Coming Back to You

…And if I wish upon that star,
Someday I’ll be where you are,
And I know that day is coming soon—
I’m coming back to you…

—"Coming Back to You," Bryan Adams

No, as we all now know, Guy Carbonneau will not be returning to the ice. After 19 seasons in the NHL, exactly a quarter century of full time competitive hockey, and at the end of his best season in six years, #21 is gone for good.

The stat sheets can be added up now, final averages determined, records closed. Guy’s Cup rings earned as a player will always be three. We can say now that when he waved to the fans in Reunion Arena the night of June 10, 2000, we saw him say goodbye to life on the ice. The story is complete, we know how it ended, 23 marvelous playoff games that came a goal and a game shy of another Stanley Cup.

Also ended are the weeks of suspense, as we fans awaited the decision which hung in the back of Carbonneau’s mind for a good five years. How he bore struggling with it that long is beyond me; I found it hard enough to deal with for the past couple years. And these past weeks, the only thing that got me through was thinking about this song, "Coming Back to You."

I decided that If I awoke one day and found a headline in The Dallas Morning News that Guy was going to play another year, I intended to play "Coming Back to You." I warned my family that even if it were 5:00 a.m., I would play it loud anyway. I sang that song in my head, I wished upon that star, I waited.

The news did not come to me in a headline, and when I got it, it was not my wish. I’m sure when you learned of Guy’s decision, you felt the same pang in your heart as I did, so there isn’t really a need to describe it. And afterwards, maybe you e-mailed a friend (maybe you e-mailed me!), or sat thinking awhile, or maybe tried to go back to what you needed to be doing.

I needed to be eating supper and writing a grocery list. I got halfway through, then I got up and went to the stereo, and I played "Coming Back to You."

Because he will, you know. Not on the roster of an NHL team, but he’ll come back. Perhaps he’ll come back as the wisdom up in some team’s press box, or the heart behind its bench. He may be done playing hockey, but he will still think for it, speak for it, keep its soul alive in some way.

Someday, I dare say, he will even don a jersey for us again, put on skates again, not in competition but to treat us to another taste of that with which he nourished us for so long. And someday soon he’ll go to Toronto to stand in Bell Hall as his name goes on the wall behind the Stanley Cup.

And he’ll also do many things we’ll never hear about, the kinds of great things a man like this does if he is only a private citizen and not somebody famous. Those things will be pretty cool too.

The point is, a man like Guy Carbonneau, a man who impacted hockey for two decades, a man who closed out his career with one of the most amazing years a 40-year-old athlete ever had, does not disappear. (Nor, may I add, will his website.) And if you think the suspense is over and we can all close the book and cry over the ending, you’re wrong.

It’s time to keep wondering and watching, waiting and anticipating. What else will Guy do? How’s he going to amaze us this time? I don’t have the answers, but I can tell you one thing, dear friends:

He’s coming back to you.

       —Diane Lau, June 28, 2000

Photos by Brad Amodeo