Subban’s dad says he’ll always be a Canadiens fan
Karl Subban was getting ready for his morning walk when he first heard about The Trade.
The 59-year-old goes for a walk every morning with a friend near his home in Etobicoke, Ont.
“Just to keep up with the boys ... I have to stay in shape,” he said, referring to sons P.K., Malcolm and Jordan.
He was getting ready to leave on his walk that day last June when his cellphone rang.
“Natasha, our second daughter, called me to say: ‘Daddy, P.K. just called and said he was traded,’ ” Karl recalled. “But you know P.K., we just thought he was joking around. After a couple of seconds of digesting it, I said: ‘Let me check online.’ ”
Karl quickly learned his son had indeed been traded by the Canadiens to the Nashville Predators in exchange for Shea Weber.
“I was disappointed … I was upset,” Karl said Tuesday while in Montreal to promote his new book, How We Did It: The Subban Plan for Success in Hockey, School and Life.
“It hit me really hard … like a Shea Weber slapshot. I don’t know how it would feel, but I could just imagine.”
Karl was 11 when his parents emigrated from Jamaica to Sudbury, Ont. Until then, he had dreamed of one day playing cricket for the West Indies. But after he arrived in Canada, Karl quickly fell in love with hockey, the Canadiens and goalie Ken Dryden.
Karl never played organized hockey, but spent countless hours on the outdoor rink in Sudbury, dreaming he was Dryden and playing goal for the Canadiens.
So when P.K. was selected by the Canadiens in the second round at the 2007 NHL Draft, it was a dream come true for his father.
Malcolm, a goalie, was selected by the Boston Bruins in the first round at the 2012 draft, and Jordan, a defenceman, was taken by the Vancouver Canucks the next year in the fourth round.
Karl’s Canadiens dream came to an end with The Trade.
“It was something that you had to go through,” he said about the emotions felt when he first learned P.K. had been dealt.
“We loved the city and P.K. loved the city. We loved the Montreal Canadiens.
“It was the right feelings, because that’s the way it should be when you love something and you’re taken away from it,” the father said.
“Of course you’re going to be frustrated, of course you’re going to be hurt. So we went through that. But you know what, he’s moved to a new city, he has a new team, and I want him to love his new team and love his new city the way he did with Montreal.”
Time heals all wounds, as they say, and Karl says he’ll always be a Canadiens fan — at least, when they’re not playing the Predators.
“They’re a part of my history and you can’t change it — and I don’t want to change it,” Karl said.
“When you look at it, the Montreal Canadiens have done so much for my family and my son. They gave P.K. a chance to live his dream, they made him a better hockey player, they made him a better citizen — look at what he’s done in the city of Montreal (with his $10-million pledge to the Children’s Hospital).
“So I don’t have any bad feelings … how can I? They’ve helped to give me this platform to do what I’m doing, to continue my work with children, which is my lifelong passion, and I’m doing it now through the book.”