It may be hockey heaven in Saskatoon these days – with the semi-finals and final of the world junior hockey championship about to begin – but we are talking politics, not fisticuffs.
In last fall’s municipal election, one candidate for mayor, Johnny Melenchuk, actually did tape up his knuckles with tinfoil, slap on a long black wig and a Charlestown Chiefs hockey jersey and set out to convince the electorate that he was just the man for the job.
He never had a chance, not up against Don Atchison, who may be Canada’s most dapper mayor, who was once named “Canada’s craziest mayor” and who, most important, actually did play for the Johnstown Jets, the brawling minor-league hockey club that was the inspiration behind 1977’s cult classic hockey movie Slap Shot.
Atchison, who once played goal for the local junior club, the Saskatoon Blades, had a brief professional hockey career before going into the men’s clothing business with his father and then into municipal politics, where he recently won his third successive term by a landslide.
Atchison’s locker with the Jets was right next to that of Ned Dowd, who could often be seen scribbling notes when Atchison and the other players were razzing each other in the dressing room. Atchison one day asked his teammate what the heck he was doing and Dowd claimed his sister, Nancy, wanted to write a screenplay for a Hollywood movie about hockey and he was trying to help her.
“Yeah, sure,” Atchison shrugged sarcastically, “and I’ve got some swampland in Florida I’d like you to look into.” But Ned got the last laugh. Nancy Dowd used her brother’s notes to write a hilarious screenplay on the game. She took Atchison’s big humour and the character of the Jets’ other goaltender, little Louis Levasseur of Rouyn-Noranda, and created Denis Lemieux, a Slap Shot character almost as well known as Paul Newman’s Reggie Dunlop and the infamous Hanson Brothers.
Lemieux is the one who explains penalties to the broadcaster: “You do that, you go to the box, you know. Two minutes, by yourself, you know, and you feel shame, you know. And then you get free.”
“Everything in that movie is true,” Atchison says with a laugh.
Even the puttin’ on the foil that the Hanson Brothers used to make their knuckles more dangerous during fights?
“Absolutely,” Atchison says. “I watched them work it onto their knuckles. I said, ‘What’s this for?’”
“And they said, ‘Well, if you just leave a bit out and you hit a guy and twist your fist, it will tear the flesh right off his face,’” Atchison says.
His brief hockey career over, Atchison returned to Saskatoon and, after several successful years in the retail business, decided to try municipal politics. He ran on a platform calling for tough measures against crime and for police reform – this being the aftermath of the infamous “midnight ride” in which a 17-year-old aboriginal froze to death after police dumped him on the edge of town in subzero temperatures – and he won, and kept winning.
Comedian Rick Mercer tagged Atchison “Canada’s craziest mayor” after the newly elected politician instituted a strict dress code at city hall, including for visitors. The code was soon dropped, but Atchison still went on Mercer’s show to make a humble acceptance speech.
In the years since, his city has prospered as Saskatchewan has become a “have” province. Though some called the city Saskaboom, Atchison refuses to join them.
