They Call Me Killer by Brian Kilrea

Author:Brian Kilrea [Kilrea, Brian; Duthie, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781443427548
Publisher: HarperCollins Canada
Published: 2011-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

11

The Boys on the Bus

People used to say to me, especially in my last years of coaching, “Aren’t you sick of those long bus trips?”

Sick of them? I loved them.

I always told my owners, “You are paying me to see Ontario.” When you drive from Ottawa to Sault Ste. Marie, you can’t believe how many beautiful sights there are. It’s the same with Barrie, Sarnia, Windsor … all of them. We’ve seen the province, end to end. If you keep saying, “When are we going to get there?” then the bus rides feel long. If you just enjoy the natural beauty around you, you get there in no time.

But the company helps, too. And boy, did I have some company.

Jeff Hunt: The first year I bought the team, I went on every road trip. If only I’d brought a tape recorder. It was like some TV show, some warped Seinfeld, listening to Killer and the cast of characters he had with him.

The Cast

TANK

Tank’s real name was Gordie Hetherington, but he’s always been Tank. Please, don’t ever ask him how he got the nickname, because when Tank tells you a story, you’re likely to fall asleep before he finishes. By the time he was 19, he was well over 6 feet and 200 pounds, so you can pretty much figure out why he was called Tank.

Tank was with me from day one. I grew up playing baseball against him, so we were always friends. When I got the job with the 67’s, he asked if there was anything he could do. He was semi-retired, so he could make all the road trips. Tank came on every one.

It was his job to get the tickets for every game, and distribute them to the players. We get a certain number of tickets for each away game, and kids always have family and friends in each town, so Tank would make sure everyone got their tickets.

Jeff Hunt: Tank would make the first list, then Killer would take it and mark it up with a red marker, like a teacher. Killer always had the last word.

Tank would also arrange for the food after the game, so when the kids got on the bus, it was waiting for them. And the coolers. Tank made sure the coolers were stocked with pops and water for the boys, and maybe some cold ones for the grown-ups.

Jeff Hunt: One time, someone new on the bus was trying to be helpful and loaded up the cooler. Big mistake. Tank was fuming. He took it off the bus, dumped it in the parking lot, and reloaded it himself. No one else packs Tank’s cooler.

We loved to mess with Tank. One time, up in the Soo, we had a long trip back, so I told him to order extra subs for the kids. Let’s say there were 30 of us on the bus, I think I told him to order 50 subs. The kids would eat a sub-and-a-half on a trip like that.

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