Last year on January 3, I linked to an article by ESPN the Magazine senior writer Eric Adelson about Steve Yzerman and the Detroit Red Wings reaching out to a little boy named Braxton, who had been diagnosed with cancer. As the big Yzerman fan that I am, I was very touched by the article and even more impressed with how much Yzerman had reached out to Braxton.

Yzerman told the boy to stick around and watch practice. Braxton did, and his eyes locked on the players as they whizzed by. Brendan Shanahan zipped over and handed Braxton a broken stick. Brant gasped, but Braxton hardly raised an eyebrow. “That’s cool,” he said. “But it’s not Steve’s.” Brant grimaced and looked around, hoping no one heard. But behind him, then-goalie Curtis Joseph roared in laughter. The next night, Yzerman invited Braxton to the Detroit locker room.

I enjoyed the piece so much that I emailed the reporter, Eric, with a couple questions. He responded with how he came across this story.

I was actually in town to see my parents last spring, since I grew up in Ann Arbor. I dropped down to The Joe because I wanted to do a story on Yzerman for the Magazine in case he did retire. I always let the beat writers ask all their questions first before butting in, but Yzerman disappeared after only a couple of questions. I waited him out and annoyed media relations guy John Hahn (who is as much behind the Braxton cause as Steve is, by the way). Eventually, the only people in the locker room were John and I and a little kid and his dad. So I asked John who the kid was and he told me. I introduced myself and Brant told me the whole story. I promised myself that I would write the story when they raised Yzerman’s number.

Since that article, I formed a mentor/mentee relationship with Eric so I was disappointed to learn last August that Braxton’s father, Brant, had scammed the Red Wings and Steve Yzerman. Eric felt awful that he had been duped by Brant because as a reporter, he should uncover the truth instead of leading readers astray. He even apologized to me because he felt we met through a story that wasn’t even correct.

He informed me that he would be working on an article to tell the truth about Brant and that Braxton was not sick with cancer. Earlier this week, the second article was finally released uncovering the scam artist that is Brant. The amazing thing is that even after Steve Yzerman invested all this time and money in making a little sick boy happier and being duped in the process, Yzerman says he will reach out to sick kids even more.

A few months after that conversation with Hahn my phone rings. The caller ID reads “BLOCKED.” It’s Yzerman. I tell him the whole story. “Really bizarre,” Yzerman says, without sounding angry or frustrated. In a way, his calm makes sense. Yzerman began his career with one of the worst teams in NHL history. And though he lifted that club into the playoffs, he was nearly shipped to Ottawa, then asked to play second fiddle to a flashy Russian. Over the years he rehabbed from crippling injuries and, by the end of his career, needed to prop himself up on the ice with his stick. But who ever saw Yzerman angry? Who ever saw him give up?

“I’m not going to stop reaching out,” Yzerman says. “Actually, I think I might do it more often.”

And the little boy?

“Braxton is a nice young boy who seems to have been manipulated. I hope he can realize he did something wrong. It’s not too late for him.”

The true story of the hockey hero and the healthy little boy begins now.

Maple Leafs reach out to sick kid
In a similar situation but with a much better outcome, the Toronto Maple Leafs reached out to a little boy Jordan Primeau who has cancer. You can view a great segment done by TSN about Primeau’s trip to a Toronto practice and who he got to meet along the way (including a visit from Alexander Ovechkin).

Marty Henwood, a writer for Hockey.com, compares and contrasts the story of Jordan with Braxton and comes to this conclusion.

Not surprising to those who have followed his career, Yzerman plans to continue a relationship with that kid he once believed faced same obscure future as Jordan Primeau.

A player can always leave the game. Class never retires.

Yzerman may have been duped, yes. But the kid was conned far worse by his own father.

So, maybe, just maybe, the stories of Braxton and Jordan aren’t as different as we think.

Soon after Yzerman’s retirement ceremony on January 2nd, I read that the Wings and FSN were planning on making a retirement ceremony DVD. Unfortunately, it sounds like those plans have fallen apart and we likely will not see a DVD in the future. I find this frustrating since we all know how well that DVD would do, particularly here in Michigan.

Tom Grassano, Bronx, N.Y.: I am very confused as to why the Detroit Red Wings organization has not honored Steve Yzerman with a DVD commemorating his career.

Living in NYC when Messier retired, the DVD was presented for pre-order during his retirement ceremony and available a few weeks after. I am still ready to buy one for Yzerman, as I’m sure thousands of people are. What’s the problem?

Helene St. James, Free Press sports writer: I asked John Hahn, the team’s senior director of communications, about an Yzerman retirement ceremony dvd. Here is his reply: “It’s not something the Red Wings could have done on their own. We would have had to partner with the league and Warner Home Videos through their contracts. At the end of the day, we didn’t do it.”

USA Today columnist Kevin Allen believes that one of the many reasons why the Detroit Red Wings can’t sellout is linked to the retirement of No. 19.

