IGN.com interview
December 1, 2003

Back in 1986, Steve Yzerman became the youngest captain in Red Wings history by sewing the C on his jersey when he hit the legal age of 21. Now, 13 years later, not to mention three Stanley Cups, an Olympic Gold Medal, and over 1,500 points, Yzerman is skating to the forefront again, only this time the C is for coverboy as he mugs it up for Microsoft’s new game, NHL Rivals 2004.

IGN Sports caught up with the fast moving Stevie-Y and asked him about the Red Wings, mullets, and turning some of those octopi into calamari. Here’s what Detroit’s favorite son, by way of Canada, of course, had to say.

IGN Sports: What’s the one thing about the NHL that’s the most difficult for a video game to capture?

Steve Yzerman: I think the hardest thing to capture is what the puck handler sees when he’s taking a shot. From the games that I’ve played, and you’re coming in on the goaltender, you have an idea of where you’re going because you’re looking at the angle through the eyes of the audience or the television and not through the eyes of the player. It’s almost like you see too much, because when it happens for real, everything flies at you so fast, you never get a sense of the ice and where everyone is at that one moment. On replays, they capture it really well, but it’s the one area I’d want to see them work on for future games, trying to capture what the player sees as he skates down the ice.

IGN Sports: What types of things do you see down on the ice that the audience doesn’t pick up on because we’re so far away?

Steve Yzerman: Being out last year with an injury, I sat up high and watched a lot of games, and you see so much more and it just seems so much slower from up top. When you’re on the ice, you have very little time, you see very little, and everything happens really quick. The one thing that I notice from watching a game as opposed to being out on the ice is that you’re able to see a man open, you’re able to say that the puck should be passed here or there, but on the ice you just see it so much differently. Everything’s at eye level, and if you look the wrong way, you might miss out on the perfect pass that everyone up high is screaming about.

IGN Sports: The game is called NHL Rivals 2004. Now, what rivalries are you most looking forward to rekindling in the game?

Steve Yzerman: Detroit/Colorado obviously is a good rivalry, mostly because both teams have been very competitive, and that’s the biggest reason for the rivalry. Anaheim beat us four straight last year, so I’d like to get another shot at them in the game. I’d love to see how Jean Giguere can handle my shots in my own video game. Then any of the original six are always popular when you match them up.

IGN Sports: One of the coolest features in Rivals is an online pickup game where you play 3-on-3 and every player has a playing type, from sniper to agitator. If you had to sum up your skills in one word, what type of player would you be?

Steve Yzerman: I don’t see myself as an agitator and I really don’t consider myself a sniper by any means, I might be a basic role player. Do they have that option in the game? [laughs] Balanced is probably what I am, although that’s just a polite way to say that you don’t do anything very well.

IGN Sports: You have to be good at something, you’ve been in the league over 20 years.

Steve Yzerman: You’d be surprised. [laughs]

IGN Sports: With each generation of games, the graphics just keep getting more and more realistic. But as I look at all of the players, I just have to ask, why are mullets so fashionable in the NHL?

Steve Yzerman: [laughs] Because that’s the only hairdo that looks good under a helmet. The 70’s hair with the long on the sides, just doesn’t look good coming down the sides of the helmet.

IGN Sports: I was also always curious about all of the octopi being thrown onto the ice. Did you ever try to make calamari out of one of them?

Steve Yzerman: Honestly, I don’t know what they do with them. We had a game back in 1995 in the playoffs that just got out of hand. Everywhere you looked, there was an octopus being thrown onto the ice. I don’t know if they just throw them all out in the garbage or what.

IGN Sports: How did the tradition get started?

Steve Yzerman: I don’t know the exact year, but there was this guy in Detroit who I think owned a fish market, and initially in the old NHL, there were only two rounds in the playoffs, so this guy ran down and threw one on the ice — the eight tentacles representing each win that it took to win the Stanley Cup. That’s where it originated, but now you have to win 16 games. We need to find something that has 16 legs, I guess.

