LAIDLAW USED NHL SAVVY TO SURVIVE STINT ON SURVIVOR
Former defenceman says it all comes down to mental strength,
Tom Laidlaw used to think he was tough. Farm boy tough.
The kind of guy who grew up waking up at the crack of dawn to milk the cows on the family farm in Brampton, Ont. Then later he went to work punching Marty McSorley and other heavyweights in the head as an NHL enforcer.
Then the 61-year-old got stuck on an island in Fiji with 19 strangers. That’s when he realized there’s physical toughness, and there’s the other kind of toughness, the kind you need to be a contestant on the TV show Survivor.
“The mental part was the greater part of the equation,” Laidlaw said in a phone interview. “The social part is the hardest part. You don’t want to put a target on your back. Let somebody else light the fire if they really want to light it. So much of when you play, the emotional part was so big. If somebody hits you, you want to hit them back.”
Laidlaw didn’t punch anyone during his appearance on the 39th season of Survivor, this one titled Island of the Idols, which begins airing on CBS on Wednesday. But he let them know he could if he wanted to.
It was part of the game within the game.
“I did tell them who I was,” said Laidlaw, who played 705 games as a defenceman in the NHL with the New York Rangers and Los Angeles Kings before hanging up the skates in 1991. “I had watched other seasons where there were other pro athletes. Jeff Kent (the baseball player) didn’t disclose it. (The pitcher) John Rocker, in his season, he tried to not have people know who he was. It actually hurt him because they recognized him and knew he was lying.”
No, Laidlaw didn’t lie. After all, it wouldn’t be very Canadian of him.
As the first player from Canada to appear on the show, he felt a tug of responsibility to represent the country well. But he also knew that deception is a big part of the game, so he didn’t exactly go around apologizing for everything, either.
Striking a balance was sometimes difficult. Laidlaw, who is big, bald and brawny, cuts an imposing figure. In the promos, producers had him work on the sand with his shirt off, perform bare-knuckle pushups and take slapshots with an oversized bamboo stick. The fact that he packed on an extra 10 pounds of muscle before the show aired — “I intentionally put on weight thinking I was going to win, so I knew I was going to lose weight during the show” — made him seem like a giant among the other castaways.
That might have given him an edge when it came to the strength challenges. But the mental challenge of surviving week after week on an island was the real struggle.
Survivor is not the NHL.
The best and biggest athletes are not always the ones who win. To survive, you must act like a chameleon, even if it means showing vulnerability. It’s a mental test more than a physical one. And it’s one Laidlaw, who has worked as an NHL agent and is now a motivational speaker with his company True Grit Life, prepared for.
“I worked with a trainer where I had to memorize a poem verbatim and then he would do things to aggravate me when I recited it back,” Laidlaw said. “I found I couldn’t memorize it. So it became a question of, what do you have to do to stop that from happening? How do you slow down your heart rate? It’s about breathing and calming yourself down.”
It helped that he had played in the NHL. After all, surviving in a dressing room is a lot like surviving on an island with strangers.
“There’s some similarities in that even early on you’re playing against the other tribe and you have to work together,” said Laidlaw. “People come from many different walks of life and categories. In a short period of time, you have to come together and win these challenges. But as much as they want to work as a team, they’re looking for idols and talking behind your back. That was tough. But that was the fun part of the game.”
Laidlaw’s time as a player agent was also helpful.
You have to come together and win these challenges. But as much as they want to work as a team, they’re looking for idols and talking behind your back.
“I learned a lot during those days,” he said.
“When you’re a player, you’re wrapped up in doing your thing. It’s selfish, really. And then as an agent, you have to stop and listen because it’s somebody else’s career. Herb Brooks (his former head coach with the Rangers) said passes come from the heart. When you pass the puck, put your heart into it. But as I got older, I looked at it differently. He didn’t just mean about passing. It’s about everything in your relationships.”
So what did he learn about his time on an island? Well, that he could survive. And more importantly, that he’s more mentally tough than he might have initially thought.
“My life now is about motivation and discipline,” he said. “Don’t ever limit yourself. If there’s something you want, go after it. I didn’t want to play as a 60-year-old. I wanted to play without a handicap.
“When they drop you off on the island, it’s game time.” mtraikos@postmedia.com twitter.com/Michael_Traikos