By Michael Sale

I remember the glory days of the Toronto Maple Leafs when they won four Stanley Cups from 1962 to 1967. During the holiday break between Christmas and New Year’s, the Leafs established a tradition of holding an “open house” for one of their practices. I can still remember going to Maple Leaf Gardens to see my hockey heroes at one of those events and I often reflect on one activity that influenced my thinking about life in general.

Near the end of the practice, “Punch” Imlach lined up the entire team along one of the blue lines. Each player had about five or six pucks on the ice in front of him. Johnny Bower, a future hall-of-fame goaltender, put on a mask and headed for the net. I knew something was up, because goalies didn’t wear masks in those days. It seemed to me that he wasn’t going to take any chances of being hurt; he’d save that for a real game.

Once Bower was in position, Imlach blew his whistle and the entire team began firing pucks at the net. As I watched this amazing barrage, I began to realize Bower was facing three different kinds of pucks and over the decades that followed I began to realize that in life, we are often in similar positions when pucks are coming at us from all directions.

Johnny Bower was a professional, well-trained, experienced and innovative (do you remember the “poke check”?) player. Today, at 87, he is a respected member of Canada’s hockey royalty. As I watched him respond to all those pucks coming his way I realized that he was blocking and deflecting and catching and dropping pucks with ease and with precision, because that’s what a professional goalie does. I also noticed, though, that some pucks were wide of the net. While they were a part of the overall bombardment, they were never a threat and Johnny didn’t have to worry about them; in fact, I think he ignored most of them. Then I noticed there was a third kind of puck; the puck he missed, or didn’t see: the puck that found its way to the back of the net – the kind of puck that could be very costly, in a real game.

Upon further reflection, I would often pose this question to myself: “Is Johnny Bower, or any goalie, any less proficient, or professional, just because he’s beaten by the occasional puck? Does he deserve to be criticized? Does he require more training? Is he lacking in his professionalism?”

Perhaps all anyone can do in the pursuit of an active career is to prepare oneself with a suitable education to understand the issues we face; hone technical skills and commit to an ethic that includes hard work and an on-going determination to grow and improve in every way possible.

During my thirty years as a police officer with (Metropolitan) Toronto Police, I saw many of my colleagues let the occasional puck get by them. Police critics would often condemn decisions made or call for additional training as a response to an issue or incident. Over a successful career, a conscientious officer might make an error in judgment or miss a puck due to the volume of those coming his way. Before I retired, in 2001, I recall speaking to a detective sergeant in a suburban division who told me that he was receiving more than 200 email messages each day. His biggest fear, and source of stress, was that he might miss a routine message sent in by a patrol officer that might include information or a clue that could solve an important crime. His “pucks” were email messages, most of which he handled with ease, many of which were routine or unimportant and some of which were either critical or easy to miss.

These days, when I reflect upon my work and my participation in social media and other forms of communication, I often think about all those pucks being directed at me and, sometimes, I find a puck that I hadn’t seen coming. As a means of survival, however, I have found that I no longer brood over those pucks I miss (I take action to deal with those when and where I can); I celebrate those pucks that I catch or deflect – just like Johnny Bower taught me when he was winning Stanley Cups.

~ Michael Sale served with the (Metropolitan) Toronto Police for thirty years, retiring as an Inspector after many years in public affairs and event management. He is a graduate of the 169th Session of the FBI National Academy. Mike has worked as a manager of emergency planning for the Ontario Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services and as a justice studies program coordinator for Humber College. He is currently a law enforcement education coordinator with American Military University and serves as the university’s representative in Canada.