Role Models are impactful - Bobby and Pius

A couple nights ago I was aimlessly searching on the Internet when I came upon some names from the past from a small town in which I spent some important years of my life - Coaldale, Alberta.  I had gone to High School there and then worked and lived on a pig farm just outside of town until I was 20, at which time I joined the RCMP.  My keystrokes as I surfed led me to an old coach of mine when I was a young fellow in Grade 10 at Kate Andrews High School.  I want to get back to that in a moment.

I was a young cop, probably in my early 30's.  It was the early 1990's, maybe 1990 or 1991 and I had been up Island for several days just outside the Hub City working on an investigation involving a fellow making moonshine.  This was not your ordinary Still, it was huge!  It was not intended for Ma and Pop to have a couple sips over Christmas and New Years and maybe to send a bottle or two to Uncle Jed who was down on his luck and needed a bit of help.  No, at the time this was the biggest Still ever in the Province and having never worked on this type of file before, it was an action-packed two days.

We received some information and motored up Island and set up surveillance on a residence just several miles south of Nanaimo.  The next two days could have been a training video, everything went 100% according to plan.  We picked up a ton of useful information through surveillance and began to prepare a search warrant while still watching the property and the bad guy.  He was not surveillance-conscious and to be honest, it was a piece of cake and a heck of a lot of fun.  We watched purchasers come and go and were close enough with an eye to see the actual bottles coming out of the outbuilding where the Still and supply was housed.  When the warrant was ready and signed, we conducted the raid and it went off without a hitch.  I must say, there is always a hitch, ALWAYS!  Whenever wiretap, informants, surveillance or a myriad of other investigative tools are used, there is always a wrench that flies into the equation but on this one, everything went exactly as planned; it was amazing.

We worked until the early morning before wrapping up things and most of the guys wanted to get home rather than stay up for another night.  We all met for a snack and to enjoy the work that our team had just accomplished and then it was time to head back south to our own beds.  I was feeling really good about life as I ambled down the Island heading to our home in Brentwood Bay and I giggled several times about just how smooth things went.  I thought about how lucky I was.  I was probably 34 years old at the time and had a great wife and and an eight or nine-year-old son.  We had an awesome family, loved where we lived and we loved our life.  I kept thinking about just how lucky I was.

I began to think about role models in my life and how I arrived at where I was on that day.  Looking back and comparing it to today, my life as a child was not an easy one although I never knew it at the time.  My role model as a very young child right up until I was probably 15 years old was a big left winger for the Chicago Blackhawks, the Golden Jet, #9 Bobby Hull.  He had the hardest slapshot in the six-team NHL and I loved everything about him.  He actually got me through some rough times, I will get back to that in a moment.  But soon my thoughts drifted from Mr. Hull to my old basketball coach from Kate Andrews High, Pius Labolevech.

Bobby Hull was an idol whom I saw on black and white TV once in a blue moon when Chicago was playing Toronto or Montreal on a Saturday night.  Pius Labolevech was real!  He was tough and I did not like him very much.  Pius came from the United States and taught Economics and was the High School basketball coach.  He had contracted polio at a very young age and his face was disfigured and his right arm was underdeveloped and paralyzed.  His right eye was messed up and I was never certain if he was looking at me or not, but he always seemed to know when I did something wrong.  I was a decent basketball player, small but could handle the ball and I thought that I should be a starter.  Pius had other ideas and he hammered on the six grade 10's on the team, especially on me.  Looking back I was a bit of a wild horse and deserved everything I got, but I also played hockey and quite often found myself thinking I should just go with the one sport.  But I had started and I was going to finish and Pius was not going to drive me out even though I "Knew" he didn't like me.

