What happens in the locker room…

Exactly 25 years ago took the poster The Boys, by Louis Saia. In the good old days when Quebec films attracted hundreds of thousands of spectators to cinemas. This popular comedy struck a chord: it was not only about our national sport, but also about this camaraderie between men that we find in the raw state in the locker room.

What happens in the locker room stays in the locker room. Unless there’s an equipment attendant, but that’s another story. You can discuss it with my colleague Mathias Brunet. I’m talking about the “players’ room” where there is no equipment attendant, that of the garage league.

I’ve always played in garage leagues. Especially soccer in your twenties, ball hockey in your thirties and ice hockey in your forties. If you’re wondering: yes, it’s a natural progression. We get hurt less in ice hockey than in cosom hockey and especially than in soccer, a contact sport much more than it seems.

Even if my broken collarbone, suffered on the ice when I lost my footing before hitting the boards, all alone like a grown-up without the intervention of any opponent, may suggest the opposite…

What happens in the bedroom stays in the bedroom, I said. What I’ve always found ironic about this is that hockey locker room discussions aren’t always as low-key as some might imagine.

I remember coming home late from hockey, once upon a time, thinking that no one would believe me if I said that with the boyswe had just remade the world around a beer and an enlightening discussion on the impact of microcredit in sub-Saharan Africa.

Before you reduce me to my caricature, most of the time, of course, we do not discuss global geopolitics. But at the arena, we don’t just talk about hockey. We often talk about our children, education, news, culture. We are talking about Nic, who has just had a baby, Eric, who has gone to live in Africa, or Sylvain, who has had his hip replaced.

A hockey bedroom has a tone, that said. There’s nothing more ironic than a dozen guys getting ready to play or having just played a game. Recently, JP dared to say that he was watching OD with his daughters, because it was a privileged moment spent with them. I answered something that made Big Dave ironic about my level of knowledge of Quebec reality TV, suspiciously high, according to him. In a bedroom, we bedroom.

I recently discussed this with filmmaker Ricardo Trogi: the locker room of our garage leagues is a microcosm of Quebec male society. My garage league team, the same for a dozen years, is made up of guys who come from all over the greater Montreal area: South Shore, North Shore, Laval, Ahuntsic, Villeray, Saint-Michel, Saint -Laurent, Saint-Bruno… Our referee, always the same, lives in Côte-des-Neiges. In the middle, as a good mediator.

The majority of players are now between 40 and 55 years old. There has been turnover for 12 years, but it has remained an eclectic group. There were guys who worked in information technology or in the road system, CEGEP and university teachers, specialized educators, musicians, a cook, a documentary filmmaker…

There is a graphic designer goalkeeper, a belaying defender, a sociologist striker with a doctorate and a good skate. Guys who work day and night shifts, marathon runners, overweight guys (increasingly, myself included). Several of which I do not know the business. There is no equipment attendant, just a guy who designs hockey equipment.

On Sunday at 10:15 p.m., we split into two teams, different each time. The pale against the dark. At one time, we were sponsored by a brewery like Stan des Boys. Coincidentally, the color of the sweaters—beige, black, and burgundy—is the same as my gloves. When I play with the pales, I look like the flirtatious guy who has matched his equipment with the color of his stockings.

10 years ago, we were playing in a real league, but some people took themselves too seriously. Already motivating me to drag myself out of my sofa on Sunday evening, knowing that I wouldn’t be back home before midnight and a half, took all my little change from me, the prospect of getting me back into the gang by a forty-year-old reliving his midget BB didn’t appeal to me.

After winning the championship in the penalty shootout (an exercise in which my brother, a former distinguished goalkeeper, excels), we adopted this more convivial formula. The level ranges from intermediate-beginner to former “two-letter” bantam player who has long since lost his burst of speed. We play with our brothers, our brothers-in-law, our friends. This is an opportunity for me, when they are substitutes, to reconnect with my best buddies from high school.

And for two or three years, we have been welcoming “second generation” players. The 20-year-old sons of guys I’ve been playing with for 12 years. My nephew, who has such nimble hands you’d never believe he spent all of his minor hockey in goal. The son of my high school girlfriend (!), who came to see me play at 16-17 years old, my felt hockey coat with leather sleeves on the back, like in American movies.

There are clichés that we cannot escape, of course. There is nothing more satisfying than the first sip of beer — as Philippe Delerm wrote — after the game.

You can excuse a guy for having played badly, for having eaten the puck, to have lost his temper against an adversary. What we would not tolerate is that the guy in charge of bringing the beer forgets the beer…

Beer, almost symbolically, is our binder. When you find yourself outside of hockey because Pat gives a show, because we organized a Christmas dinner, because it’s the Super Bowl. It’s not for nothing that the English call the garage league the beer league.

The day before Thanksgiving, knowing that the next day was a holiday, we had a longer beer in the car park. The guys were telling jokes. Some, perhaps, which are only told between guys. The air was sweet, the beer was cold. We had a good laugh.