As the year, 1987 drew to a close, my son Buddy, 11, had just gotten his arm out of a cast. He'd been going out running, even while his arm was in a sling, in order to stay in shape. Unfortunately, the doctor had told us that the arm wouldn't be strong enough for him to compete in the current hockey season. He was playing with older boys and full body checking was allowed. Although Buddy was terribly disappointed, he refused to get discouraged and regularly did all the strenghening exercises that the doctor recommended. I couldn't believe how determined he was. I never had to remind him.
His armed ended up healing really nicely and his tennis game continued to improve in the spring and early summer. His mind, however, kept focussing on the entire hockey season that he'd missed. Hockey was his passion. He didn't want to lose a step, competitively. A friend of his had given him a brochure for a 4 week hockey school in August, for elite players, run by Bobby Orr. He gave me a 10 minute presentation (a pleading session) on why he should attend this program. He'd come close to convincing me and I had a look at the brochure.
It was certainly a glossy brochure and it sounded great until and reached the back page and a section called fees. As my heart fell to my socks, I exclaimed "It costs $5,000."
"Is that a lot?" said Buddy.
"It's a fortune, Buddy".
"Pleeeeeeeeeeeease daddy" said Buddy about 12 times (He never called me daddy. He must have thought it was a good word to use while pleading)
Well this went on for a while and essentially the result was that I gave in and tried not to think too hard about where the money was coming from. Fortunately, the school itself was a great experience for him. Not only did he totally love it, but the instructors told me that his progress had been nothing less than astounding.
Once the season started, it didn't take long to realize that not only had he not lost a step, he had become a dominant force in every game. By halfway through the season, the newspapers were starting to pick up on what was happening. There was talk that potentially Wayne Gretzky's peewee records were in jeopardy. Although his pace slowed somewhat, late in the year, in what became a significant media event, he scored his 200 th goal of the season. This time there were major write-ups in the Star, Globe and the Sun. Reporters had attended the game and Buddy, his coach and I had given interviews. Buddy wasn't exactly shy about this; he was kind of lapping it up.
One interesting thing was that at age 12, my little guy seemed to be going through a lifesyle change as a result of instant celebrity. As an example, I answered our door and a 12 year old girl appeared asking if Buddy was home. She said her name was Sara and was wearing an outfit like I'd seen ladies on the street corner downtown wearing.
"Buddy, Sara's here" I called
"I don't know any Saras" came the reply.
"Well come down here and tell her that" I sighed.
This was not unique. Similar incidents kept occurring. I looked for signs that this kind of attention was going to his head, but I didn't see any. As best I could tell, he was the same sensitive, polite kid, with both feet planted firmly on the ground.
A month or so after the season ended, the peewee division held it's annual awards banquet. Buddy's only competion for most valuable player (MVP) was a young goaltender (Blake) who had a sensational season, but went largely unnoticed with all the hoopla around Buddy's scoring feats. As we prepared the night of the banquet, it was very clear that Buddy expected to win. I also expected him to win but I checked Blake's statistics. He'd had an amazing year that included 15 shutouts, in a high scoring division. I told Buddy not to count on winning the award, that maybe this wasn't his year. Dad, "I had 210 goals" he said.
"I know that Bud" I replied and finished dressing. We did look quite the pair in the tuxedos we rented for the evening. I was clearly one proud parent. Dinner was great and then they got to the award presentations. Buddy applauded loudly for the winners in all categories until they arrived at the last category, MVP. It was like an Oscar show. And the winner is........ Blake. As people were applauding the winner, Buddy got up and bolted from the room. I quickly followed him. I found him outside kicking a couple of chairs that were in the hallway. I grabbed him by the jacket collar and said "Are you going to walk back in there or do I have to drag you?".
He brushed my hand off, pouted and walked back to his seat. I told him that he was going to go and shake Blake's hand. He refused and said that he got screwed and oviously the voting was fixed. "You're going to congratulate him and you're going to do it now" I said. He then walked up to Blake, tapped him on the shoulder, reached out his hand , scowled and then walked back to his seat. I then told Buddy that we were leaving and marched him back to the car. During the drive home, he continued pouting and I said nothing.
When, we got home I told him that I was too angry to speak to him right now and that he should go up to his room and take off his tuxedo. I just sat on the couch pondering the evening and trying to understand his behaviour. I rationalized that all the publicity had caused him too much pressure and raised his expectations to unrealistic levels. That maybe so, I told myself, but I was not about to tolerate poor sportsmanship. I decided that the only issue I had to deal with was what am I going to do about it.
I would have pulled him out of the next seies of games, but the season was over. I wondered how I could get him to understand how unacceptable his behavior had been. I sighed deeply as I contemplated spanking him. I simply hated the thought. The old adage of it hurting me more than it would him was very applicable in this case. When a boy reaches 12 and you've never spanked him, you just assume you never will. I couldn't bear the thought of jeopardizing the perfect father son relationship we had. Would he hate me?, I thought. In the end, I felt I was out of options. I changed out of my tuxedo, passed by the washroom to pick something up and headed to my son's room.
He seemed to have calmed down, as he was laying on his stomache on the bed in his briefs reading a hockey magazine. "Sorry Daddy, I was a total jerk" he said as he looked up.
"Yes you were , Buddy, but an apology just isn't going to settle this right now." I pulled the hairbrush out of my pocket and stood before him as he sat on the bed.
He just stared at me and said "nooooo daddy, you can't do that" (back with this daddy again).
I hadn't actually decided if I was going to use the hairbrush, but I did know that I was going to go through with this. I cleared off the mountain of clothing that was on his chair and sat down on it. I told him to get up and stand in front of me. I put my hands inside the elastic waistband of his briefs, pulled them down to his ankles and asked him to step outside of them. At this point, I took his arm , put him across my lap and manouvered him into position. I really wanted to get this over with and began to apply my hand to his bare bottom very hard and fast.
Whack! Spank! Smack! Pop! These sounds resonated throughout the room and were intermingled with Buddy's cries. It was very clear that he had no idea what a spanking felt like. Well he was about to find out as I picked up the hairbrush from the desk. I didn't want this to be a long spanking but I wanted it to make an impression. A quick hard volley of about 12 spanks with the hairbrush and that part was done. I followed it with 6 very hard spanks with my hand to the centre of his bottom and we were done. I stood him up and hugged him as hard as I could, telling him how much I loved him and how much I hated doing that. I told him to lie down and come down for dinner when he was ready.
Buddy lay down on his stomache on the bed with his hands on his bum, sobbing. I proceeded to go to my room and also lay on my bed sobbing. To this day, I don't know who suffered more through that experience.