My life was a twisting turning road of many different events. I grew up with very little. My father was a former Canadian military man working in the large and failing steel city of Hamilton, Ontario. I had very few resources as a child. As time went on the only comfort I had was playing hockey and I was a reasonably good hockey player. In fact many would say I was a good hockey player in my youth. But after my time trying out in the OHL and then later in the American League I found myself like a flag with no wind. I didn’t know where I was going to go. I was 19 and got myself involved in a variety of different activities that some youngsters in the downtown area of a steel city might also find themselves in and decided in a moment to spend some time travelling.
In April 1986 I left for Europe. I flew to London, then Amsterdam where I stayed for several months behind Dam Square and experienced a city that I never knew existed. There were some people who were on their way down to the Greek Islands and I tagged along. I took a train ride all the way south, and ended up finding myself on a ferry to Rhodes. While I was there, like many other youngsters, I got quite smitten on a young girl from Sweden. After her two week holiday to Greece ended and she returned home, I decided to hitchhike to Sweden with the idea of a budding romance lasting a lifetime. Of course that didn’t happen and I was stranded in Sweden without any money, without any opportunity of finding money and frankly no food and nowhere to stay. Luckily this girl, although not my love match, had the decency to connect me with her uncle who was a hockey coach. He decided to give me an opportunity to stay with him in his garage and play a little hockey. I hadn’t skated in a few years but this marked the beginning of a two-year journey playing pro-hockey in Sweden until about 1990. From 1990 I ended up coaching in Belgium, first Division and was then named a team coach for the Belgian national team.
