GOOD GAME: The Curious Tale of A.W. Rister and Canada’s National Poem
When is a poem more than a poem? When that poem has permeated and become so deeply ingrained within a culture that it is impossible to extract one from the other. Such is the case of Canada and a simple three-stanza ode to hockey and sportsmanship, called “Good Game.” The author, of course, A.W. Rister.
Alfred Weeke Rister was born December 12, 1904 in Montreal, Quebec. A sickly child who struggled with a life long asthmatic condition, Rister loved the game of hockey but was hampered in participating due to his malady. His passion for the game found an outlet in his writing, and in December of 1922, at the ripe old age of 18, Alfred W. Rister had his poem “Of Lightning on the Ice” printed in The Canadian Home Journal. The enthusiastic response to this work brought interest from McClelland & Stewart, who contracted Rister for publication of a full book of poems on his favourite subject.
In October of 1923, mere months before his 19th birthday, McClelland & Stewart published A.W. Rister’s tome, Poems of Puck and Ice.
Amongst the grander poems was a small confection entitled “Good Game” that at first seemed of no great note. But very quickly the poem took hold of the public’s imagination and was soon upon the lips of every Canadian. It was a poem that, in time, would help shape a nation and give Canada its sense of politeness and sportsmanship.
A.W. Rister became a household name and his fame rivaled that of any hockey star or politician. Perhaps due to his popularity, the queer nature of Rister’s personal life was never spoken of openly. It was clear that Rister was a life-long supporter of the Canadiens, but his passion for the game itself ran deeper still. His love of hockey was whispered to be beyond what one would consider “normal” and, after the 1931 Stanley Cup win by the Montreal Canadiens, some among the press told hushed tales of a secret marriage ceremony between Rister and the Stanley Cup. It had been repeated in pressrooms and bars across Canada that Defenseman Jean Pusie had served as best man during the ceremony. Many cited this as the reason Pusie’s name did not appear on the cup for that 1931 winning season.
Perhaps the tale of this unconventional union was just gossip started by other Canadian poets jealous of Rister’s success. A likely source was Warren Ferguson, “Canada’s other poet,” who made many cloaked jabs at “ milk-handed writers and their curious passions.” The public could easily surmise at whom these aspersions were cast.
But if the rumours were true, they depict a truly melancholic life of a man who had to watch the physical representation of his love of hockey, the Stanley Cup, being passed around from city to city, team to team, player to player, through so many rough hands, only on occasion returning home to Montreal—a cup of cuckolding endurable only because his love for the game was so strong.
This shadowed story would stay openly hidden from many millions of Canadian children who knew the poem, “Good Game”, simply as the thing you stood and recited after singing “God Save the Queen” at the beginning of each school day. I certainly recall this ritual, as well as reading it in my Grade Three textbook, Maple Leaves of Literature. The hallowed poem is still standard in elementary school textbooks to this day.
So intrinsic to Canadian identity was the poem that it played a part in the recapture of German WWII prisoner Max Weidauer in 1944. Weidauer escaped from the Medicine Hat, Alberta POW camp after Nazi elements became suspicious of his loyalty to the party. Wiedauer was hidden by a local farmer who needed help in harvesting, and believed that Max’s life was truly in danger. Two weeks into hiding, however, the farmer’s young son became suspicious of the new hand, and challenged Weidauer to recite Rister’s poem. When Weidauer failed, the boy contacted the RCMP and Max Weidauer returned to life behind barbed wire for the duration of the war (albeit in a different camp from the Nazi stalwarts he feared).
In a 1971 interview on Peter Gzowski’s radio programme This Country in the Morning, an elderly Rister illuminated listeners as to the birth of the poem.
“The idea for the poem was inspired by my reflections on a hard-fought game in 1918, when my beloved Canadiens suffered a loss to the Ottawa Senators. I remembered my despondency and anguish turn to something else when I saw the players form a line at the end of the game and cordially shake hands. I had an epiphany. The courage of that gracious acceptance of defeat, by men who had much more invested in the game than I, affected me deeply. The poem emerged in one brief flash, like a centre in a breakaway, flying from end to end. At first, I thought it too short to encapsulate the feelings I wished to convey, and for a while I struggled with additional verses and reconstruction. But one night, I was unable to sleep, due to a coughing fit, and I sat in my room and examined my first un-edited draft and saw what I had missed before. Three simple stanzas. The three periods, if you will, distilled in prose that spoke my truest feelings for sportsmanship, camaraderie and the Good Game. The other stanzas joined the kindling in my hearth.”
It is Interesting to wonder what those lost verses held, but I for one am glad he chose to keep this little hat trick of a poem as-is.
Later in the interview, perhaps emboldened by the nature of the Seventies, Gzowski delicately broached the never-before-publicly-uttered Rister rumour:
“It’s…well, some have wondered about your stature as a life long bachelor. But…there’s… I guess… I’m asking, has there, or is there… anyone…or “anything”… that you’ve..ah…I’m.. and I don’t mean to sound silly or insult you in any way but I’m sure you have heard the rumour about you marrying the Stanley Cup. Would you care to comment on that?”
There was a pause on the radio that seemed to last an eternity, and Gzowski would say later that he felt like he had made the biggest blunder of his young career asking such a brash question of this Canadian icon. But to his relief, Rister eventually replied, “ I have had only one love in my life and it has been hockey. As to the story to which you refer; I say that my private life is my own, and as to the rumour of which you speak, I will neither confirm nor deny.”
Two years later, in 1973, shortly after the Montreal Canadiens clinched the Cup, A.W. Rister died, taking his mysterious, unconfirmed love story to the grave. Amongst the constellation of dignataries attending the funeral was the entire roster of the Canadiens, who solemnly paid their respects to the noted poet. Captain Henri Richard carried the Stanley Cup to Rister’s open casket and tilted it to the poet’s lips, perhaps the last kiss from his silver wife.
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