When I dated them.......

..........the two NHL players I knew and went out with in the late sixties were perfect gentlemen.  Wonderful memories are flooding back as I read about the five players currently charged with rape and sexual assault -- memories that for me are in stark contrast to what these brutes have been charged with.

No, the guys I dated were nothing like that.  Bryan Watson, who at the time played for the Habs, was a great guy and treated me like a princess.  My Mother loved him because he was unfailingly polite and respectful to both her and my Father.  This was the summer of 1966 and I had met him at Carleton University, where I had been attending summer school because I had failed 'Earth Sciences'.  He was auditing classes to meet girls and I was the lucky girl he fancied.

Bryan Watson with his pre-helmet, smashed-in face.

The other NHL player I dated was Brian Smith, who played for the Los Angeles Kings.  This would have been in 1967.  He too was a gentleman my parents adored.  I think they hoped I might end up with one of them, but I was too young and had adventures to pursue in Toronto.

Tragically, Brian Smith was gunned down in 1995 by a lunatic in the parking lot of CJOH, where he worked as a sportscaster.  We were at the cottage when I heard that on the news and I actually had to sit down to recover.  It was so shocking!  

Brian Smith, a lovely guy.

That's why I find it unbelievable that today's young hockey players are in such a mess.  It was clear to me that the clubs players worked for back then expected them to behave like gentlemen to safeguard their organizations' reputations.

Not anymore, apparently.  Frankly, I blame the parents -- especially the mothers -- who see a lot of dollar signs and indulge their sons' every whim and misadventure.  Isn't it funny that you never see the parents anywhere near their sons in the media during the perp walks.  Thanks to them, their sons' lives have been destroyed.

This is not to say that sexual abuse was not around when I was a child.  I experienced it by my orthodontist when I was 12, but was too terrified to tell my Mother, who was always sitting in the waiting room.  I recently read his obituary and was tempted to post a remembrance, but didn't.  He got away with it because I cannot have been the only young patient he assaulted and yet he was never caught.  Why did we all stay silent?  Shame, guilt and a feeling that it must have been our faults for being "too cute".

I also experienced "date rape" by a guy who invited me to spend the weekend at his cottage in 1969 with his parents.  Once again, I was mortified and blamed myself.  I did, however, get my own back when I attended a parent/teacher meeting at the school years later.  Who was chair of the association?  None other than the offender himself, Bill Mitchell.  

"Hi, Bill," I said.  "Remember me?  Remember what you did to me at your parents' cottage a few years ago?"  We were in a group of parents and he turned beet red and walked off, while the other parents stood there speechless.

Yep, I did get him back.  Mothers watch your children and always expect the worst.