We expect hard work, on ice and off

Opinion

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This article was published 27/04/2023 (864 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

‘I’m just a common man, drive a common van. My dog ain’t got a pedigree. If I have my say, it’s gonna stay that way, ’cause high-browed people lose their sanity. And a common man is what I’ll be.”

I’ve been humming that John Conlee country smash ever since I played it as a DJ half a century ago. Why? Everyone who knows me knows why and as I become your reliable voice in these Thursday and Saturday visits, one thing will always be crystal clear.

I don’t do high brow.

I come from common folk — Miklosz and Rosza Adler (Mike and Rose). Dad spent most of his life hunched over a Singer sewing machine, making sure clothes that were too loose, too tight, too long or too short were made to fit perfectly for customers willing to trust the most hard-working and trustworthy human being I ever knew.

Mum worked in bakeries. She wasn’t the baker. But she did everything else, serving customers who weren’t just there for the breads, bagels and cinnamon rolls. It should surprise no one that Rose was never short of stories to share.

I owe dad everything for putting me in that old backpack and getting his two-year-old out of a Communist hellhole. I owe mum for passing on her storytelling DNA — and I owe both of them for their steadfast work ethic. Mum cleaned the shelves and washed the fridges and floors. She was on her feet a minimum of 12 hours a day. I don’t recall a time when she only had one job. Nor do I recall one where Dad didn’t open the store doors at 7 a.m. and close up by 9 p.m. or later — Monday through Saturday.

Hard work earns my respect.

As a character trait, it’s right up there with honesty, loyalty and the love of family.

Here in Manitoba, whether it’s in the fields or factories, the roads or rail yards, the forests or the fire, police and paramedic stations, whether it’s in the mines, or on the rivers and lakes, hard work matters. It matters in the barns, bars, restaurants and hotels, bus and train stations, airports, shops and offices, construction sites, schools and daycare centres, hospitals and nursing homes. The hard work of common people gets my devotion.

But when those who get paid to work hard don’t deliver, I won’t hesitate to bring the hammer down — even if makes some queasy.

Please know that I get no pleasure out of saying publicly what so many are thinking privately.

Our Winnipeg Jets don’t work hard enough to get their hands anywhere near Lord Stanley’s mug.

I am hunched over a keyboard, the morning after the Monday-night game where I watched our team get outworked for the third game in a row.

There were four common men from Manitoba on the ice Monday night: Mark Stone, Zach Whitecloud, Brett Howden and Keegan Kolesar.

They brought their lunch buckets.

While I respected them, I couldn’t root for them. They were the visitors.

Every player in a Jets uniform has worked their tails off to become the pros they are. But in competitive sport, everyone on the team has to leave it all on the ice and you owe your best game, every game, to mum and pop, to your mates, to the paying customers in the stands, and those in hospital beds and care homes, to all the common folk working the night shift.

They are with you on every one of your shifts.

On Monday night and too many other nights our team did not deliver.

The professional excuse-makers can make excuses for three losses in a row in the playoffs. My pop never had an excuse for not making the clothes fit and my Mum never had an excuse not to serve every customer with that big beautiful smile that she always brought to her game, no matter the demons that danced in her brain from the time she was nine and heard the knock in the night from the black glove of fascism, following orders to take her and her mum to places the devil won’t go.

My father and mother, like so many others in Manitoba, left it all on the ice every day and night.

I wish I didn’t have to write these words. But I owe you my best game.

We owe the Winnipeg Jets our cheers and our whiteouts. We also owe them the truth. The truth never takes a bad penalty, or misses a check, or a faceoff. It never gives away the puck.

The truth never stops working.

Charles Adler is a longtime political commenter and podcaster.

charles@charlesadler.com