A Christmas Story

(Editor's Note: I know. I wrote this tale in 2008. But it deserves repeating this year.)

Once upon a time, there was a 12-year old boy who lived in Detroit and was a big hockey fan. It was the days of the six-team National Hockey League. Although it was a competitive league, the Montreal Canadiens were the gold standard. They won five Stanley Cups in a row from 1956-60 and seriously contended just about every year they didn't win.

The hometown Red Wings? They made the playoffs just about every season but couldn't get over the hump, even losing in the Stanley Cup Finals two years in a row.

The boy knew all this and a lot more. That’s because he listened to just about every game -- the only way for a youngster to follow the team. At the time, there was no local television of Detroit games. On Saturday nights, when he could convince his mother to switch away from Lawrence Welk (which aired at the same time), he would get to watch “Hockey Night In Canada.” But Detroit games were blacked out. Olympia Stadium, their home rink, was usually sold out. Even if you could find a ticket, the rink was located in a "bad" area of town, a place his mother wouldn't dream of letting her young son visit by himself.

The only time the lad could ever see his favorite team play came when Detroit played a nationally televised Sunday game from Chicago, New York or Boston. That might occur 2-3 times a year.

Christmas 1965 came with the usual trimmings. As per family tradition, the lad and his brothers were allowed to open one gift when the family came home from Midnight Mass. He scouted the horizon in advance for possibilities. There was the usual thin box from Aunt Marcie – handkerchiefs. There were big boxes (toys, he hoped). There were square boxes that he knew from experience were clothes.

Then he spotted something unusual. In the corner of the pile of gifts was an envelope with his name on it. Since it wasn't stamped or addressed, his mind began to race. What kind of gift could be in an envelope?

For some reason, he reached for it as a first choice. His mother stopped him, saying "Save that for Christmas Day.” When you tell a kid that, you drive the interest level up astronomically. Fearing he might miss out on another gift, the boy reluctantly obeyed.

A restless night was spent wondering what could kind of gift could be in an envelope? More importantly, why couldn’t he open that one first?

Morning finally came. When the feast of gifts was nearly complete, the boy was left with the envelope. Go ahead, said his mother. Now you can open it. The boy opened it and stared in disbelief. It was two tickets to see the Red Wings play, Montreal at the Olympia the next night. His older brother Johnny was going to take him to see the players he knew so well but had rarely seen.

His joy was such that the boy never noticed the location of the seats. Later, he saw the tickets were stamped "Standing Room” – a concept he knew nothing about. "Oh, it will be fine," his brother assured him.

For once, Christmas dragged as the boy eagerly waited the next night. The Olympia was a wonderful mystery. The boy knew the building was red on the outside but that was it. Walking in the door, he was struck immediately by the large scoreboard hanging over the center ice. It was an old clock with smaller clocks for the penalties. (Chicago Stadium and Boston Garden had the same type of clocks well into the 1970s. The clock changed colors to signify the final minute of the period. No digital stuff here.)

"Where are we sitting?" he asked his brother.

"We're not," he said. "We have standing room."

"Where's that?"

"Wherever we can find a place. Quit asking questions.”

The two walked around the building for a long time, looking for a place to stand. As game time neared, they still hadn't found a place where they could see the ice very well. The pair wandered into the balcony. At that point, an angel appeared in the form of an usher.

"Where's your seats, boys?" he asked gruffly.

We showed him our tickets. "Can't stand up here," he said. "Standing room is downstairs."

The boy began to cry. "This is my first game ever and I can't see anything," he said.

The usher stopped waving people to their seats. "First game, eh?" he said. "There is one place you can stand but you can't tell anybody I told you about this."

He took the two boys to a corner of the upper deck. There was a small platform with a spotlight – the kind you used to see when the circus came to town. "Stand here," he said. "Nobody will bother you. It's kinda high but you'll see everything from there. I like watching the game from here myself."

The usher was right. The players looked like ants in the far corner of the ice but you really could see everything.

The Red Wings and Canadiens didn't disappoint. It was a terrific hockey game. Detroit attacked Montreal goalie Gump Worsley constantly but couldn't get a goal. Montreal did the same to Detroit's Roger Crozier but couldn't score themselves.

The game was still scoreless when the clock changed colors for the final time. There was no overtime rules, either.

This wasn't possible. How you could you go to your first NHL game and not see a goal?

Then it happened. A shot came from the point that Worsley could only knock down. Alex Delvecchio, a husky center, swooped in and batted the loose puck into the net.

The boy jumped so high he nearly fell out of the alcove. He had no idea how much time was left but it was clear it was the final minute of the game. The Wings ran out the clock and claimed the 1-0 win.

Since that time, the boy has probably seen 1500 hockey games. But he remembers that one as if it happened last night.

Since then, the boy has received many envelopes as gifts. They have contained cash or gift certificates – very good things, indeed. But he still remembers that first envelope. It wasn’t until four decades later he learned the official value of it was four dollars – two dollars per ticket.

To the boy’s way of thinking, however, it was, indeed, priceless.

A final note: 20 years after that game, the boy, now covering the North Stars for UPI, found himself sitting next to Worsley in the press box at Met Center. He said to Worsley, "I know you have probably heard this from a lot of people but you played goal in the first NHL game I ever saw."

Worsley politely nodded. "Really? Where was it?," he replied.

"Night after Christmas at the Olympia. Detroit against Montreal."

Worsley sighed. "Was that the night that (bleep) Delvecchio scored in the final minute? I can still see that one."

The boy guessed it was not such a good memory for the old goalie.