Dementia robs brothers of precious hockey bond
Dan and Norris Fedorek celebrated Canadiens 1986 Cup win with players
MONTREAL Brothers Dan and Norris Fedorek sat down together Tuesday night in Sparwood, B.C., to relive one of their most memorable moments as siblings 30 years ago.
The brothers — both huge Canadiens fans — were in Calgary on May 24, 1986, to watch the Habs beat the Flames 4-3 in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final to earn the franchise’s 23rd championship.
Unfortunately, the memory of that game is slipping away from Norris, a 64-year-old who was given a diagnosis of dementia last year.
“He was a little bit emotional about seeing himself 30 years ago,” Dan, 58, said over the phone from his brother’s home Tuesday night after they watched a video of the game together.
At the end of the video, Norris is the fan in a white Canadiens jersey who jumped over the glass at the Saddledome to celebrate with the players and was beside captain Bob Gainey when he was skating around with the Cup. It was the culmination of what was an amazing journey for the brothers.
After the Canadiens beat the Flames 1-0 in Game 4 in Montreal, the brothers were convinced the Habs would clinch the Cup two nights later in Calgary. So the next day they jumped in Dan’s 1982 Camaro and made the three-hour drive from Sparwood to Calgary, sleeping in the car that night so they’d be at the Saddledome first thing in the morning to try to get tickets.
“I don’t recommend sleeping in a Camaro for anyone,” Dan said with a laugh. “But that’s what we did.”
They had great seats together about 15 rows up from the glass. As the clock ticked down in the third period and the Canadiens and rookie goalie Patrick Roy battled to hang onto their one-goal lead, Norris turned to his brother and said: “I’m going down on the ice!”
“Thirty years ago, you still could, eh?” Dan recalled.
So Norris gave Dan his camera to hold and his younger brother gave him a boost to get over the glass, where he was then shown front and centre on Hockey Night in Canada.
“He got more airtime over the next few years … he was out there hugging John Kordic and going around with all the players,” Dan recalled.
“It was our five minutes of fame. I managed to get on the ice right at the very end when they were giving the Cup to Serge Savard and my brother was standing there with all the other players. I got about two seconds of airtime, but he was famous for it.”
The Canadiens were a big part of the Fedorek brothers’ lives while growing up in the coal-mining town of Sparwood, which has a population of just over 4,000 and is where they both still live. While their father cheered for the Toronto Maple Leafs on Hockey Night in Canada, the brothers fell in love with the Habs. “It’s like a sickness,” Dan said. The brothers would always attend what was once an annual New Year’s Eve game for the Canadiens in Calgary against the Flames and they have made more than a half-dozen trips together to Montreal to watch the Habs play. They spent a week in Montreal in 1996 to watch three of the final games at the Forum and the first game at the Bell Centre. They were also here for both the NHL All-Star Game and Canadiens centennial game in 2009, and were in town two years ago to watch Hall of Fame defenceman Guy Lapointe’s No. 5 jersey retirement ceremony.
Dan is trying to relive as many of those memories with his brother before they slip away to the brutal disease, which is marked by memory disorders, personality changes and impaired reasoning. As anyone with a family member who has had the disease knows, dementia can be as hard — if not harder — on them than it is on the person with it.
“I have a friend in Newfoundland whose mother has it,” Dan said. “He kind of explained it to me best. People say to him: ‘How’s your mom doing?’ He says: ‘You know what, my mom’s doing great — but not so much the rest of the family.’ ”
Dan is a truck driver and Norris was an electrician, but had to retire early two years ago.
“I knew nothing about dementia or Alzheimer’s,” Dan said. “But now that I look back I would say it started at least two years before he was diagnosed. Just little things.”
But they did enjoy one helluva night together 30 years ago.
“When it was 20 years, we sat down together (10 years ago) and watched the entire game from beginning to end and had a couple of beers and still got excited about it,” Dan recalled.
“It was a great memory. Something you never forget.”
If only that could remain true.