It’s a minor hockey ritual. The two teams gather on their benches, waiting for the Zamboni to finish its tour. Waiting for the pucks to get tossed out for warm-ups. Waiting for the refs to come out of their room and give the thumbs up so the kids can noisily charge onto a clean sheet and into three periods of possibility.
On Tuesday, Dec. 27 the Minor Bantam Toronto Titans, a AAA club in the Greater Toronto Hockey League were in position on the bench, like any other game. But this time, everything was different.
On their blue helmets were white and black stickers with “AT” on them.
When they came into their dressing room there was a No.92 jersey hanging on a hook, reminding them – not that they will ever forget – that their friend and teammate Andrew Taber wouldn’t be coming to the rink that day, or the next or the one after that. His mother Jacquie and father Geoff wouldn’t be at the game, or his older brother Scott.
Minor hockey games are gathering places, but this time the Titans family wasn’t complete.
The pucks got tossed on the ice, but their lonely clackety-clack echoed through rink No.5 at Canlan Ice Sports York. The refs came out but the 13-year-old Titans stayed on their bench, as did the Markham Majors, their opponents in their opening game of the Toronto Marlboros International Hockey Classic, one of the most prestigious events on the AAA hockey calendar with names like McDavid, Stamkos and Marner on its honour roll.
Fresh ice, pucks out for warm-up, refs in place, but the rink was silent, the game suddenly a long way away.
Titans head coach Jules Jardine first heard something had happened on Saturday morning – Christmas Eve – when he got a text that there had been a fire at the Taber’s cottage where they had gone to celebrate Christmas.
Jardine texted Geoff to see if thing were okay. He didn’t hear back. Later that night, with Christmas Day coming into view he got word that the fire had proven fatal, and that there were no survivors.
“One thing I kept thinking about over and over again was how were our boys going to deal with it,” he said. “At 13 it’s one of the last Christmases that’s really special before it’s socks and underwear and coats.”
And now they are dealing with first-hand knowledge of how fleeting life can be. By all accounts the Taber family was a model one. Geoff a successful and well-respected lawyer, Jacqueline (Jacquie) Gardner, a lawyer also who had stepped away from her career to devote herself to her boys.
They were neighbourly and community-minded in the Riverdale area of Toronto, and because they had boys that were active in sports, a lot of their involvement was in and around fun and games. Andrew and Scott – a winger with the Forest Hill Minor Midget A club, where Geoff was the team manager — played hockey in the winter and ball hockey in the summer, with Geoff involved as a coach and administrator. Scott and his father shared a love of soccer as well and last year made a pilgrimage to London to take in a Tottenham Hotspur match.
The game on Tuesday was a gathering point for some of their sports friends, the first place the Tabers were supposed to be but weren’t.
Geoff was the perfect hockey Dad: passionate and supportive of his sons, but never in the over-bearing sense. Jacquie didn’t set out to spend her winters in rinks and her summers watching ball hockey, but was happy to be swept up in it and quick to step in when there was a ride needed or other help required.
“Jacquie was more of an accidental hockey mom,” said Ron Dennis, a longtime family friend. “But she loved it and loved all her activities with both her boys.”
Where ever their boys played, the Tabers left their mark.
“They were fantastic people, always very giving of their time,” said Alex Gillespie, who coached Andrew in hockey with the AA East Enders TiCats for three seasons and a pair of provincial championships in ball hockey. “We had a boy on our (hockey) team whose father lost his job before the season began and Geoff just said ‘listen, I’ll cover (the families’) fees. Just tell them it’s taken care of, don’t tell them how. That’s the kind of people they were.”
The loss has hit hard and suddenly. This is a busy time of year for families and hockey. The holidays mean more games, more practices; more time with your hockey family. A previously scheduled practice for the Titans on Boxing Day suddenly was a day to grieve; a Christmas tournament a chance to honour their friend by expressing his passion on the ice.
“I knew when we saw the kids and the parents in one spot, the emotions would really hit and they did,” said Jardine. “There was a lot of tears, a lot of hugging going on and a lot of disbelief.
“We told them: you’re going to be sad, you’re going to have different feelings, you’re going to feel lost. But I still want to you to feel like a 13-year-old, I want you to be happy,” said Jardine. “Andrew would have wanted you to have fun and be the characters that you are. Continue to do that but everything you do going forward keep a piece of him with you. If in the back of your mind you’re the guy who wants to make the NHL, do it with him in mind. Loss can do a lot of things, but it can motivate you.”
For now their memories sustain them. They can see Andrew in the dressing room — quiet, a little off to the side; getting the jokes with no need to be the jokester. He was a Pittsburgh Penguins fan and wore 92 because he was born on the second day of the ninth month, the same way Sidney Crosby chose 87.
His pal Evan Dennis knows Andrew’s hockey rituals by rote: jersey tucked on the left side of his hip only, stick taped in white, starting about an inch from the heel of the blade and carefully covering the toe. He wore his shin pads inside the tongue of his skates and skipped the second-last eyelet when he was lacing them up.
They remember a teammate and person.
“He was a really great kid. I never heard him talk bad about any other kid,” said Zain Assaf a winger with the Titans and carpool buddy who had made the jump to AAA with Andrew after two seasons together with the East Enders. “He was just special. He was always there for you, very, very kind. I don’t know if I’ll meet another kid as nice with as much heart as Andrew.
“He was always happy, always wanting to play hockey and be with the boys.”
He was undoubtedly pumped for the Marlies tournament. By mid-season he’d looked more and more comfortable after making the transition from AA to the ultra-competitive AAA loop. “He’s been our best defenceman for a bunch of our recent games,” said Jardine.
When he left for the cottage for Christmas he took his hockey bag and his jerseys. Presumably the plan was to come back the morning of Boxing Day for practice at 10 a.m.
Instead, the Titans were scrambling for a way to honour their teammate and his family. They wanted to have Andrew and Scott’s jersey for a pre-game ceremony but realized Andrew’s had been lost in the fire. A supplier stepped up on Boxing Day and had one made.
That’s the one that was hanging in their dressing room on Tuesday.
Before the game with both teams on the benches, a group of shaken teenage boys finally took the ice for a different kind of ritual, stepping out tentatively instead of charging out like normal. Instead of whoops and shots and pucks booming off the boards the only sound in the rink was the not quite stifled sobs of the parents looking on.
They took Andrew’s No.92 jersey and his brother’s No.88 out and laid them carefully at centre ice and the Titans gathered around in a half circle, the Markham Majors standing on their blue-line in a show of respect and support.
And then a moment of silence to honour their friend and teammate and his family, the kind of ritual you never want to see at a minor hockey game, where kids come to learn about winning and losing, commitment and sacrifice, but on this day, about loss.
