Free Hockey Confidential by Bob Mckenzie Page A

suggested he might want to play baseball.
    â€œIf he likes [baseball] better,” Tavares said, “I don’t mind.”
    But when Justin suggested he’s interested in being a goalie, the father had to put his foot down.
    â€œI told him when he can afford to buy goalie equipment, he can play goal,” Tavares said. “I’ve never liked goalies.”
    As he prepared for the 2014 NLL season, he knew there was a good chance it would be his last. His body had been breaking down. His 2012 summer season and 2013 NLL year were marred by injury, micro-tears of his calf muscles that made it difficult to run. If it turns out 2014 was his final season, he’s at peace with it.
    â€œWhen you’re old, you can’t be playing hurt,” he said late in the summer of 2013. “[Injuries] caused me to struggle the last few years. [The Bandits] still seem to think I can help out, and I’m still loving to play. I’m not sure why they want a 45-year-old on the team. I look at it that there are stages of being retired. Like, when you’re at home and you don’t want to go to the arena, but once you get to the arena, you like being there. That’s when you know you’re near retirement, but not there yet. That’s me [going into 2014]. I’ve still got some fire left. But the next stage, the one where you know it’s time to retire, you just don’t want to go to the arena at all. That’s when you know it’s time. I’ll know. That won’t be a problem for me.”
    If the 2014 season was his last, Tavares enjoyed it. The Bandits lost to eventual NLL champion Rochester in the semifinal, and that was disappointing. But he played and produced well early in the season, battled through a midseason lull and rallied for a strong individual finish. In July 2014, he sounded like a man who was leaning towards retiring but wasn’t quite prepared to make it official. He wanted to wait a bit longer before committing.
    As for his place in the game, his legacy as the greatest player of all time, the comparisons to Gretzky, he doesn’t get too caught up in any of it, his humility shining through it all.
    â€œI’ve got numbers others don’t, but the numbers don’t tell the whole story,” he said. “That doesn’t make you the best player.
    â€œGretzky?” he said with a grin. “I was dirtier than Gretzky. I’d stick guys or fight. Wayne was a Lady Byng guy. Me, not so much. For me, hands down, Gary Gait is [the best lacrosse player of all time]. Paul was no slouch, either. John Grant’s name should be in there, too. There are so many great players. I’m just fortunate to have played for as long as I did.
    â€œYou know what I’ll remember more than any championships, any accomplishments or goals I scored? My early years, my minor lacrosse, just playing in the box at Alexandra Park, with the rowdy crowd, just looking forward to go there with my stick. I wanted to play lacrosse because my brother Danny played and I’d take his stick. That’s what I’ll remember most.”
    John Tavares the lacrosse player was never going to be a hockey player, but John Tavares the hockey player most definitely could have been a lacrosse player.
    Young John’s mother, Barb, remembered her brother-in-law Danny suggesting she put four-year-old John in peanut lacrosse, which she did. Uncle Danny took little John to his first game, brought him home and told Barb they would have to put John in an older age group with his Danny’s six-year-old son Ryan.
    â€œIn John’s first lacrosse game, his team won 17–1,” Barb Tavares said. “John scored all 17 goals.”
    As natural as John was with a lacrosse stick in his hand, hockey was his first and enduring love. He first skated at Clarkson Arena when he was two and a half years old.
    â€œAt any given time, it was hard for me to say what I enjoyed more,