The Trash Talker

During my days of playing hockey there were certain players who for whatever reason loved to talk trash. You may ask yourself why in a game like hockey there is so much trash talk. Well, it is done for a couple of reasons. The first reason is to agitate an opponent in order to throw him off his game. The second reason is to piss a guy off to such an extreme that he will take a stupid penalty. But then there is the third reason and this reason is for a select group of head cases that roam the ice. These are the types of players that are legitimately crazy. The type of guy that if you got into a fight with during a game and you knocked out all his teeth and smashed his face to a pulp he would smile at you and say, "Give me some more."

​These are the players on the ice that say the stupidest things like they're having sex with your mom, grandmother or sister or all of them at the same time. 

There was one man I played against, Dickson Thorpe, that talked such trash that I cannot put the words he spoke on paper because they are so raunchy and offensive. He was a player that had limited skill but he was big, mean and dirty, loving to intimidate the opposition both on and off the ice. But one must remember that there is no fighting in amateur hockey so nobody was sure exactly how tough he was because he never had to fight.

It is interesting to note that in amateur hockey many players that play against each other also go to school together. So if something is not settled on the ice it will be settled in school. And for Dickson Thorpe many times he chose to settle things in school, but again he never actually fought anyone. The reason why? Because people were scared, but not of him. They were scared of the fact that he was affiliated with a major gang so if he had a problem with you on the ice or at school he had major back up protection. 

I had always found it interesting that he had this reputation for being so tough and feared, but deep down most people knew he was all talk. After completing grade 12 Dickson went to play junior hockey and so did I. 

I remember my first exhibition game in junior against him. This was back in the mid 90s when junior hockey teams were loaded with maniacs and psychopaths just ready to kill people for fun. That particular game Dickson was doing his routine of trash talking and cheap shotting people. But there was a big difference now. Fighting was legal in junior hockey and there was tons of it. That game Dickson was challenged by a much a smaller opponent to a fight and Dickson was worked to a pulp. 

Still arrogant, forgetting that his gang buddies were now hundreds of miles away Dickson continued his clown routine on the ice and was asked to dance again during that game and was brutalized a second time. Then during the third period he was carrying the puck down the boards with his head down and cut into the middle of the ice and was met with a shoulder to the head. He was knocked out cold for five minutes and carried away in an ambulance. 

He never played another game.