Читать книгу I Am Nobody. Confronting the Sexually Abusive Coach Who Stole My Life онлайн

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Impress is an interesting word to use, because Graham himself was anything but impressive. He was short and pudgy, with a boyish round face and unkempt curly hair. He had a sad face and was poorly groomed, and his presentation could best be described as “disheveled.” Yet because he was someone of importance in the hockey community, none of this seemed to register. He was somebody to impress.

It was Graham’s job to know about every hockey player who might be of potential interest to a junior hockey team. It was Graham’s job to get to know young boys. He was coaching the St. James Midget (sixteen-year-olds) AAA Canadians, a team from my area composed of boys two years older than those on the Bantam team I was playing for. We were both involved in hockey at the highest level in Winnipeg, and Graham most definitely knew who I was.

I finally got to meet Graham in January 1979, when my St. James Bantam Canadians traveled to Minneapolis for the North American Midwest Regional AAA Silver Stick Championships. Although Graham was coaching the St. James Midget Canadians, something that itself would have involved a massive time commitment, he somehow found time that weekend to help a friend of his, Mike Tishler, the coach of our arch rivals, the St. Boniface–St. Vital Saints.