IGN Sports: The game also features games of pond hockey. Is playing on the pond how you got started as a kid?

Steve Yzerman: Absolutely. As a kid in British Columbia, going back a long way, I learned to skate. My parents would take us on weekends up to a lake and we’d shovel off a little part of it, wheel the station wagon up, open the back, put on our skates, and we’d skate around all the time. The ice used to get snowy pretty quick and there isn’t a zamboni out there to clean it off. We used to play a lot outdoors, not in leagues, but just in our spare time. The snow builds up after a while and you’d lose the puck in the snow bank. Eventually the puck starts to roll, it doesn’t really slide anymore.

IGN Sports: Ever get checked into a snow bank?

Steve Yzerman: As a matter of fact, that’s probably half the fun, getting hit into a snow bank. As a kid, that’s just the fun thing to do.

IGN Sports: What’s the best hit you ever laid on someone in a game?

Steve Yzerman: [laughs] I don’t know if I’ve ever had a memorable body check. It’s not really part of my game. I’ve been hit hard a few times, been hit really hard a few times, but I don’t think I’ve ever left a memorable, lasting impression on anyone I’ve ever hit.

IGN Sports: I was trying to think, and I can’t remember you ever really getting into a fight either.

Steve Yzerman: I honestly don’t think I’ve been in a fight in over ten years. And any of the fights that I did participate in, weren’t of any note. Nobody ever got hurt stepping in front of one of my punches, let’s put it that way.

vIGN Sports: Do any players actually train to fight or box in the offseason?

Steve Yzerman: I think in the past, there were a couple of players like Joey Kocur and Bobby Probert trained out in Detroit with Emanuel Stewart, the guy who trained Thomas Hearns. They trained with him. I think Darren McCarty has also done a little bit, but I think it’s more for conditioning. I don’t know much about the techniques of fighting, but I know throwing a punch on skates is a lot different than throwing a punch from the ground. There used to be an old thing where every team had a heavy bag in their locker room for people to punch, but again, it was more about conditioning because if you hit a heavy bag for a minute, it feels like your arms are about to fall off. For a lot of guys these days, though, I think they get more training for their fingers playing the video games.

IGN Sports: Do a lot of guys play video games on the Red Wings?

Steve Yzerman: We have two tables on our airplane that are set up with the games. Darren McCarty is a big video game guy, and he brings his systems with him on the road. Mathieu Dandenault and Jason Woolley play a lot of games together as well.

IGN Sports: Does that give you ultimate bragging rights since you’re on the cover of the game they’re playing?

Steve Yzerman: Yeah, I’m going to make sure they’re playing my game. I’m going to bring some extra ones on the road with me, make sure they’re playing it. The more I play the game, though, the more I feel lost. The games today are just so much different than the ones I used to play. I used to play a lot more of the baseball games than the hockey games, but that was back when there was just one or two buttons. That’s when I actually had a chance to win.

IGN Sports: The Red Wings are already the best team in NHL Rivals. Would you say that you’re the favorites to win the Stanley Cup in real life as well?

Steve Yzerman: I don’t know that I would say that. New Jersey won last year and they’re off to a strong start. I would probably say that they are the favorites to win it right now. That doesn’t mean that they will, but I’d put them at the top, especially since they’re the defending champions and they’re just playing so well.

IGN Sports: What do you guys need to do to overcome the champs and go all the way?

Steve Yzerman: For us, you know our team has changed significantly because of all the injuries. But for us to succeed, we need to keep the puck out of our net, play strong defensively throughout the course of the entire season, and I think the main thing is to just play better in close games. We can score goals, we will score goals, but we also need to be able to shut teams down and hold our leads in the third period. That means not only shutting down the goals, but shutting out the scoring chance completely. We have to get better at that. All of the Stanley Cup winning teams throughout the past few seasons, when they needed to play defense, they did it. If you can play defense, that’s when you know it’s game over.