Sport Express Daily article
July 14, 2006
By Slava Malamud

Up to a point, Detroit was a place relatively little known in Russia, and one might wonder now whether it is still remembered as fervently as just years ago. Try to find out and you will see it is known not only – far less, for that matter - for being the U.S. carmaking center than for one thing people might think is only for insiders – Detroit Red Wings.

Despite rising interest recently in the resurgent and aggressively marketed Russian ice hockey league, many people still remember the Red Wings as the most loved hockey team of their teenage years, and still wear winged-wheel baseball caps bought from some mysterious and doubtless counterfeit seller in a downtown undercrossing. They stick to red and white when they watch hockey, drink to Vladimir Konstantinov’s recovery and remember their first “hey, they also have Red Wings overseas” astonishment.

Admittedly, this is mostly because the Wings’ Russians – Vyacheslav Fetisov and Igor Larionov who, together with Konstantinov, Sergei Fedorov, and Vyacheslav Kozlov, formed The Russian Five greatly revered for the sporting pride they brought to Russia – were the first to raise the Stanley Cup on Red Square. Well, you might also think it was because the first Russian tennis star Anna Kournikova’s name was also somehow associated with Detroit… To be sure, a Russian could hardly like Detroit without being a hockey fan. This is a not a “show city” – it is a mass of concrete and iron, a city that works.

Now it’s time to learn more about Detroit’s true sporting idol. No, not the Russians. Not even the Detroit longtimer Scottie Bowman but the man who was not there for a show. The man that worked. The man whose nickname was the same as his job description – The Captain – and whose retirement last month marked the end of an era which many Wings fans call Stevie Time. Steve Yzerman.

“Oo-tser-man”
Back in 1983, Yzerman the draftee was definitely not the one the Wings had wanted. The pizza king Mike “Little Caesar” Ilitch, who had just acquired the penniless and wretched franchise, was determined to fight for the delicate and skilful Pat LaFontaine, a whiz kid who, in addition to good results in the rink, could clearly draw good PR outside because he was Detroit-born. However, LaFontaine was taken third by the Islanders, and Jim Devellano, the Red Wings GM at the time, had to take what was left. A lucky leftover it turned to be.

The medium-built guy from Ottawa, quiet and serious, with his childish face and stubborn resistance to drink anything stronger than milk, who took jersey #19 in the honor of his favorite Islander Bryan Trottier, had his talent hidden deep inside. It would take a true psychological talent to tell the team they were taking in their future Captain. Partly due to this, the 18-year-old Yzerman came to the league with half the newspaper fuss (and probably with double effect) than many.

In his first years, Yzerman was a challenge for many NHL announcers who did not know how his name was properly pronounced. Fifteen years later, it would prove just as challenging for the U.S. President Bill Clinton. Truly excited about meeting the Stanley Cup Winners at the traditional White House reception, he said, “I congratulate Detroit Red Wings and their captain, Steve… er… Oo-tser-man?”

Well, Clinton was a southerner and therefore somehow alien to hockey, you would say, but George H. W. Bush, also not a big man for the stick and the puck, never mispronounced Mario Lemieux’s Quebecois name. This is telling enough: everyone knew Lemieux was a hockey superstar and a living monument to the NHL. Yzerman was different. The word “superstar” somehow did not exactly fit his image. However, asking any Wings fan whether they would swap Yzerman for Lemieux, or Gretzky, or Orr, or Kharlamov, or a Better World for All Things Living, don’t expect a positive answer. They wouldn’t.

Early Years with Detroit Dead Things
Right now, Detroit, with over 80 home games per season, is more popular across North America than some could imagine and, frankly, far more popular than many can put up with - a far cry from Steve’s first years in the League, when home and outside fans rightly dismissed as Dead Wings or even Dead Things a team that only once qualified for the playoffs in 13 pre-Yzerman seasons. In those times, the team now every hockey rink across America can only dream of had to cheat people into buying tickets by drawing lotteries after home games with a car – an easy guess, in Detroit – as the reward (the did the same with sewing or washing machines in the old Soviet lower soccer leagues – though admission was almost free, no people would ever come otherwise).

In the League, most talented rookies very often go to most awful teams. One example is Lemieux who found Pittsburgh in an even worse shape than Yzerman’s Detroit. Steve, however, was not deemed as a messiah, which probably helped. Walking very softly, he scored in his very first appearance and soon became the center in the first five. Finishing second only to Buffalo tender Tom Barrasso in the Rookie of the Year voting, he became the youmgest-ever NHL All-Star.

