Source : Montrealgazette
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It was hockey night, 40 minutes before Saturday’s faceoff
between the Canadiens and visiting Carolina Hurricanes, and Brian
Gionta was woefully out of uniform — even in a stylish navy suit.
He would much rather have been a short walk away in the Bell Centre,
behind the sliding steel doors of the Canadiens dressing room, pulling
on his No. 21 jersey for his team’s preseason game.
This could happen as early as this week, the Habs captain hoping to
be cleared for action Wednesday or Thursday following biceps tendon
surgery four months ago and extensive rehabilitation through the summer.
But now, Gionta was sitting to talk in the arena’s ice-level alumni
lounge, beneath many portraits of Canadiens legends. In a half-hour, he
would step out to centre ice and accept the Jean Béliveau Trophy from
the award’s iconic namesake.
“It’s a huge honour,” Gionta said of the annual team prize
recognizing charity and community work, a $25,000 donation from the
Montreal Canadiens Children’s Foundation going to a charity he will
choose.
“Mr. Béliveau is just a huge key to this organization and to the
history of this team. He’s such a great ambassador, so well respected.
To be awarded something with his name on it …,” Gionta said, his
unfinished sentence speaking as loudly as any words he might have
spoken.
The 34-year-old native of Rochester, N.Y., is a professional athlete
who gets it — that is, who understands that the pedestal on which he’s
placed comes with special, even profound responsibility.
Not that the Canadiens captaincy to which Gionta was named three
Septembers ago, intensifying the spotlight, has changed the path he
walks through life.
With his wife, Harvest, Gionta uses his fame in many charitable ways,
the smile he can put on a gravely sick child’s face worth every bit as
much as the funds he helps raise with involvement in a wide variety of
projects.
This work is nothing new. Since Gionta signed his first pro contract
with the Devils in 2001, the couple have been involved with charities in
their hometown and in New Jersey.
Since his 2009 arrival in this city, Gionta has sponsored a Bell
Centre loge for the use of the Canadiens Children’s Foundation, which
every home game hosts ill and underprivileged children and their
families, spoiling them for a few hours to chase away their dark clouds.
The captain and his wife are involved in many of the foundation’s
initiatives, as they were with other projects before they landed in
Montreal.
As she did in New Jersey, Harvest continues to organize wintertime
clothing donations for needy families, “finding little things,” Gionta
said, “that make a big difference.”
“The foundation here is great,” he added. “They help facilitate a lot
of things so you don’t have to go out on your own. Harvest is involved
in all the charities the foundation does, and then there are plenty of
other things we get involved with. You help out whatever way you can.”
The vast majority of what Gionta and his wife do — and other
Canadiens players and their wives and girlfriends — is off the public
radar. Annual holiday-season children’s hospital visits draw much media
attention, but they aren’t even the iceberg’s tip.
“You know so many people, you have so many friends who have friends
and you find out about certain things,” Gionta said. “You try to
accommodate whatever you can. You pick and choose what you feel very
strongly about, where you put the main part of your efforts. It’s very
hard to say no when it’s a special situation.”
To be in the Canadiens dressing room an hour after a game, long after
the cameras and notebooks have left, is to see the deep impact players
have on many lives.
Foundation executive director Geneviève Paquette will usher in a
youngster and their family, a favourite player awaiting star-struck
child with an autograph, a photo, a comforting word, often a priceless
souvenir.
Some of these children are on the road to recovery. But others have
weeks or less to live. Gionta, the father of three healthy, young
children, feels a crowbar dug into his chest with every such visit.
“It’s very tough to deal with some of the situations,” he admitted.
“It’s hard to feel that you have any significance to a sick kid. One
came by last week, soon going in for a huge operation. You meet him
after the game, take him on a tour, take some pictures, spend some time
with him and his family. He was terminally ill, just a young kid. It’s
very touching, very hard to deal with.
“The hospital visits every year are a tug both ways. You come home
and appreciate the health you’ve been afforded, but at the same time you
see what all these other families are going through and how blessed you
are that you’re not going through that.”
Gionta paused, emotion welling up in him.
“You feel so much for them. You’re a parent. You can’t imagine what
they’re going through, but it still gets you thinking about it.”
Now, he says, with three children, he and Harvest can be role models
at home with their daily deeds, which he believes carries more weight
than merely talking about what’s right.
“It’s the little gestures, like holding a door for an elderly lady
who’s coming into a store, that your kids see,” Gionta said. “You can
say all you want, but unless you’re doing things, acting a certain way …
“You can say, ‘Be a part of your community and help unfortunate
kids.’ But it’s much more powerful when you bring your kids to pick out
Christmas gifts for the less fortunate or the families you sponsor, and
they help with the wrapping.”
Gionta’s name is on the 2002-03 Stanley Cup for a championship he won
with New Jersey, a reflection of his hockey talent. That his name is
now engraved on the Jean Béliveau Trophy speaks to the values he holds
dear, qualities that enrich the lives of more Montrealers than he’ll
know.
“For a long time, I’ve been very fortunate for the position I’ve been
put in and the life I’ve been afforded,” he said. “I’m playing a game I
dreamed of playing and I’m very well compensated for it.
“What makes Montreal so special is that you’re a public figure.
You’re noticed. And you’re able to use that status in a good way. You
can give something back.”
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