by Sheldon Birnie
With BreakOutWest in town this past weekend, there was plenty to see and do all over Winnipeg. But with the NHL Regular Season about to get underway, Stylus was able to get some time with Western Canadian Music Awards host, CBC Radio 3’s Grant Lawrence, to talk about his recent “puck rock memoir,” The Lonely End of the Rink, and his own coming to terms with hockey and hockey culture by way of independent, Canadian music. While in town, Lawrence, whose old band the Smugglers were regularly featured in Stylus throughout the 90s, was also able to check out a Winnipeg Jets pre-season game, swap hockey stories with former Canuck Martin Gelinas, and jaw about beer league hockey with the rest of us. Check out our conversation below, as the puck drops on the 2013-14 NHL season. Let’s go!
Stylus: Your book has been out for about a year now, but can you give me a brief run down of how you came up with the idea for The Lonely End of the Rink, and how it has been received so far?
Grant Lawrence: This is my second book. The first, Adventures in Solitude, was a big departure from me. I’ve been a music journalist for my entire career, involved in music, and here I am meeting you at a music event. But I always knew I wanted to write. I always kept tour diaries in the Smugglers, and they always got a good reaction. Sometimes good feedback means the world. I knew I wanted to try to write a book. But I ended up writing about this lonely area in British Columbia where my family has a cabin. And that surprised a lot of people, especially in the music community, because they thought I was going to write about music. And many people didn’t think it would do well, but it did do surprisingly well. It was my breakthrough to the writing and publishing world. So when it came around to Book Two, I thought, well, I still don’t want to write about music. If you do something as your day job, sometimes you want to delve into other things. So I thought it was either going to be music or hockey, two big passions of mine. I saw in my mind the arch of the hockey book before I could see one in the music book. I realized, with the hockey book, that there was this thing where, when I was a little kid, like most Canadian boys and girls, I wanted to be like my hockey heroes, really get into hockey. And unfortunately, in my case, the guys who were really good at hockey in my school were also the biggest assholes and the biggest bullies. I was a small kid, big glasses, knee braces, really awkward. I still kind of followed it on the periphery, but I felt like it wasn’t a safe place for me. It was very disappointing. My dad was huge into it, my parents were season ticket holders to the Canucks, they were at the Summit Series [’72], here in Winnipeg actually. But I finally came to terms with it.
Stylus: You’ve been doing some touring to the book. How has reaction been, from readers?
GL: Let me put it this way. Everyone said that with the first book, writing about some summer cabin somewhere in the bush, was going to be a total disaster. It actually was a big success. The reason, after the fact, was that people could relate to the summer experience of going to a cabin or cottage or camp or whatever. When I decided to write a hockey book, everyone thought it would be a slam-dunk. Everyone loves hockey, right? My publisher warned me, saying hockey books, there is a big market for them in Canada, but it’s incredibly competition. I thought, how competitive could it be? There’s who, like, Dave Bidini? But every Christmas, there’s a bunch of totally top-shelf, mainstream hockey books. Little did I know I was wading into an arena – figuratively – where Bobby Orr finally puts out his hockey book, and even Stephen Harper puts out a hockey book. So I was like, wow, I’m swimming with the big fish here. So it’s been more of a challenge for finding an audience for the hockey book than the first book. And when it does find the audience, it’s usually men, and usually guys who have experienced similar things to me, victims at the hands of bullies or whatever. I do enjoy touring the book, though. It takes me back to the rock n roll touring days, but a lot easier. Usually, the people who come to book events are the same who would be in book clubs, middle aged women. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard, from women, “Well, I’m not a hockey person but… I’m going to get this book for my son, or grandson, or brother, or whatever.” So I’ve signed a lot of books for gifts. But it’s been fun.
Stylus: How does the “puck rock” thing you talk about in the book act as a way for people who may have been “forced out of it” to access hockey again?
