MY MONTREAL: EVAN BUSH
For Impact ’keeper, diversity ‘really opened my eyes’
Impact goalkeeper Evan Bush says he knew “absolutely nothing” about Montreal as a kid growing up in Cleveland.
“Everybody that I grew up with thought like me, looked like me, acted the same way,” Bush said. “When I came to Montreal, it really opened my eyes to what the world was like. So I think for my kids to be raised here, it’s been a great opportunity.”
Bush, 33, is in his ninth season with the Impact, the longest tenure of any player on the team. He was named Major League Soccer’s Player of the Week on Monday after posting his second straight shutout in a 1-0 home win over the Chicago Fire last Sunday and will be back in goal Saturday when New York City FC visits Saputo Stadium (5 p.m., TVA Sports, TSN 690 Radio).
Bush lives year-round in Montreal with his wife, Colleen, their three children — Isabella, 5, Canaan, 3, and 4-month-old Brooklyn — and their 10-year-old Siberian Husky named Zoey. On Thursday afternoon, Bush sat down over a latté at his favourite coffee shop — the Victor Rose Espresso Bar in the West Island’s Pointe-Claire Village — to talk about what he loves about Montreal before crossing Cartier St. to Crèmerie Wild Willy’s and treating his kids to some ice cream.
“I actually talk to kids in schools a lot and we talk about perseverance and respect and those things. And I tell them that they have such a great opportunity here because of all the different cultures, ethnicities and different thoughts and ideas that the people in the city have,” Bush said. “I didn’t grow up with that in Cleveland.”
The Impact locker-room is a real reflection of Montreal with a mix of players from different countries and religions who speak different languages. Bush has enjoyed soaking it all in.
“It’s very intriguing,” he said. “Kind of touching back to where I came from, I never would hear French rap, I wouldn’t understand the things that my teammates are talking about.”
Bush has picked up words from different languages over the years and now knows enough French to make some of his teammates nervous.
“It’s kind of a running joke around the facility that: ‘Don’t say too many French things around Evan because he knows what you’re saying. He won’t respond to you, but he hears everything,’ ” Bush said with a smile.
The goalkeeper added he has really been pushing himself recently to improve his French so he can help his children.
“If they come home and we’re reading books that they got at the library or there’s questions from the French teacher, I want to be able to help them,” Bush said.
The adjustment to living in Montreal was tougher for Bush’s wife — whom he met at the University of Akron — than for him, but she has a good group of friends on the West Island and the family is very comfortable in their new Beaconsfield home after living in Dollard-desOrmeaux and Pierrefonds. Bush’s three favourite Montreal restaurants are Shô-Dan on Metcalfe St. for sushi, Café Cubano on Beaubien St. — a place former Cuban teammate Eduardo Sebrango introduced him to — and Joe Beef on Notre-Dame St. West. The goalkeeper’s three favourite leisure activities are visiting coffee shops, going to parks with his kids and playing golf.
“Once I came to Montreal, the coffee culture here you kind of fall in love with that,” Bush said between sips of his latté. “Just the ambience and the atmosphere of being in a coffee shop and sitting down with friends and enjoying a coffee and conversation.”
Bush doesn’t know what the future holds for him and his family after he eventually hangs up his goalkeeper’s kit. He’s working on an MBA in sports management online with Southern New Hampshire University and hopes to remain in soccer. Moving back to Cleveland is a possibility, but Bush said having his kids grow up in Montreal is a great experience for them.
“When I was going through contract negotiations at the end of last year, there were different things popping up with different clubs and different cities,” the goalkeeper said. “The agent would come to you and say: ‘Well, what about this place? What about that place?’ We would mention it to the kids. It was never really a situation where we were close to leaving Montreal. But it was questions to the kids like: ‘What if we go here and be closer to what we call home’ because my parents and my wife’s parents are both from Ohio. They were like: ‘Home? Well, Montreal is home.’ So when they started saying that, it kind of changed my perspective a little bit, changed my wife’s perspective that we’re happy here, we’re comfortable here. Why would we pick up and leave if they’re not asking to, either?
“So everything worked out in the end and the best opportunity that was given to me was by Montreal, anyways. So we’re extremely happy that we stayed here and the kids are, too.”