played 1,378 games, scoring 625 goals and 1,016 assists. He won the Stanley Cup twice, the Conn Smythe, the Hart as the leagueâs most valuable player and the Lady Byng as the leagueâs most gentlemanly. Today, Sakic works for the Avalanche in an executive capacity
.
THE LONG JOURNEY FROM DOUBT TO BELIEF: STEVE YZERMAN
(
National Post
, June 14, 2002)
DETROIT, MICHIGAN
T hey are known, as well, by the way they come and go. At the rear entrance to the Joe Louis Arena, the diehard fans with their disposable cameras and autograph binders wait in a small red-and-white cluster at the point where the Red Wings players leave following the final practice before what these fans, and the players, trust will be the final game of the 2002 Stanley Cup playoffs.
Chris Chelios and Brett Hull travel together in a thirty-year-old black Cadillac convertible, roof down, enjoying the spotlight and the cheers even if refusing to acknowledge their adoring fans. Young Russian Pavel Datsyuk stops his dark Mercedes and happily signs a few caps and jersey backs. Popular forward Darren McCarty stops his big SUV and signs his name and poses for photographs for as long as it takes, the lineup to get out of the playersâ parking lot growing ever longer and ever more impatient.
One of those stuck in the lineup is team captain Steve Yzerman. He sits, in a black Yukon behind darkly tinted glass, with his back oddly turned to the window and his stare self-consciously averted. He looks much more like a waiting getaway driver in a bank holdup than the sentimental favourite to win his secondConn Smythe Trophy as the MVP of the playoffs. If the Wings were to have defeated the Carolina Hurricanes in Game 5 last night, the Smythe was expected to go him or to defenceman Nicklas Lidstrom, who has also performed brilliantly this spring for Detroit.
Some of the players who blow by the diehards are lightly booed if they fail to slow or even acknowledge the fansâ presence. But not Yzerman. He sees his opening, stares straight down at the road ahead, turns even more away from them and guns his vehicle out onto the main roadâand still they cheer and shout his name.
To them, thatâs just the way Steve Yzerman is.
There was a time, only a few years ago, when he would disguise himself as he moved about the city. Dark glasses, hat pulled down. At one point, in late 1997, he even admitted that âthe last five years I didnât want to be recognized.â But that was before the one they call âStevie Yâ finally came true. Before the Stanley Cup victories in 1997 and 1998, before he won his first Conn Smythe in 1998 and later added such honours as the 2000 Selke Trophy as the leagueâs best defensive forward, and before Salt Lake City, where he may well have been the best player on the ice this spring when Canada won the Olympic gold medal.
After nineteen years in the same Red Wings uniform, no one doubts Yzerman anymore. He has his Stanley Cup rings, the Olympic gold medal, the Hall of Fame is a lockâand yet he is still essentially the same shy, unfailingly polite, introspective young man who came out of Nepean, Ontario, two decades ago and discovered there was precious little recognition to go around in hockey after Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux had taken their fair share.
It has been a long journey. His has gone from the twenty-one-year-old captain who seemed and acted too young to hold authority to one whose leadership today is lauded. He has gone from sixty-five-goal seasons and incredible scoring featsââThey were so long ago now I donât even remember themââto beingknown as much for his checking as for his scoring. âIt just never got noticed until I stopped scoring,â he once said rather ruefully.
He has gone from the fresh-faced eighteen-year-old who broke in in â83 to a veteran who hobbles between games on a right knee so damaged it very nearly kept him out of the Olympics
.
THE LONG JOURNEY FROM DOUBT TO BELIEF: STEVE YZERMAN
(
National Post
, June 14, 2002)
DETROIT, MICHIGAN
T hey are known, as well, by the way they come and go. At the rear entrance to the Joe Louis Arena, the diehard fans with their disposable cameras and autograph binders wait in a small red-and-white cluster at the point where the Red Wings players leave following the final practice before what these fans, and the players, trust will be the final game of the 2002 Stanley Cup playoffs.
Chris Chelios and Brett Hull travel together in a thirty-year-old black Cadillac convertible, roof down, enjoying the spotlight and the cheers even if refusing to acknowledge their adoring fans. Young Russian Pavel Datsyuk stops his dark Mercedes and happily signs a few caps and jersey backs. Popular forward Darren McCarty stops his big SUV and signs his name and poses for photographs for as long as it takes, the lineup to get out of the playersâ parking lot growing ever longer and ever more impatient.
One of those stuck in the lineup is team captain Steve Yzerman. He sits, in a black Yukon behind darkly tinted glass, with his back oddly turned to the window and his stare self-consciously averted. He looks much more like a waiting getaway driver in a bank holdup than the sentimental favourite to win his secondConn Smythe Trophy as the MVP of the playoffs. If the Wings were to have defeated the Carolina Hurricanes in Game 5 last night, the Smythe was expected to go him or to defenceman Nicklas Lidstrom, who has also performed brilliantly this spring for Detroit.
Some of the players who blow by the diehards are lightly booed if they fail to slow or even acknowledge the fansâ presence. But not Yzerman. He sees his opening, stares straight down at the road ahead, turns even more away from them and guns his vehicle out onto the main roadâand still they cheer and shout his name.
To them, thatâs just the way Steve Yzerman is.
There was a time, only a few years ago, when he would disguise himself as he moved about the city. Dark glasses, hat pulled down. At one point, in late 1997, he even admitted that âthe last five years I didnât want to be recognized.â But that was before the one they call âStevie Yâ finally came true. Before the Stanley Cup victories in 1997 and 1998, before he won his first Conn Smythe in 1998 and later added such honours as the 2000 Selke Trophy as the leagueâs best defensive forward, and before Salt Lake City, where he may well have been the best player on the ice this spring when Canada won the Olympic gold medal.
After nineteen years in the same Red Wings uniform, no one doubts Yzerman anymore. He has his Stanley Cup rings, the Olympic gold medal, the Hall of Fame is a lockâand yet he is still essentially the same shy, unfailingly polite, introspective young man who came out of Nepean, Ontario, two decades ago and discovered there was precious little recognition to go around in hockey after Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux had taken their fair share.
It has been a long journey. His has gone from the twenty-one-year-old captain who seemed and acted too young to hold authority to one whose leadership today is lauded. He has gone from sixty-five-goal seasons and incredible scoring featsââThey were so long ago now I donât even remember themââto beingknown as much for his checking as for his scoring. âIt just never got noticed until I stopped scoring,â he once said rather ruefully.
He has gone from the fresh-faced eighteen-year-old who broke in in â83 to a veteran who hobbles between games on a right knee so damaged it very nearly kept him out of the Olympics
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