GL: That was a big turning point for me. Up until I discovered “puck rock,” I was of the opinion that the two worlds of art and hockey couldn’t cross over. Once I started working at the CBC, I’d even check and found out that most hockey players had terrible taste in music. Either metal or really, really mainstream country. I think the first ever hockey song I heard that struck a chord with me was “The Ballad of Wendel Clark” by the Rheostatics. And I always thought Wendel Clark was a complete asshole, because he would fight against the Canucks. But in the song, they’re talking about his hometown of Kelvington, SK, they really love this guy. And it really made me see Wendel Clark in a different light. And then the Smugglers went on tour with the Hanson Brothers and that really… like, that was a completely mind-blowing experience for me. The Hanson Brothers were the first band that really grabbed hockey and said “we like hockey for this reason, this reason, and this reason and we’re just going to pound those reasons at you through puck rock.” I remember seeing the strangest sight, I think it was in Edmonton or Calgary or something like that. In the front row there were kids in SNFU t-shirts and Chixdiggit t-shirts, and then there’d be a guy in a Flames jersey. Or a Red Deer Rebels jersey. To me that was like, “This is not computing. These are natural born enemies, side by side.” But I thought that was really cool. But that is what has happened with culture, generally, over the years. There’s been a lot more blending. When I grew up the punk rockers and headbangers could not be more opposite. The headbangers would call all the punks “fags” and the punks thought the headbangers were skids, and never shall the two mix. But now, everything is mixed. That’s a really cool environment to be in, as opposed to these warring tribes. As a CBC music journalist, I was able to piece together all these puck rock connections, put together specials where I could put together an hour and a half of just hockey songs. I realized that the history of hockey music, while mostly based on novelty, goes back a long way. Teams have been releasing goofy songs for years and years and years. Some of them are terrible, and some of them are not so bad. It was a big passion of mine. And now just playing the game is a huge passion of mine.
Stylus: When you’re out promoting the book, how does that jive with the Flying Vees schedule?
GL: That’s a brutal irony. Our hockey schedule is Labour Day to Easter. And the literary fest circuit is, essentially, the fall. It’s pretty brutal. The irony is I’m missing my hockey games to talk about a book about me being on that team. The guys are not too happy with it. Over the course of our first five games this season, we’ve already had three goalies play — myself and two others. We’re 5-0 so far this season, so we’re off to a roaring start. But I mean, I’m always trying to figure out ways to make it work. I look at the schedule, which comes out bit by bit, and try to make it work. And there are some guys who are worse. But I love playing. I love our team. I love the action, stopping the pucks, hate letting them in. Do you play?
Stylus: Yeah.
GL: What’s your team?
Stylus: The Lumbercats.
GL: The Lumbercats? Cool.
Stylus: When you play a game, and say you lose by like that one goal, how long does that sit with you?
GL: A long time. The funny thing is, I’m so competitive that win or lose, I focus on the goals that go in. The other night, I was nursing a pretty good shut-out, there was three seconds left in the second period, and the guy shoots it in. It’s going glove, so I think, “No problem.” I put the glove up and I guess I closed the glove a split second too soon, and the puck hit the outside of the glove. Which is generally OK. But not this time. The puck flipped up, landed, and I lost sight of it, and it trickled over the line. So I’m still thinking about that, even though we won 6-2. I should be thinking about the overall picture. A loss will stick with me for a day and a half. Especially a bad one, if I let in like 10 goals or something. Hasn’t happened this year, but last year we had a 10 game losing streak, the worst losing streak ever, and we’ve had the team now for 12 years. But it’s funny, we’ve been discussing it in our locker room, and we think that The Streak, as we call it, actually made us better. Because we work a little harder. Somehow, it’s clicking. We’ve got some great new players. We had to kick a guy off the team last year for being a jerk, to us and the other team. That might have something to do with it. I’m just happy to be 43 and to be able to be playing. I’ve had a lot of knee problems growing up, so I’m just really thankful that I’m functioning to be able to do it. As you know, it’s amazing camaraderie. You meet people from all sorts of backgrounds, different jobs, that sort of thing. It’s a good community for men and women to be a part of. I think that, as men get older, they tend to get a little more solitary. I think women stay a little more social than men as they age. So I think a hockey team is a good way for a dude to remain social as he ages. Sometimes I wonder, though, am I the worst player on my team? But whatever, it’s just a great thing to be a part of.
You can find Grant Lawrence’s The Lonely End of the Rink down at McNally Robinson at Grant Park, or other fine, independent booksellers. Consider it a great gift for the hockey mad guitar shredder in your family this holiday season. Game on, eh!