P.A.’s Mays writes tell-all book, but not without ruffling feathers

“I think back, it’s like ‘here’s a guy from Hazeldell in P.A. and I’m standing in this magnificent building, talking to this gentleman about that,’” Mays said. “I just thought, ‘wow. Why? Why me? How did that even happen?’”

Despite meeting a lot of his hockey heroes, Mays talks about how his late father Jack was his true hero.

“He was always there for me. He was there for our community club, doing whatever needed to be done at the local rink and taking me to games, coaching teams in our neighbourhood,” Mays told paNOW. “Even as he got older and his health was failing, he still wanted to know what I was up to and still wanted to go to games with me, whenever he could. He was definitely my hero.”

It’s also filled with great old-time hockey tales, like the time Mays was a WHL linesman and then-Prince Albert Raider Ken Baumgartner ripped off the penalty box divider glass, frisbee’d it onto the ice so the three Raiders tough guys in the penalty box could go beat up the Moose Jaw Warriors in theirs.

But the book is not without controversy.

The book ramps up in temperature when it reaches Chapter 16, The Other Side of Minor Hockey. Nqr [not quite right] Parents Or, You Can’t Fix Stupid!

To say that Mays criticizes hockey parents for being intense and a nuisance for this is quite an understatement.

He created a category for parents who are “just plain f****d,” like the parents banging on the glass because they think the 13-year-old referee missed an offside at the far side of the rink, or the parent-coach that throws a water bottle after his seven-year-old player over-skates the puck.

But he also brings up a story about a kid, who Mays describes as a seven-year-old that weighed 155 pounds. The kid didn’t fit in his team’s jerseys and needed to get his sweater customized at a local sporting goods store. According to Mays’ recalling of the situation, the kid’s mother felt her son would be made fun of by the other kids because the customized jersey didn’t match the rest of the team’s.

“C’mon Mom you think that’s the reason your son might get teased, because his jersey has an extra blue stripe at the bottom and on the sleeve, and not because he looks like he ate one of his defensemen before the game?” Mays wrote. “Mom your e-mail should probably have gone to the lady at the Burger King drive through. Your son’s teammates are afraid they are going to get eaten at the next practice.”

He also talked about how he thought spring hockey was basically the wild west, without set regulations of how the league levels or supplementary discipline can be determined. He then makes a joke about how wound-up parents can get when it comes to spring hockey, using the early days of the COVID-19 as the platform.

“Did you hear the one about the COVID-19 virus, 12 people have now passed, four from the actual virus and eight are Spring Hockey parents who committed suicide when the spring (sic) Hockey season was cancelled,” Mays wrote.

Mays said that he didn’t mean to single out anybody in the book and said they are from his many years involved in hockey around the province and Canada—not just in Prince Albert.

“I wanted to show everything about hockey that I’ve experienced. If anybody feels that that was aimed at them, I apologize,” Mays said to paNOW. “Most of those stories are fragments of dozens of stories over the years in my various roles with minor hockey with the SHA, with Hockey Canada, and put together as an illustration. The biggest thing for me in the book is that 95 per cent of the book is dedicated to—it talks about passion for the game, which I think most Canadians have. It’s the 95 per cent of the people that use their passion in a productive, great, enjoyable way.”

Mays said he has received some complaints, but said the main message of that chapter was to show what not to do as a hockey parent.

“Some people are maybe a little upset. I was talking to a very prominent businessman in Prince Albert, a lifelong hockey guy, earlier and he said, ‘you know what? Yeah, you might make some people squirm, but look at the positive. If a bunch of people read this and think to themselves ‘wow, I don’t want that to be me,’ then that’s a positive and that could be a really good thing,’” Mays said.

As a result of some of the contentious nature in parts of the book, Mays could face punishment from the PAMHA.

When contacted on Wednesday morning by paNOW, PAMHA president Bill Hoko did not want to make a comment about Mays before the association had a chance to discuss the situation at a meeting. Mays said he was still a part of the PAMHA on Wednesday.

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Jeff.dandrea@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @jeff_paNOW

by Jeff D'Andrea

P.A.’s Mays writes tell-all book, but not without ruffling feathers

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