It was the end of the week. We were the only ones left in the lab. Steve was sitting at his computer. I was packing up for the long drive home. Somehow the conversation turned to hockey.
Don’t ask me how. But there we were late on a Friday afternoon in Houston, Texas talking about hockey.
He told me what a great game it was. I told him what I thought about the fights. He told me it was a lot like the Indy 500—you know what the fans come to see, right? I nodded but pointed out that as far as I know drivers don’t intentionally cause accidents.
He stood there in the middle of the lab for a moment, gathering his thoughts.
“Hockey,” he said, holding up his hand, “is about human interest.”
I looked at him and probably scowled. I didn’t know what he was talking about.
“Let me explain,” he said.
And so he told me about a game that he had seen in Toronto. One of the coaches had been struggling with brain cancer. During a commercial break, they projected a picture of his face on the ice.
Steve stood silently, looking for the right words.
“They projected his picture on the ice, and…”
He had stopped talking and was looking down at the floor. His face was flushed, and his eyes were starting to tear.
“and…” he said, now barely able to get his words out.
“and… the players from both teams … stood around his picture … on the ice and … banged their sticks on the ice.”
He was barely able to get those last words out. As he sobbed the end of his sentence, he quickly turned back to his desk and sat down.
I stood there for a moment. He sat there looking at his keyboard. I walked over to him.
“You’re a good man, Steve,” I said, pushing my fist into his arm. “You’re a good man. And now you’ve got me teary.”