I was impressed this week with Randy Pascal’s piece on Joe Drago.
In case you’re unfamiliar with the man, he’s the Sudbury boy who’s taken over the chair at Hockey Canada, the national body tasked with the immense responsibility of charting the course of this country’s national obsession.
Entire communities are made better by folks who somehow are able to combine vision with a singularity of purpose, channelling the mix into action through the force of their personality.
These rare souls have the power to change whole societies. And what makes them all the more special is they rarely seek recognition or reward for the work they do.
Drago’s one of those guys.
That’s the hallmark of a true community builder. We, at NorthernLife.ca, like to recognize those people for their contributions. We do it every year with our Community Builders Awards of Excellence.
But it wasn’t Drago’s personality that got the wheels turning in my head. What got me thinking was a question, two actually. Do people in Drago’s possession, people who make decisions on behalf of large groups of people, fully appreciate the enormous influence they wield? And can they comprehend the enormity of the responsibility that comes with that influence?
Follow me for a second, if you would. The least of what hockey teaches us is how to play the game itself. That’s nothing compared to the life lessons we learn from a sport that is as much a part of the Canadian consciousness as national health care and good manners.
There’s the obvious (and cliché) lessons in team work and fair play. But there’s also the value of perseverance, the benefits of physical activity. There’s the understanding that fights should be avoided and come with significant consequences, but there are also times when you have no choice.
In the context of the game, that can mean dropping the gloves, but outside in the real world, the lesson is to stand up for yourself.
I’m sure there are more. The point is, hundreds of thousands of children are learning these lessons on the ice rinks of the nation, and the choices made by Hockey Canada — from how coaches are trained to the very rules of the game — will have a measurable impact on this country in the years to come.
These children will grow to become our police officers and soldiers, our doctors and lawyers, our teachers and leaders. And the majority of them will be carrying inside them the lessons they learned on the ice, lessons which will influence how they make decisions.
City council, too, has some heavy decisions to make. They’ve already met the store hours issue head on and taken some heat for it. They delivered on Mayor Brian Bigger’s tax freeze promise and even appear to be making some headway on the $6-million deficit that promise spawned.
There’s Bigger’s promise to make public the forensic audit in the Sudbury Transit ticket scandal. Possibly the biggest fish of all, the city’s crumbling roads infrastructure, because not only do we need to fix the current problems, we also need a plan to somehow maintain our massive roads network with the limited tax base we have.
I’m sure each of you reading this could come up with a few of your own.
My point is, the decisions our leaders make — whether it’s about hockey or municipal operations — have real-world impacts. That’s the burden of leadership, or it should be.
I want our leaders to feel that weight, to pick it up, heft it and really consider what it means to make decisions on behalf of others. It should be no easy thing and the benefits for the many should far outweigh the consequences for the few.
That's a lesson I learned on the ice in 1989. I was trying out for a rep team and got to skate a few shifts in an exhibition game. We had the puck in their zone and I was on the right wing.
We swooped in and I made a beeline for the net, zipping around the defenceman and curving in toward the slot, looking for a pass from the left corner.
It came, as I was expecting, and the goalie didn't see it coming. The right side of the net was all mine. So I made a decision — a stupid one — to get fancy and one-time backhand that sucker.
Of course, I caught nothing but air as the puck zoomed passed me.
And I didn't make the team. But I did learn a valuable lesson.
Hopefully, several of our current leaders played hockey.
Mark Gentili is the managing editor of Northern Life and NorthernLife.ca.
