22/7/97
Hockey
Night in - Metulla
Metulla is not Montreal.
Winning isn't everything.
Nemirovsky is no Beliveau.
Beliveau is no god. But he's close.
No one could believe what they were
seeing: a hockey game, in Israel, an all-Jewish
Canadian national team, sabras stepping out
of sandals and into skates
to take on the mighty world powerhouse.
"Maccabiah Ice Hockey Championships:
Israel vs Canada." Sheer chutzpah!
Even the referee was in theme: the
back of his striped sweater read "COHEN."
The Israelis should have been collective
roadkill, an ant under a Mack
truck,
the way the Canadians tooled up for this match.
They brought a former Stanley
Cup-winning coach, Jacques Demers of the Montreal
Canadiens; the Canadiens
and Toronto Maple Leafs provided their team
trainers; the chairman of the
team was a part owner of the Montreal Expos
baseball team, Mark Routtenberg;
a couple of the players were borrowed from
the National Hockey League;
and if all that weren't enough, they brought
along a legend of the game,
Jean Beliveau, for inspiration.
Canada came to win. Israel, just to
participate. Both achieved their goal.
Demers was not motivated by the Jewishness
of it all, and had no reason to be:
he was as singly dedicated to victory as when
he paced behind the Montreal
bench.
Routtenberg wanted to give the players
a Jewish infusion. But also a gold medal.
The fans in attendance, they wanted
it all. And got it. Most of them, judging
by the vocal support, bleed maple syrup. There
was a busload of tourists
from Montreal, soldiers from Canada's Golan
force, longtime immigrants
who grew up on Saturday telecasts of ג€Hockey
Night in Canada.ג€
You'd think those folks from the True
North Strong And Free have a
vocabulary limited to "fantastic!"
"unbelievable!" and "incredible!"
--
such
were the only words fans could utter when
asked their thoughts on this improbable
event.
The Canadian players, they, too, wanted
it all. And didn't get it. They grumbled
about the competitive level; the remoteness
of Metulla; the food, the
lack of beautiful women ("Hey, man, we
were promised great-looking girls in
this country.").
David Nemirovsky scored three goals
in Canada's 12-1 win, but the consensus was
that he could have scored twice that, with
a few dozen sexy female fans to
spur him on. At a post-game dinner (which
fully justified their complaints about the
food), Nemirovsky nearly leapt through a plate-glass
window when a begowned bride strode by on
the other side.
"Women. Hockey and women, that's
all we want," one of his teammates explained.
"We went to the beach in Tel Aviv, that
was great; they took us to
the Wall in Jerusalem, not so great."
I got the feeling these were hockey
players first, Jews a very distant second.
Metulla Mayor Yossi Goldberg got what
he wanted: to put his pretty border village
on the map; to bring big-time hockey to his
world-class rink, an Olympic-sized
mirage that won rapturous kudos from everyone
there.
You knew this was Metulla, and not
Montreal, by the depth of Goldberg's involvement
in his town's most insignificant operations.
I was chatting with Goldberg
when he noticed a worker struggling to open
a door to the rink. The mayor
begged my pardon, and explained to the worker
the trick to jiggling this
particular latch. That's a mayor!
(Goldberg gave the entire Canadian
team the use of his own phone to call home,
to reassure their families after the opening
ceremony tragedy.)
And everybody got what they wanted
in Jean Beliveau.
He is the impossible combination of
revered sports icon and humbly cordial gentleman.
Every single person who dared approach him
was received warmly; every
request for an autograph, photo, handshake
-- and there were hundreds in
just these two hours -- Beliveau ho-hoed abashedly,
and looked the stranger in
the eye with an expression that actually seemed
to say he was honored.
One fellow told Beliveau he'd been
at the game in 1951 when the future Hall of
Famer got his first tryout. Beliveau happily
reminisced with him for a few
minutes.
Lionel Gaffen, a photographer
from Kfar Giladi, had this observation:
"Watch
him -- everyone who asks for an autograph,
they expect nothing more, but
he spends a moment with each one. He asks
a personal question, like where
they're from, or if they're enjoying the game.
Anyone who asks him to pose
for a photo, he puts his arm around their
shoulders and pulls them in close,
like a father."
What an athlete from Victoriaville,
Quebec, has in common with an Upper Galilee
politician I can't imagine, but Beliveau and
Goldberg found a lot to talk
about. Even odder was when a uniformed IDF
colonel -- far more likely from
Morocco or Iraq than from Canada -- sat down
next to Beliveau. Judging by
their body language, they looked like old
friends.
When he wasn't beseiged by fans, mayors,
soldiers or newspapermen, Beliveau's
attention turned to the game. He had only
good things to say -- about
the Canada Center complex, the rink, the quality
of the ice, even about
the team that was in the process of losing
12-1. He applauded the lone Israeli
goal, lauded the overwhelmed goalie, admired
the doggedness of the Israeli
team. He spoke of Israel like a dyed-in-the-wool
Zionist.
He didn't complain about the food or
the women; wouldn't know how.
I, too, got what I wanted. A dream
come true, if you'll pardon the regression
into childish exuberance. I watched a hockey
game sitting next to my
boyhood idol. Like we were buddies.