He was also nominated for the Canada Cup 1984 but skipped much of the tournament because of illness. If only he knew this was just the beginning of his bad luck with international play.

The early years of his career marked with highly intellectual play, high scores and often bright and somewhat fanciful goals, Yzerman became a real star in Detroit. Otherwise, however, the team was still largely a failure, and his talent was overshadowed because he played the same position, and in the same era, as Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux. Now fans worship the Wings star forward Pavel Datsyuk for a fraction of what Yzerman was doing 20 years ago, but then it was hard to shine brighter that others. No wonder he made the First Team All-Star only once.

The following years, though short on awards, brought to him something more valuable – the position of the captain, which he acquired at an age of 21, becoming Detroit’s youngest captain ever, and renounced 19 years later only with resignation, becoming the longest-serving captain of a single team in NHL history.

The Foreman at the Star Factory
Not any highly talented sportsman can make a superstar. To be a superstar, you need to behave like one: you need to have talents other than hockey, you need to be good with TV and have superb media talking skills, some scandal now and then comes handy… Gretzky was a superstar on every count. Lemieux was an exception that confirmed the rule. Yzerman, it seems, was not a superstar because he never wanted to behave superstar-ish.

As captain, he presided over scores of super- and megastar players that made the Wings of the late 1990s a team of fame and glamour. Under Bowman the Monumental, Larionov the Highbrow, Shanahan the Devil, Hull the Warrior, Konstantinov the Vladiator, Draper the Chain Dog, Fetisov the Legend, Cofey the Uncatch-Unmatchable, Robitaille the Lucky Cowboy, Fedorov the Tabloid Man, Chelios the Feisty, Hasek the Saucerman, Hatcher the Bandit, Datsyuk the God’s Foundling, and others glittered brightly, quietly driven by Yzerman’s authority, rarely spoken and always irreproachable. Through all his years in professional hockey, his temper hardly changed, as well as his stature.

Many say, rightly, that Yzerman’s mystique could better be explained by what he didn’t do than by what he did. He did not change teams (unheard of in our age of relentless self-marketing). He hardly ever gave reporters a single chance to twist his words - because he kept himself to himself and never spoke much – or air some dirty-linen photos – because his private life was never part of a scandal. Last but not least, he never conflicted with the coach, never threatened to leave the club (as in the mid-1990s when Detroit was contemplating many swaps at a time), never whined over his wage, and never put his own ambitions ahead of those of the club.

This last point became especially important in the 1990s, when Detroit, powered by Ilitch’s money and an ambition to end the longest 40-year drought in the NHL, was on the rise. They were widely seen as League’s best team but had to face grim reality in the playoffs when the Devils and the Avalanche physically smashed the Wings into pieces in two successive years. The Stanley Cup was going not to the smart, elegant and delicate but to the tough and mighty.

Bowman who had joined the team in 1993 said what Detroit had lacked to win the Stanley was hardness, and deployed his 5-ft-10 captain to set the example. Detroit has too many scorers but too few workers who could play better defense, the GM said, and converted Yzerman into a defensive forward. Which meant covering a larger area, blocking shots, and – importantly – not having as many scoring opportunities, with evident financial implications.

A superstar would have put up a fight – remember Sergei Fedorov’s row with Bowman several years later despite he former’s excellent performance as a defensive forward - but Steve was not much of a superstar and did not bristle. The defensive position may have deprived him of a higher standing in the All-Time scoring ranking (which he might well have achieved, consistently tallying over 100 points each season) but it certainly contributed to the team’s success. He adapted to Bowman’s requirements and has never since recorded anything close to 100 per season. The Wings, however, took three Stanley Cups in a row.

Keenan’s Wrath
Peaceful as he were, Yzerman was not an “everybody-loves-me” person. One of the exceptions was, unluckily for the Wings captain, Canadian national coach Mike Keenan. Why Iron Mike disliked Yzerman is unclear but it should be something really important, for it is hard to otherwise explain their acid relationship. Not listing Yzerman for Canada Cup 1987 at all, he short-listed him in 1991 but dismissed as undeserving and unimpressive days before the tournament, at a news conference panned by scores of TV networks, with Yzerman sitting by his side. For Yzerman, Keenan became the harbinger of bad luck on international ice (Steve’s only international trophy – the Salt Lake City Olympic gold - came when he was a 37-year-old vet). During the Cup, Canadian fans met Keenan with “Eye-Zer-Man! Eye-Zer-Man!” chants to show what they thought about his recruitment policies. Steve said nothing.

