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Jared Zabransky had no idea.
He'd noticed all the little stick men, 20 of them, drawn inside his locker stall. And he could read the little plaques dedicated to the people who previously resided in his dressing room stall:
Larry Washington, Cliff Olander, Stephan Jones, Rick Worman, Steve Taylor, Tom Muecke, Tony Burke, Shawn Daniels, Bart Hendricks, Jason Johnson and Stephan LeFors.
Yesterday as the columnist was writing those names down and counting up the number of little stick men, Zabransky, the third string quarterback, wondered what in the world I was doing with my head in his locker.
“Documenting the Locker of Death,” I explained.
Ricky Ray, who sits two stalls over, showed sudden interest and came over to inspect the little stick men and listen to the story.
“I'm glad I didn't have that locker,” said Ray at the revelation.
By this time next week, if things don't go well for the Eskimos in this final week of the regular season, construction workers could be gutting the dressing room for the new NFL state of the art
room, expanding from 1,300 square feet to 3,000 plus an entire second floor of meeting rooms and coaches offices to be built for next season.
Yesterday the club announced plans to hold an auction to sell all the stalls.
One wonders how the bidding will go for the Locker of Death.
“It began with Warren Moon and Jim Germany,” long-time equipment manager Dwayne Mandrusiak started spinning the story.
“They occupied the lockers on either side of it and wanted that one stall empty for their extra clothes when the season started. So they had an interest in affecting the decision on who
might be in that locker. Predictably everybody who sat in that locker for a while got cut. Every time one occupant got cut they drew a little stick man.
"Then one day they decided to put a curse on that locker. Right to the end nobody has stayed in that locker a long time.”
Next door is the locker Mandrusiak predicts “will draw as much as $30,000” in the auction.
That's Jason Maas' stall.
Former occupants: Damon Allen and Warren Moon.
For years Mandrusiak has been putting little plaques on the locker when players leave.
He's even held little private ceremonies with the players and their families when the Eskimos have retired.
“I started doing that with Jed Roberts and Trent Brown,” he said.
“When Warren Moon was inducted to the Wall of Fame and so many players from that five-in-a-row team came back, we took them in the dressing room by themselves and they looked at the plaques on their old stalls and believe it or not some of the guys started crying,” said Mandrusiak.
“When Billy Stevenson died we held the funeral in the alumni room and then brought the family down to the dressing room where we took all the big current player names down from the top of
the stalls and put Billy's old name card, which I'd saved, back on his old stall and left the family alone in the room.”
Since becoming the home of the Eskimos on August 30, 1978, Mandrusiak has been making each locker a living shrine and now they'll highlight a live auction, with proceeds to the Eskimos in the Community programs at the end of his famous locker room sale on Sat. Dec. 5.
“If those lockers could talk, think of the stories they could tell,” said Eskimos' president and CEO Rick LeLacheur.
“They have seen nine Grey Cup winning teams, the tears of joy and happiness and loss and frustration. They have seem some of the greatest football players in CFL history come in as timid
rookies and leave as legends. They have been the home of some players for years and others just for moments. They have seen it all.”
There's the father and son locker of Neil and Jesse Lumsden and several where players the status of Dale Potter, Willie Pless and Mo Lloyd have resided. The ones which belonged to Wall of
Famers Gizmo, Williams, Dan Kepley, Tom Wilkinson, Pless, Dave Cutler, Dave Fennell, Brian Kelly, Dan Bass, Tom Scott, Larry Highbaugh and Rod Connop.
And then there's the one where Ricky Ray resides.
“I think Jason Maas' locker is going to be worth a lot more than mine,” said Ray.
But will Ray's be worth more than the cursed Locker of Death? How many players will buy their own lockers back?
How much will all this Eskimo history raise for charity?
In the end Mandrusiak's auction will become part of Eskimos history.