The WIngs!
Pro hockey never really excited me that much. The play was too violent, the season too long-and they were pros. i was never sure if they played because they loved the game or because they were being paid-unlike college athletes that you KNEW played because they loved it-because at Michigan State, they kicked you off the team if you didn't pull the grades (the football players were the ones that got a pass).
But I always had a soft spot for red Wings. When my Dad and I would drive home after a MSU hockey game and it was the dead of winter and we'd be freezing until the heat came on-the Wings would always have a game on. And this was at a time when when their nickname was Dead Things or Dead Wings-and the if you had told them then that they would win the Stanley Cup four times in 11 years, they would have laughed at you. I cried the first time they won the Cup. They won for their Captain, the indefatigable Steve Yzerman, who always gave it everything he had, who loved Detroit and led by example. The man who never got into trouble and worked hard every single time he was on the ice. By the time they won, everyone was afraid he was too old and that time had passed him and the team by-and if he was little slower than he was at the start of his career, nobody said anything-and then they won the Cup. All the players said at the time, that they won it for their Captain-how could they not? They loved him and he had lead them their-how could they go all this way and not win it for him?
And then they won it again. And this time, they said it was for themselves. To show that they could do it, that it wasn't a fluke, that they really were that good. Did they have anything left to prove? And the answer to that is yes-Yzerman is gone, Shanahan is gone, Sergei Federov is gone and so is Scotty Bowman and the new group wanted to prove that they were just as good, if not better than the old guard (well, the relatively speaking old guard).
And who did they pick as the Captain? I don't really want to turn this into a essay on Nicklas Lidstrom, on what a great player he is or how they couldn't have picked anyone better as Captain-but it's all true. They picked another man who leads by example, who doesn't talk about himself, but who has won the Norris Trophy )for the best defenseman in the NHL) five times, the Conn Smythe Trophy once (for the MVP in the series), the gold medal at the Olympics and the Stanley Cup four times-and he doesn't want to talk about himself (of course he doesn't, he's Swedish). But I do want to say what a grand gesture it was to hand the Cup off to Dallas Drake after his turn on the ice with it. It's always symbolic, who the Captain hands it to-sometimes it's a veteran, sometimes an up-and comer, sometimes the most valuable player. Lidstrom handed it off to 16 year veteran who had never really come close to the Cup before and was on the verge of retiring.
Thank you, Nik for being a not only player that Detroit can be proud of but for being that guy, the guy who hands off the Cup to a veteran player who hadn't come close to it before. That says volumes about who you are as a person and as a hockey player. The veteran Wings always say, if you want to know how to act-watch Nik. Watch what he does, how acts and what he says, and I can think of few better examples in sports or in daily life than to be like Nik. Not flashy, not bragging, but getting the job done every day and leading by example-you would be hard put to find someone with better character than this 38 year-old Swede who has made a home for himself in Detroit.
But I always had a soft spot for red Wings. When my Dad and I would drive home after a MSU hockey game and it was the dead of winter and we'd be freezing until the heat came on-the Wings would always have a game on. And this was at a time when when their nickname was Dead Things or Dead Wings-and the if you had told them then that they would win the Stanley Cup four times in 11 years, they would have laughed at you. I cried the first time they won the Cup. They won for their Captain, the indefatigable Steve Yzerman, who always gave it everything he had, who loved Detroit and led by example. The man who never got into trouble and worked hard every single time he was on the ice. By the time they won, everyone was afraid he was too old and that time had passed him and the team by-and if he was little slower than he was at the start of his career, nobody said anything-and then they won the Cup. All the players said at the time, that they won it for their Captain-how could they not? They loved him and he had lead them their-how could they go all this way and not win it for him?
And then they won it again. And this time, they said it was for themselves. To show that they could do it, that it wasn't a fluke, that they really were that good. Did they have anything left to prove? And the answer to that is yes-Yzerman is gone, Shanahan is gone, Sergei Federov is gone and so is Scotty Bowman and the new group wanted to prove that they were just as good, if not better than the old guard (well, the relatively speaking old guard).
And who did they pick as the Captain? I don't really want to turn this into a essay on Nicklas Lidstrom, on what a great player he is or how they couldn't have picked anyone better as Captain-but it's all true. They picked another man who leads by example, who doesn't talk about himself, but who has won the Norris Trophy )for the best defenseman in the NHL) five times, the Conn Smythe Trophy once (for the MVP in the series), the gold medal at the Olympics and the Stanley Cup four times-and he doesn't want to talk about himself (of course he doesn't, he's Swedish). But I do want to say what a grand gesture it was to hand the Cup off to Dallas Drake after his turn on the ice with it. It's always symbolic, who the Captain hands it to-sometimes it's a veteran, sometimes an up-and comer, sometimes the most valuable player. Lidstrom handed it off to 16 year veteran who had never really come close to the Cup before and was on the verge of retiring.
Thank you, Nik for being a not only player that Detroit can be proud of but for being that guy, the guy who hands off the Cup to a veteran player who hadn't come close to it before. That says volumes about who you are as a person and as a hockey player. The veteran Wings always say, if you want to know how to act-watch Nik. Watch what he does, how acts and what he says, and I can think of few better examples in sports or in daily life than to be like Nik. Not flashy, not bragging, but getting the job done every day and leading by example-you would be hard put to find someone with better character than this 38 year-old Swede who has made a home for himself in Detroit.
posted by SHbookworm at 5:18 PM
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