One practice we all went into the change room and everyone had left but two of the big guns on the team, both in Grade 12.  They decided they were going to have a smoke and so both lit up.  I sat and we all talked, smoking was not my thing and never has been.  One of the other players burst into the room and let us know that danger was on the move, Pius had just left his office and was on the way to the change room.  The two vets told me to hold the cigarettes which I did not really see as a problem.  I know that Pius would be able to see right through the situation and I would walk out unscathed.  He came in, laughed and asked who was smoking.  The vets looked at him and told him it wasn't them.  He asked me.  I told him I didn't smoke but was holding two cigarettes at the time.  Pius asked me who was smoking and I simply said, "Not me."  He told the two vets to leave and then again asked me who was smoking.  I once again gave the same answer and he told me that for the rest of the season after practice was over for the rest of the team, I would do 100 laps dribbling right-handed and 100 laps dribbling left-handed until I told him who was smoking.  I saw this as no big deal.  I knew that Pius would give up after a week or two and my problems would go away.  He thought he was tough, I thought I was tough.  Turned out, we were both right.

At the end of the season, we went through the playoffs and then faced the Tofield Titans for the Alberta 3A Championships.  The final game was held in Calgary and we went up a night early to be rested and ready for the game.  Pius held a short practice when we arrived and once it was over, he watched me dribble the ball for my 200 laps.  He had watched me every single practice for the entire season and I don't know who was more stuborn but I did know that we both had to spend the time.  We edged the Tofield Titans by a single point in the Alberta Championship game and like the other Grade 10's, I found my spot on the bench for most of it.  We left with the 1973 Provincial Championship solidly in our pockets.

I thought about Pius as I drove down the Malahat almost 20 years after that Championship game.  I thought about how he was tough on me, how he never gave me an inch and then my thoughts about him changed.  I started to cry and the tears rolled down my cheeks.  He was clearly the biggest influence in my life.  He was a big part of who I was and as the tires hummed on the road as they followed the gentle curves in the highway, I decided to tell Pius just that. 

There were no rules about phones, there was no such thing as texting.  I called information to see if Pius had a number but I thought he also could have moved or even could have passed on.  But there was a number in Lethbridge and I called.  It was 3:00 am, 4:00 am in Alberta.  Pius sounded groggy but answered the phone, obviously getting the wake up call at an uncommon time.  When he answered, I told him that I had a great day and was thinking about my life and I told him that he was on the top of my list for being a role model and that he had been a big part of who I was.  He asked who was calling and I told him but did not think he would remember me as I was clearly a fringe player on a very, very good team.  He remembered and knew everything about me - just like he probably remembered and knew everything about every player he had ever coached.  Pius knew that I was married, had a son, coached hockey and was in the RCMP.  I was in shock and more importantly my heart was full when our call ended.  I have had the pleasure of now receiving those same type of calls, albeit, not at at that hour in the morning.  And so I know his heart would have also been full when he hung up the phone after our conversation.  I found out only a couple nights ago as I surfed the net that Pius had died last year and only a couple months after being elected into the Lethbridge Sports Hall of Fame, and I was saddened.  But he was 80 years old and got his money's worth.  And more importantly, he changed the lives for the better of the young people whom he coached and had contact with.

I was raised in a family that was uncommonly poor in Dawson Creek and then Lethbridge and Coaldale.  I had four sisters and often we only had two bedrooms.  My sisters had one bedroom, my parents had their's and I had the couch.  I have probably slept on the couch for six or seven years of my life.  In Dawson Creek we had running water, but no bathroom and had an outhouse out back.  We had a wood stove for cooking in the winter and for heating in the winter.  My dad ran a small Still in the basement and even though I was only five years old, I knew that nobody could know and that no matter what happened, we were to never let anyone downstairs.  One day the Still caused a small fire in the basement and the fire department was called by one of the neighbors.  My oldest sister was 11 and she would not let them in.  She held them at bay until the rest of us kids could put out the fire on our own.  It was a different world back then.  There was not a lot of work for my dad in Dawson Creek at the time and so we moved to Lethbridge after Grade 1.  My father had found work as an autobody man in a local GM dealership. I did get my own bedroom but money was tight and my parents had to take in a boarder to help pay the bills.  Of course she needed her own room and so I was shuttled downstairs to an unfinished basement and into an area where the washing machine was set up.  I didn't mind.  Our dog, a black lab slept down there as well so I had a buddy to spend the nights with.  One day my dad asked me if there was anything that would help make my "Bedroom" a bit better.  I knew we had no money - I was young but street-smart - and so I asked for a picture of Bobby Hull.  The next day my dad arrived home with a photo and he hung it on the cement wall above the head of my bed.  I loved that picture and wanted to be like Bobby Hull one day.  That picture and the thought of being like my idol helped me to navigate through a few tough years as a youngster. 

