July 8, 2020

By Danny Gallagher

Canadian Baseball Network

Dino Masanotti goes to bed every night and cries.

He cries that he's still alive, that he lives to see another day. He cries that he has outmaneuvered doctors who told him bad news about his quality of life when he left Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal.

After all, the Expos fan and long-time hockey coach in Quebec and Switzerland was declared dead twice after he fell to the ice four years ago in suburban Montreal even after he was pumped back to life twice following a stroke and then a heart attack.

"I was in a coma for 10 days and when I woke up, two people there to see me were Jean Perron, the former Canadiens coach and Guy Boucher, the former Ottawa Senators coach. They're two good friends of mine,'' Masanotti said in an interview.

When a doctor came to see him in hospital, he told Masanotti, then 54, that his prospects were grim. That's why he cries every night. There were some problems with a main artery and that blood flow to the brain wasn't very good but he has outduelled the medical experts.

"They said I would be a vegetable,'' Masanotti said. "They said I wouldn't walk again. They said I wouldn't skate again. They said I would walk with a cane. I'm walking and I've skated and I'm doing cross-fit at home twice a week.''

When the doctor told him, he was going to be a vegetable, Masanotti said, "Screw you.''

When the doctor told him he would have to walk with a cane, Masanotti replied, "Are you crazy?''

And when Masanotti told the doctor he would walk up and down the stairs, the doctor said, "Impossible.''

Masanotti admits, "I'm lucky.''

That's why he cries every night.

Masanotti has coached Triple-A hockey in Quebec and was an assistant coach in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League with the New Brunswick-based Bathurst Titan.

His biggest memory of the Expos? One day in the early 1970s, he got close to the Expos dugout and who should he get talking to was hitting coach Larry Doby.

"I spoke with Larry Doby and he gave me a bat but I lost my bat,'' Masanotti said. "My dad had tickets just beyond the dugout. I have such great memories of the Expos.”