We’ve never met.
But what if I told you I knew all about you. That I knew stuff about you that you’d probably rather I didn’t know. How do I know this stuff? We’ll, everybody knows it. I read about you online. Friends told me about you. The stories about you, well, they’re just common knowledge.
We’ve never met.
But what if I told you I knew all about you?
But what if these stories about you were completely and utterly false? Without one single shred of truth? True or false, it doesn’t seem to matter much once a story gets out there. And once it’s online, it’s indelible. Deathless. Perception becomes reality.
I know this only too well.
Because that’s what happened to me.
This is the story of the long and twitching tail of a baseless rumour and the damage it caused. It involves professional hockey, husbands and wives, and purported betrayal. That the narrative begins decades ago is what gives this story “legs”. The rumour is now entrenched as lore; people don’t question anything about it.
This is the story of the long and
twitching tail of a baseless rumour …
There are three central players in this rumour: myself, my husband at the time, Canucks’ goalie, Kirk McLean, and his teammate, Jeff Brown. There’s another participant – Kirk’s first wife, Lesley – but she seems to have dodged this bullet despite the rumour actually being about her.
And that’s the interesting thing about rumours; they’re so malleable.
A celebrated photograph of exhausted goalie, Kirk McLean and team captain, Trevor Linden, from the 1994 Stanley Cup finals.
The genesis of the story is the 1994 Stanley Cup finals. The Canucks were the Western Conference champions and the New York Rangers were the Eastern Conference champs. The series was one for the record books, a real nail biter, decided in the final seconds of a seventh game at Madison Square Gardens. The Rangers won but the Canucks were lauded for their exceptional calibre of play. Hockey fans figured that the ‘Nucks would slay in the upcoming season.
But they didn’t.
The fans were aghast.
There had to be an explanation.
There had to be an explanation.
The explanation became that morale in the locker room was suffering. A story evolved that the beloved goalie was being cuckolded by teammate, Jeff Brown; Jeff was sleeping with Kirk’s wife. Their game suffered. Then, swiftly and somewhat mysteriously, Brown was dispatched to the Hartford Whalers. Poor Kirk; evil Jeff; bad wife.
Jeff Brown in his Canuck jersey, circa 1994/5
Except none of this was true.
There was – is – no bad blood between McLean and Brown.
Lesley simply laughed when Kirk informed her of the rumour.
Laughable or not, that didn’t stop the story from spreading.
Skating tips from a pro! Jane and Kirk at the Canucks’ Christmas skating party, 1997
Here’s where I come in.
A few years later, Kirk and I took up with each other, eventually marrying in 1998. And with that wedding ring came another gem: the rumour. Unbeknownst to me, I would inherit the rumour as I was now Mrs. McLean. Skip the fact that I wasn’t even part of that scene when the rumour was born. And skip the whopper of a fact that I’ve never met Jeff Brown. Ever.
The kids and I with Kirk at Vancouver International Airport, circa 1998
The rumour percolated with the fan base while Kirk and I moved around the US for a few years. By the time we return home, the rumour has become entrenched. Weird stuff starts to happen in my life. And in my kids’ lives. The rumour starts to enter the room before I do. It’s not pleasant.
The rumour shows its ugly face in all sorts of areas of my life to this very day.
“I happen to know for a fact she’s lying”.
About a decade ago I wrote a feature for The National Post on my experiences as a hockey wife. I made one little reference to this rumour in that story. Boom! The twittersphere was ablaze. My favourite remark was: “I happen to know for a fact she’s lying”. Nice work, Columbo.
https://nationalpost.com/life/the-trials-and-tribulations-of-being-a-hockey-wife
I’ve heard from a lot of you this past week as many of you caught the CBC Storylines radio documentary that teases out the pathology of this rumour. If you’d like to have a listen, here’s a link. It’s also available in the US on Decoder Ring on the online magazine, Slate.
Listen to my radio documentary on CBC Listen here.
For me, the rumour has been a masterclass in healthy scepticism, something we all need to be reminded of in the age of click bait and false news … but I’m still looking forward to seeing the damned thing blasted to smithereens.
This week’s question for readers:
FALSE ALLEGATIONS? CARE TO COMMENT?
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Submissions to last week’s question:
WHAT ARE THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE DEATH OF THE BIG FAMILY?
I read this week’s article with great interest because the Nora you speak of I know well having worked with her for five years in my early career. I can attest that Nora is one of the happiest people I have ever known and this I believe is in large part to her upbringing as an only child. I myself am the mum to an “only” and would highly recommend this to young couples given the personal and financial stresses of today’s world. You can definitely spoil a single child but there is no such thing as too much love. I for one say that it is time for the death knell on Big Families.
Patricia Gray
Not being from a big family – just one brother – and growing up 7500 kms from my eight cousins, the changes to family composition aren’t immediately evident to me. Growing up, we celebrated holidays, exchanged meals, hand-me-downs and childcare with my parents’ friends and their children similarly “away” from family. Family life is so much different than it was 50+ years ago that I wonder how, and what, one would compare. That said, my dad remained very close to his siblings and, though a very, very thrifty man, prioritized annual visits with them.
Julie Halfnights
Thanks for reminding us, “Families are the social fabric of a nation”. The statistics in your column underline what I fear is the demise of that social fabric. I have/had 59 cousins; six have passed on. My children have seven cousins. My grandchildren have two cousins.
Thank you for your weekly column. It provokes introspection and dialogue on really important topics. I look forward to it each Saturday.
Jan Mansfield
Fond memories of our big family Christmas dinners, summer holidays together, board games, special celebrations. Photos from the 1960s certainly captured the good times.
As I matured, the concept of “Chosen Family” appealed to me. Why? Divorce, family lawsuits, misunderstandings, ongoing grudges arose, altered the joy and happiness of gathering with extended family and eventually ended them altogether. The passing of grandparents and parents was a determining factor as well. “Chosen Family” fits the bill for me, emotionally and socially. It truly is an alternative to family conflict.
James Harcott
I am 81; my wife is 79. We have been married 68 years. By choice we have never had kids.
Good essay.
Michael Feld
I learned to be comfortable with my own company and developed the ability to amuse myself. The only time it really bothered me was when my mum died – my dad had died a few years before – and I felt as though I had no one to share that grief with. I was married to Gordon then and it was pre-kids so that helped but it was still a loss that I couldn’t really share.
Name Withheld
A family is society in the microcosm. Ideally, you need a matriarch or patriarch heading up a family, someone with vision and equilibrium. If you run things inequitably, you end up with dissent and destroy the entire reason behind having families. I also think the government should find ways to support families having the actual parent doing the raising and not farming out the job to daycares. No one raises a child as well as a well-supported parent. Incentivize families to have more kids – lots of people would if they could find ways to afford it. The government is going about this all wrong.
Name Withheld