The Workingman rose at 5 a.m. and was in the gym hoisting weights by 6:15. After 90 minutes of iron work, he drives to BU’s hockey rink to join a fellowship of similarly out-of-work Workingmen to skate for two hours. If there is a point to this, some days it doesn’t seem so.
After firing enough shots to make his elbows ache, The Workingman leaves around 11, his day far from over, although none of it is producing a dime. By 4:30 p.m., he’s at The Ring Boxing Club on Commonwealth Avenue, trainer Tommy McInerney awaiting him with pads in hand and numbers in head.
“1-2, 1-2, 1-2!” McInerney shouts, demanding a left jab-right cross born from boxing’s mysterious numerology.
“4-2,” meaning right hook, right cross, then “5-2!” meaning left uppercut, right cross (Mike Tyson’s KO combination). In three-minute intervals this continues for an hour, his hands popping the pads with a resounding slap-slap!
“2-4-4-2, 1-2, 1-2, 1-1-2, 5-2! Move your hands,” McInerney urges. The Workingman was pretty sure he had been, but with sweat dripping off him for the third time on this 103rd day of unemployment, he continues working at a job he no longer has.
That has been 35-year-old Shawn Thornton’s regular routine since NHL owners decided to lock their players out, demanding they reduce their share of hockey revenue from 57 percent to 43. One wonders why the owners didn’t just start at 0, because that’s pretty much where things have been since Sept. 15, the day they decided even though the NHL was coming off arguably its best year, it wasn’t enough.
Thornton knows he’s close to the end of his best hockey years and thus can ill afford the kind of protracted job action taken against him by penurious owners (who would be the first to tell him it’s not personal, even though it sure feels like it). He also knows he’s played more minor league games (605) than NHL ones (450), and well remembers the difference.
Yet there are limits even for someone who rode buses to some of hockey’s smallest outposts for 10 years. He is not an unappreciative employee, but then again he was finally set to crack the $1 million salary mark this season at 36 after agreeing to a two-year extension in March, but if hockey’s business militants got all they wanted, that contract would have paid him less than he earned last year. Thankfully, it’s not personal.
We’re not talking about Alex Ovechkin money here. We’re not talking about the 100 or so players earning $5 million or more. We’re talking about a guy trying to make a living for a very limited time the hard way: with his fists and his face.
“My experience is different than most guys,” Thornton said several days before Thursday’s new offer from the owners provided hope for a breakthrough that may get them all playing before what looms as a mid-January drop-dead date. “I was never picked for any elite teams. In juniors most guys think of taking hockey to the next level. I didn’t think that would happen for me. I really played for love of the game.
“If it was up to me I’d be playing, but it isn’t. We’re locked out. It’s not like we had a choice. I thought the game was in such a good spot seven months ago. You couldn’t have written a better script. You’d like to think this is about the game but it doesn’t look like it is. If it’s not, what do they want?”
Since the lockout began, all Thornton could do was skate, lift, worry and work on the skill that got him on two Stanley Cup champions: fighting.
Because of that, he is a man of few illusions. He has been forced by the absence of the great gifts someone like Ovechkin has known since birth to look at his occupation as most men must: Keep your tools sharp and hope for work.
“I like getting up at 5 and doing what it takes to stay in shape,” he said. “I like getting the day going. I’m 35. I have to work twice as hard to keep up with guys like Tyler (Seguin, the Bruins’ 20-year-old phenom). Even if I was 25 it would be the same with my skills.
“Some days when we’re skating, you can feel the ebb and flow of the negotiations. When they haven’t talked in two weeks it’s hard to push, but if it ever comes back I’ll be ready.”
Thornton is still hopeful that will happen in time for a 50-game season and playoffs for which, by the way, players are not paid. It’s preferable to listening to talk of “variances” and arguments to cap player contracts at five years or to reduce the salary cap.
Thornton knows what’s coming, which is serious beheadings as well as a salary this year less than half of what he was scheduled to make. Whether he ever sees that magic $1 million remains to be seen, but at the moment it doesn’t matter as much as getting up in the dark to start a workday with no pay but plenty of sweat.
“I gotta believe we’re close,” he said. “I wouldn’t be going on five-mile runs on Christmas if I didn’t. At night you feel like a healthy scratch, but at least you know if they called on you, you were ready.”