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30 Sports Oakville Beaver SPORTS EDITOR:JONKUIPERIJ Phone 905-845-3824 (ext. 432) Fax 905-337-5571 email sports@oakvillebeaver.com · FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012 FIGHTING FOR CHANGE: Local resident Greg Gilhooly alleges he was one of the sexual abuse victims of hockey coach Graham James nearly 30 years ago. Gilhooly came forward with his accusations of James two years ago after learning that James had received a pardon for his crimes, meaning his convictions would not show up on criminal record checks except under certain conditions. ERIC RIEHL / OAKVILLE BEAVER Gilhooly first drew interest from coach at age 14 Continued from page 1 Their careers would diverge drastically after their U.S. college days, though. While Dryden went on to the NHL and won Stanley Cups, Gilhooly returned to Canada. He continued his studies at the University of Toronto, suiting up for the Varsity Blues for three seasons. During training camp in his first year with the team, Gilhooly broke a skate. U of T coach Paul Titanic knew of only one place he could quickly find a replacement size-13 skate. Titanic made a phone call to Dryden and later returned to the rink with a pair of skates and gave them to his goalie. The Hall of Fame netminder had worn them as he skated off the ice at the Montreal Forum after beating the New York Rangers to win the Stanley Cup in 1979. They hadn't been worn since. "Like Cinderella, I was praying that my feet would fit into Ken Dryden's skates," Gilhooly recalls. "But, unfortunately, my feet are much larger than his." Playing a game in his idol's skates would have provided Gilhooly with a fairy tale story in a hockey career that instead left him with nightmares and a past that he is still struggling to come to grips with today. · · · · Gilhooly was barely a teenager when he first met the man who was quickly working his way toward legendary status in the city of Winnipeg. Graham James was the coach of the St. James AAA midgets. He was not only a coach; he was a school teacher who stressed the importance of education to his players. James' team had qualified for the Air Canada Cup, the national midget championship. Gilhooly was a 14-year-old playing for the St. James Canadian bantams when James approached him at the Midwest Regional Silver Stick Tournament in Bloomington, Minnesota. James was at the tournament acting as the manager of another bantam team playing in the same division. Teams competing in the national championship were allowed to call up players from lower levels to fill out their roster. Most teams called up players from minor midget. Despite Gilhooly being two years younger than the rest of the players, James proposed bringing him up from bantam. Gilhooly had heard of James, as had most in Winnipeg hockey circles at the time, and was flattered that the man viewed as a rising star in the coaching ranks wanted him on his team. · · · · The stories of Sheldon Kennedy and Theoren Fleury are well known, having been the subject of books and a TV movie. Both former NHLers stepped forward and identified themselves as sexual abuse victims of James. Kennedy did so first in 1996. By then, James' status in the hockey world had been cemented. Since his days of coaching midget in Winnipeg, he'd gone on to scout for the Winnipeg Warriors of the Western Hockey League, recruiting both Kennedy and Fleury to play for the team he would eventually coach. James would later move on to the Swift Current Broncos to become coach and general manager, taking Kennedy with him. In James' first season with the Broncos, four players were killed in an accident after the team bus slid off an icy road. Just two years later, the team triumphantly rebounded from the tragedy to win the 1989 Memorial Cup. James was named The Hockey News' man of the year, not just for his team's success on the ice, but for his principled stands off it -- refusing to allow alcohol or tobacco companies to sponsor the team. After leading the Broncos to another WHL title in 1993, James left the team to become part-owner, coach and GM of the expansion Calgary Hitmen. When Kennedy came forward in 1996, both men were viewed much differently than they are today. "I was (seen as) the trouble-maker, the bad ass," Kennedy said Tuesday of the perception at the time. "I was the guy that Graham was saving." In reality, James had been sexually abusing Kennedy for See Hearing, page 31