By Tim Adams
The Zamboni makes its final rattle around the Civic Centre’s boards and then zips down the middle of the ice, disappearing into the blackness underneath the empty stands. The eerie silence spreads to the Ottawa 67’s dressing room, where a squeaky hinge on the chipped and dirty brown banquet table screams as its aging legs are pried apart — breaking the quiet. Its top is scattered with a weight of notes on how to speak English.
Every Monday and Wednesday for one hour, the 67’s two European players step up against their toughest opponents—English grammar and vocabulary.
“Come on guys, if you can pronounce Czech words, you can easily pronounce English ones,” says Nevin French, the 67’s English as a Second Language instructor.
“Reveeteyes,” says Lukas Mensator, the team’s starting goaltender, in his attempt to say “revitalize,” as he and his teammate David Halasz analyze an article in the Globe and Mail about the potential of Maple Leaf Gardens becoming a Loblaws by 2005.
Halasz, 17, is a physical defenseman from Kosice, Slovakia and projected to become a key player on the blueline as the 2003-04 season progresses.
He quit school back home and came to Canada to pursue hockey because he was tired of the balancing act.
“No time to study, you have to choose hockey or education. (Jaromir) Jagr just finished school a few years ago and he’s doing fine,” said Halasz as he rubbed a large colourful bruise on the side of his head.
The language program is designed to not only help foreign players become more familiar with English, but also to ease their transition into Canadian culture.
“It’s tough, you are here without family, without friends and during the day all your teammates are at school,” said Mensator, who came to Canada two years ago from the Czech Republic, but returns in the summers to complete high school.
“My mom tells me I have to finish school, and I would like to do more, but here (in Canada) I am on a work visa so I can’t attend school even if I wanted to,” he said.
Sharon Mayne-Dalke, the 67’s executive assistant, says that most of the foreign players they draft cannot speak fluent-enough English to adapt to regular Canadian schooling, so issuing work-only visas has not presented a problem.
She says the program they offer, “helps them settle in, feel a little more comfortable, and get to know the language before being interviewed.”
Mensator and Halasz both agree that school and elite hockey are a tough mix, but see the majority of their team managing to juggle the two and feel that at the least, the social aspect of school could have made leaving home a lot easier.
Despite a busy schedule filled with practices, weight training, photo shoots, guest appearances and some vocabulary lessons, Halasz still says, “it’s boring without school.”
French, a master’s student at Carleton University, says although his main focus is to give the players the vocabulary they need to gel with their teammates, he tries to make use of his education in European studies to promote discussion among the players about Czech and Slovak politics.
“I just try and get them speaking as much as possible in a non-native teaching environment and it works,” says French.
Despite obvious improvements in their English, parts of Mensator and Halasz still want more.
“Hockey is like work for us and we love it,” says Mensator. “I think it’s just as important to have school.”