Some Great Thing by Lawrence Hill Page A

him one. He longed for the summer and for his country.
    Midway through this cold snap, and shortly after Mahatma Grafton passed his probation at The Winnipeg Herald , Manitobans woke up to news of the most bizarre crime story in years.
    It happened in the St. Albert-Princeton hockey arena, thirty miles south of Winnipeg, on a Thursday night. St. Albert, a predominantly French-speaking town, was bordered by Princeton, which was mostly English. Each town had its own mayor and city hall and bylaws, but they shared a library and recreation centre. Each town had its own hockey team, but they shared the St. Albert-Princeton arena.
    The fight started around 8:30 p.m., peaked five minutes later and faded abruptly when the police arrived. Georges Goyette, who was watching his son’s St. Albert team play Princeton, witnessed the brawl. It started when a sixteen-year-old St. Albert player punched a Princeton player in the face. He hit him again and the Princeton boy fell to the ice. The players on both teams cleared the bench. The results: two broken noses, one concussion, a fractured wrist, a broken ankle, many cuts and much bruising. Nothing serious happened to the original two combatants. But a St. Albert player who had broken one nose and blackened four eyes in the brawl ran into fatal luck as police stormed the arena. When he turned to look at the cops, someone—nobody seemed to know who—clubbed his head. The boy died before he was carried off the ice. His name was Gilles Baril, the son of the town baker.
    Some parents joined the fighting, but Goyette hopped over the boards and towed his son off the ice before the brawl had reached that point.
    Edward Slade dived into the story. A good one. At last. He called the cops in St. Albert. A constable gave him the basics: one kid killed and six hospitalized. But the constable wouldn’t name the dead boy.
    “Can’t you tell me anything about him?”
    “He’s dead.”
    Slade eased off. He started chatting about violence in hockey. Fighting was getting out of hand these days, wasn’t it?
    “Yeah, but you haven’t seen the likes of this before,” the cop said. “You wouldn’t have believed it. Those kids went wild.”
    Slade, who was unmarried and childless, said such incidents made him worry about the safety of his own kids.
    “You got kids too, eh?” the cop said. “I got three little terrors.”
    “I’ve got two,” Slade said. “And we’ve got another on the way. Try living on my salary with kids.”
    “Don’t I know it,” the cop said.
    “My boys will be hitting the hockey age pretty soon. I worry about what’s going to happen to them in those leagues. I mean, today’s violence, you think we’ll see more of it in the future?”
    “Between you and me,” the cop said, “I think we can expect to see more of this. Things could get worse.”
    “Even for kids that age?”
    “You bet. They’re the worst. They’re animals.”
    “How old did you say that boy was? The one who got killed?”
    “Well, I’ll tell you, but you didn’t get it from me. Sixteen.”
    “Thanks, buddy.”
    “Sure. See you.”
    “Bye.” Slade scribbled out a possible lead: “‘Bloody brawlsin boys’ hockey will skyrocket after yesterday’s brutal slaying of a 16-year-old player in the St. Albert-Princeton arena,’ police predicted yesterday…”
    Slade consulted a rural phone book and made several random calls to St. Albert residents. The third person he reached was able to tell him the name and number of the hockey coach. After dialling it, Slade got the coach’s twelve-year-old son. His father was talking to police at the arena. The boy answered all Slade’s questions: the name of the deceased, his address, his parents’ names. But he wasn’t able to provide directions to the victim’s home. Slade asked for the phone number of someone who could direct him there. “Who is calling anyway?” the boy asked.
    “This is The Winnipeg Star ,” Slade barked. “And it’s