's haphazard
forays into the Canadian wild. While Erskine was blindly building
these walls, Derek occasionally snapped up a lone area in Ontario.
He was careful to spread them out so as not to arouse
suspicion.

The clock read 1:30. A light in 100 Mile
House, British Columbia lit up. Erskine eyed Derek warily.

"Who the hell do you know there?"

"The mileage marker. I think I can find a
spot for him on our blue line."

"Your team will be nothing but a rag tag
group of replacement players ... in search of a sport. Certainly
not hockey."

Hockey pools are always more fun when your
competition ridicules your picks. This player was damaged goods --
hadn't you heard? He sprained his knee in training camp. Or that
player couldn't put the puck in the ocean if he was standing on the
pier. When a player's livelihood hung in the balance however, the
digs went deeper. Derek shoveled them right back.

"Actually," Derek said, "I was hoping we
would have included drafting in the states. A win would be a sure
thing if I could pick a few players from the Philadelphia girls
road hockey team."

Erskine's grin peeled into his patented sneer
-- a sneer as long-running as those of the dastardly villains who
tied squealing damsels in distress to train tracks.

The Herculean boss strummed his fingers on
the table. It was his pick but he wanted to show Marcotte how he
dealt with pressure. How he could turn the tables and make three
minutes sit on the edge of its seat. Erskine may as well have been
pool-side at Club Med, sipping a pina colada and pondering an
afternoon golf or tennis date.

"I get the impression you're not sure what
you're doing," Erskine said.

"I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm just
seeing how long you're going to follow me around the country like
some poor mongrel trying to return a video rental of "The
Incredible Journey."

Erskine bristled. His pina colada suddenly
tasted like chlorine. He turned to Bittman and whispered something
into his ear. The whispering was interrupted by the occasional
heated look thrown Derek's way. The gloves were off and Erskine's
plan "B" kicked into motion.

The 100th zone was snapped up at 2:00 p.m.
With ample resources available for advance scouting, Erskine
focused on Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver with his next twenty
picks. Derek had no choice but to follow suit. Canada's wilderness
had served its purpose. It was time to go for the meat and potatoes
of their line-up. The picks came quicker now, neither person
waiting the full three minutes.

When 4 p.m. and the 150th pick rolled around,
no one had to be reminded it was time to break. Both parties logged
off their computers and packed their papers away.

"We'll pick up where we left off at 9 a.m.
tomorrow," said Erskine. "That is, if you still think you have a
snowball's chance in hell of winning."

"Oh, we'll be alright," Derek said. "Our
touring of the country's hinterland was just to see if you realized
that Alberta was west of Saskatchewan. Tomorrow we may touch upon
the spawning patterns of Coho salmon in the Fraser River. Uh ...
that's in B.C."

... 4 ...

Derek and his cheeseburger were locked in a
staring match. He was waiting for one -- any one -- of the sesame
seeds to blink. It had seemed the safest thing on the menu to
order. His metabolism was chopping down redwoods of angst. Marcotte
checked the diner's counter for anti-acid relief medicine and tree
huggers. Artie waded with his fork through his fish and chips.

"You've been staring at that burger for five
minutes. If you're wondering where the blinking lights and buzzers
are ... we're not at Herculean anymore." Artie dug into his
flounder. "What zone were you going to pick anyway?"

"Oba ... in Ontario"

"Eh? Why's that?"

"It's short and easy to remember." Derek
finally looked away from the cheeseburger. The bun had won.

"We'll be okay," Artie said. "The tough part
is done. The major recruiting areas are gone now. We'll just be
picking from all the places named after rivers and lakes."

"Rivers or lakes," Derek said with a chuckle.
"You'd think we were organizing a fishing derby."

He picked up his cheeseburger and wrenched a
bite out of it. He eyed the ashtray at Artie's elbow and spit a
sesame seed at it for good measure. The aim was true but it skipped
out.

... 5 ...

Bittman turned an Ontario zone white. Erskine
huddled with him over their computer. It was their goose with
random memory on which they were counting for plenty of golden
eggs. The clock said 9:45 a.m. The ostentatious Herculean
surroundings almost convinced the fast food egg surprise in Derek's
stomach to take wing and fly. He sipped his coffee and looked at
the computerized Canada on the screen in front of him. The coffee
was too hot ... while his and Artie's leads to legitimate talent
had grown bitterly cold.