The revenge came five years later when Yzerman effectively took the Stanley Cup from Keenan’s grip, scoring an incredible goal against his St. Louis - well into the overtime of the seventh decisive playoff game. His shot from outside the zone was so powerful that the tender did not even move. Mike was apoplectic with rage. Steve was as calm as ever.

Last Game Standing
In terms of career, Yzerman’s top title is that of the triple Stanley Cup Winner. Turning Detroit into a hockeytown in 1997, the Wings, rallying around the injured Konstantinov and team masseuse Sergei Mnatsakanov, swept Stanley again next year, earning their captain the Conn Smythe trophy as playoff MVP. However, it is not only because of titles that Yzerman’s legacy should be valued.

It was the 2002 season, the season of the most promising Wings in history, when his leadership and commitment came to the fore.

From the beginning, the season was unlosable. Indeed, Ilitch reached too deeply into his purse to lose. Not with Hull, Robitaille, and Hasek – all in all nine likely Hall of Famers – on the roster.

The regular season was too easy. Detroit secured first place in the conference somewhere around Christmas and had not bothered to make any more wins – Atlanta was too weak to count anyway – until the end of the regulars. In line with the Russian proverb about how bad it is to underestimate the enemy, the Wings promised to beat everyone black and blue with their own hats (a realistic proposition, had they some Russian headwear). So, the Detroiters got their favorite hats from the lockers, dusted them off and prepared for extensive use throughout the playoffs.

Then came the first round. Oops.

In a story that has become a staple of all tributes to Yzerman, the Wings, with all their grandeur and tough-guy behavior, were neatly and very professionally beaten in the first two games at home, in the Joe Louis Arena, by “some unknown team from Vancouver with a tender whose name is hard to remember.” Hull shot wide, Hasek missed the puck awkwardly, and the team was heading straight for the bitterest embarrassment in history. Steve scored in both games but one man was clearly not enough. Much less a man with only one knee.

Steve’s right knee was in a state one can lie in a hospital or probably walk carefully - but not run and not play with. Being not much of a speaker, Steve will hardly ever bother to fund words to describe the crushing pain, but it’s better not to imagine. He did not attend a single pre-game skate through the entire playoffs, and could not practice. After every game – he did not miss one – his knee swelled up and the doctors had to lay ice bags from his ankle all the way up to his hip to settle the swelling down.

Steve used to recall he was sure the knee might cut his career short at any moment.

After warm-ups before Game Two against Vancouver, Yzerman went back to Bowman and said he didn’t think he could play.

Scottie, whose toughness may well have matched that of ancient Spartans (ah, that’s where he learnt coaching, witty Canadians will sure add), said, “Do what you can do.” They went and they lost, and at that point, Steve says, he did not think he could bail out anymore. The team needed a leader.

When Brendan Shanahan, also a leadership-oriented player, asked Yzerman if he would address the team before Game Three, Yzerman said at first there was no point. But Shanahan insisted, and Steve gave a speech he barely remembers, after which he scored again, knocked down Vancouver’s power forward Todd Bertuzzi, and the team won four straight games and went on at full steam to the Stanley Cup. Yzerman finished the season as the first on Detroit’s scoring list and the first at the local clinic’s waiting list for osteotomy, radical knee surgery doctors say only totally dysfunctional old legs would normally be subject to.

Injuries did not bring the captain down. There were more after the knee – an eye and ribs injuries, the latter preventing him from showing his best play in the last season. Already in his forties, he followed new coach Mike Babcock’s advice to be not so fast and provide more backup than real play (imagine what another player with such a record would reply to this) and refused to join the Olympic team, telling Sport Express in December that, looking back at how he had played through the season, he did not think he was fit for the Olympics. He agreed with critics, relied on his inner toughness and brain – and for the Wings, remained Their Captain. Detroit, again a star-laden team, was swept in the first playoff round by Edmonton, but Yzerman is probably the last man to blame for this.

And when he felt he could do no more for the club – he left. Someone else would insist on a farewell tour, or wait for another year or two, quietly saving money, or struggle to find a low-key team that would take him in for his past achievements, rather than real performance. Again, Yzerman deserves highest credit for not doing what would have tainted his moral high ground: he retired quietly and decently, not claiming any honors and leaving a legacy of true sporting faithfulness.

For the lovers of NHL statistics, he is the longest-serving captain of any team in the League history. For the team and for the city, he was – and is, and will be – just The Captain. Forever.