Maggs’ Night Work – Poems Bring Reader to On and Off-Ice World of Terry Sawchuk

Excerpts taken from remarks delivered by Wsevolod Sokolyk to introduce author Randall Maggs, 2010 Kobzar Award Winner, reading from his Night Work - The Sawchuk Poems at the UNF Toronto Community Centre, on April 20.

Let us go back into time to 1967. Specifically to May 2^nd, 1967. That evening, here in Toronto, the clouds were still in the sky as the afternoon rains were tapering and the temperature had dropped to a cool 45 degrees Fahrenheit. The citizens of the city were on edge as all eyes of Canada were on the iconic Maple Leaf Gardens.

Picture yourself in that building that evening, an old 1930s arena. In fact, picture yourself on the ice.

Your team, the Toronto Maple Leafs, is battling for the Stanley Cup against legendary rival, the Montreal Canadiens. It is game six, and you have a three game to two advantage. It is the third period, and your team is leading 2-1. The clock is ticking, but not fast enough. The mighty “Habs” are pressing. They have promised to bring the Cup to Montreal this year of Canada’s Centennial. In fact, a trophy case to hold the Cup has already been installed at Expo ’67, Montreal’s showpiece to the world.

And then the whistle blows again. This time with only 55 seconds remaining on the clock. Montreal pulls its goalie for an extra attacker. The face off is at your end of the rink and you are the goaltender for the Toronto Maple Leafs. 

You know that you cannot let your team mates down. You do not want to go back to Montreal for game seven. But your nerves are long time frail. Your lungs are craving for a cigarette. The 40+ pounds of leather padding you are wearing has absorbed sweat and water off the ice and feels twice as heavy. It is crude inadequate protection and your body is aching from all the shots and slashes it has absorbed. You have been through this before, but now you are 37 years old.

The game ends in a Toronto Maple Leafs victory. Captain George Armstrong scores an empty net goal to secure the Stanley Cup. Pandemonium reigns in Toronto.

The following day, the statisticians report that you had made 41 saves that evening. The press reports that you were instrumental in helping the Leafs win the Stanley Cup. A year later, your hockey card simply reads: A four-time winner of the Vezina Trophy, he is with his fourth team.

And years later, it would be written: Terrence Gordon Sawchuk was one of professional hockey’s most brilliant performers and tragic figures.  At the time of his death in 1970, he played more games and recorded more shutouts than any goaltender in history.   His life, though, was marred by injuries, illnesses, accidents, family crises, and emotional breakdowns… 

…Let us go back again to that game in May 1967. What was going through Sawchuk’s mind?  What was going through his mind waiting in his crease for the crucial face off with less than a minute to play?

Did it cross his mind that this could very well be the last game in the six-team National Hockey League and that the expansion draft was just around the corner? Did he read the article in the Toronto Telegram which suggested that if the Canadiens lose tonight, Montreal fans will call for coach Toe Blake’s scalp, demand that he retire, or burn him in effigy? Did he hear team-mate Tim Horton say that the game was in the hands of God and Terry Sawchuk?

When the game ended, Blake (who was not scalped) said “Tonight Sawchuk was too much.” And in the Leafs dressing room, the press wrote, while “Frank Mahovlich was fishing around the bottom of the galvanized Cup looking for champagne, Sawchuk was in the shower, his hair looking like a fright wig.” ¹

What was going through Sawchuk’s mind then? He did not tell the press, as he never did, but just snuck out the back door of the Gardens and wandered off into the night. A few years later, his body was laid to rest forever taking with him forever his secrets, his innermost feelings and thoughts.

But so we thought.

“Night Work – The Sawchuk Poems” by Randall Maggs brings Terry Sawchuk to life as no statistic, press story, hockey card or biography ever has or can. The poems delve into the intensely troubled body and tormented soul of perhaps the greatest hockey goalie of all-time with a passionate non-judgemental reality. The poems bring the reader to ice level. To the locker rooms and their not so pristine language. To the run-down smoke-filled taverns. To the household of Terry’s parents - immigrants struggling in a new land. To the golden era of the six-team NHL.

“Night Work” is an epic that follows the career of Terry Sawchuk through a series of poems. An incredible knowledge of hockey permeates the lines and the reader is left with an impression that poet Randall Maggs was part of that league and that he knew Sawchuk personally…

…Night Work – The Sawchuk Poems. Please welcome poet Randall Maggs and the world of Terry Sawchuk.

PHOTO

Night Work author Randall Maggs signs book copy