I have since met Bobby Hull on three or four occasions and have had the opportunity to sit down and have dinner with him at Boston Pizza here in Victoria.  Joining us at the table were two former Peninsula Panthers, Gord and Bryan Bridges who were both in their early teens at the time.  They had no idea who Bobby Hull was and when I told them he was the father of Brett Hull, the two kids became a lot more interested.  Mr. Hull has had his fair share of problems and the police were called to his condo in Chicago when there were allegations that he had assaulted his wife.  Mrs. Hull refused to press charges against him but he was charged and did plead guilty to assaulting a police officer during the incident.  The Chicago police said, "There was evidence he had struck his wife in the face.  She had some contusions, some swelling." 

My evening with "The Golden Jet" was a lot of fun and I had a lot of laughs.  He might have sipped on a couple too many red wine that night and some of his comments in front of the two kids were a bit offside but he was engaging and interesting.  Now coming out the other side as an adult and after spending some time with Bobby and getting to know him just a bit, I fully understood that it was Bobby's picture and his status in the game and not Bobby Hull the man, that helped me get through some tough times.

Jamie Benn is one of the most well-known players in the NHL and certainly from Vancouver Island.  The Panthers were fortunate to have him play here for a year, Jamie was fortunate for that season as well.  Jordie also plays for the Dallas Stars with Jamie and the same can be said for him.  I remember being out for a walk when Jamie was awaiting the Draft and his Dad, Randy drove past in a Central Saanich Municipality vehicle whom he worked for at the time.  He backed up and we chatted for a bit.  I asked Randy what he was hoping for in the draft and Randy said that he really didn't care, that he would be just as happy if his two boys worked for the Central Saanich Sewer Department.  He said that he just wanted them to be happy and I believed every word.  I saw Randy in the Royal Bank in Brentwood a week ago and we spoke about Jamie and Jordie.  He said it's tough to win in the NHL and it's hard on the body.  Randy said that they are making lots of money but they are banged up all the time and their bodies are aged well beyond their actual years.

The two boys enjoy being away from the spotlight more than they enjoy being in it.  I would hazzard a guess that there are many, many kids in North America who live and breath with the fortunes of both of them, perhaps Jamie more so as he has achieved so much in the game already.  I'm not sure that either of them are fully ready for the role model situation that is placed on them, but watching some of the things that they do for young kids and older folks, it is clear that they are trying. 

I watched from afar how they responded when Larry Orr was sick and passed on.  They were there for Sandy Orr when it counted, paying back all the hours that Larry and Sandy were there for them.  The actions of the two boys speak louder than any words might have and they were role models for anyone who feels that they do not have time in situations like this.

I think there are many, many former Panthers who are currently or who are going to make great role models as they age and mature in life.  Their career paths might not take them into professional sports but instead might take them into police work, teaching, fire-fighting, private business, pilots, engineering, doctors, dentistry or perhaps even working for the Central Saanich Sewer Department.  But they will be key people in our communities, perhaps helping out coaching and making a difference with youth in those communities.  I call them the Pius Labolevech's of the world.

Pete Zubersky, GM
Peninsula Panthers Hockey Club