“Ian White was the big player when I came here,” he says. “He’d been drafted by the Leafs and he had gone to the world juniors. He was just going to do things his way. In training camp we were supposed to show up for fitness testing in the weight room at the rink, and we were all there in our gym stuff. He shows up in jeans and a cowboy hat. He didn’t even take it off when he had to do the bench [press]. He did one rep and put the bar back on the rack and said, ‘That’s all I feel like today.’ He coulda done dozens of reps. And he gave it to the rookies, too. I was scared ****less. On the bus, I was afraid to even look around my first season. I sat near the front— all the veterans were in the back— and one time when I turned around White saw me and said, ‘What the f— are you lookin’ at?’ After that I didn’t look back the rest of the season. I’m a veteran now, I don’t want to be like White was to the younger players. It doesn’t mean anything to me.”
White has since made it into the Toronto Maple Leafs’ lineup but also into the headlines recently, first for a drunken-driving charge, then for driving with his licence under suspension. The people least surprised by that news were the Broncos. White had asked Chynoweth if he could skate with team before the Leafs’ training camp, then proceeded to carouse around a town where news of that sort would get back to the Broncos’ dressing room before he would. His farewell from the Broncos wasn’t marked by a pre-game tribute but by Chynoweth tossing his equipment out the back door of the arena when White didn’t show up for a practice and breached the coach’s rules. The equipment lay unclaimed for several hours.