The Captain retired: Other than Gordie Howe, no other Red Wing in team history has been as popular as Steve Yzerman. He was the face of the team for two decades, and fans felt his absence dramatically last season. Some realized they had come to see the Yzerman-led Red Wings. Nick Lidstrom is a Hall of Fame-bound player, but the Lidstrom-led Red Wings don’t have the same esprit de corps. Clearly some of Yzerman’s fans have left the building.

According to Bob Duff at the Windsor Star, the retirement of captain Steve Yzerman is one of the reasons why the support for the Red Wings is waning in Detroit.

In the past couple of seasons, the Wings have bid adieu to some of the most colourful players to play for the team during its successful run that led to titles in 1996-97, 1997-98 and 2001-02. Leamington’s Darren McCarty and Brett Hull departed. Brendan Shanahan followed. Finally and most damaging, Steve Yzerman retired.

The captain was so beloved by fans of this team that they’d have packed the place to watch him chase the puck with the aid of a walker.

“I think when Stevie left, it was a factor,” agreed defenceman Nicklas Lidstrom, who replaced Yzerman as captain.

Source: General Motors

Detroit Red Wings owners have given Steve Yzerman a brand new 2007 Chevrolet Suburban at the General Motors’ World Headquarters in Detroit. He received his belated retirement gift yesterday, which was also the same day he was named to the Class of 2007 for the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame.

Scotty Bowman blog on NBC.com
April 20, 2007

People have asked me about coaching Steve Yzerman in the playoffs, and I go back his most recent years, like our series in Vancouver in ‘02. He came into the playoffs all banged up and we didn’t know how long he was going to able to stay with it after going down 0-2 at home. But then we were seeing him produce in Vancouver with goals and playing hurt. He was terrific in that he kind of willed that series to us because of his determination and the fact that he wasn’t going to shut it down.

I don’t know if there was a moment where I realized Steve was transforming himself as a player. When I got to Detroit, he was a real scoring machine, and they had an offensive-type team, but the team wasn’t going to be able to win in the playoffs. In those years, teams could shut them down. The team eventually got a little better, we changed some players around and got a better mixture. But guys that can play offense, generally — if they want to and they apply themselves — can play defense. Not everybody can play offense, but most people can play defense.

And sometimes, it’s a personal sacrifice, but Yzerman had a lot of responsibility on his shoulders at around that halfway stage of his career. He didn’t want to end up getting the tag that he was never on a winner. That was the big carrot for him to say he was a Stanley Cup winner. He was a good leader anyway, but he would sacrifice some of his individual numbers and he did all that. I pretty much convinced him that his stats weren’t going to be as good as they were, but he wasn’t interested in that. He was more interested in leading the team. Everything was on his shoulders to score goals and get points, but I said to him ‘If you change now and work on all parts of the game, then other players are going to have to pick up in the scoring department.’ I think that’s what happened, and we were able to go to the next level as a team.

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NHL.com article
April 5, 2007
by Shawn P. Roarke

Red Wings’ great Steve Yzerman is one of the most-respected players in the NHL’s long history.

Steve Yzerman didn’t need a Stanley Cup championship to be considered a great player and leader.

But the Stanley Cup he won in 1997, and the two that followed in 1998 and 2002, certainly didn’t hurt Yzerman’s Hall of Fame-worthy resume.

In fact, those titles most likely turned a quiet star and exceptional leader in Detroit into an international hockey icon. Even Yzerman acknowledges the role those championships play in the perceptions about him.

“If you play well and win, you’re a heck of a leader,” he once said. “You don’t win, you’re an OK leader. If you don’t play well and you don’t win, you’re a lousy leader.”

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Globe and Mail article
February 1, 2007
by Eric Duhatschek
Link to Article

The perfect metaphor for Steve Yzerman — and the player he eventually turned into - came in the days leading up to the National Hockey League’s 1983 entry draft when Yzerman wasn’t sure about the team that would ultimately select him, and they weren’t exactly sold on him either.

The Red Wings — otherwise known as the Dead Things or the Grey Wings in those sad-sack days — owned the fourth overall pick that year. They coveted a youngster from the Detroit area, one Pat LaFontaine, on the grounds that they needed to rebuild both their team and their franchise and that a local boy might help meet twin needs, on the ice and also in the marketing department.

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The Michigan Review article
January 23, 2007
by Amanda Nichols

The prodigal son has returned home. I speak, of course, of Chris Webber, the University of Michigan basketball star-turned-sometimes-NBA star and his recent signing with the Detroit Pistons. Webber made it clear that he signed with the Pistons out of his hope to win a championship, an accomplishment that has eluded him since he came to Ann Arbor in 1991. Within this reunion of hometown and hero, however, there is an undeniable aspect of redemption.

Webber needs redemption for the sins committed during his time as a Wolverine. You know, the infamous “time-out” incident of the 1993 NCAA Final Four, or the scandal with U-M booster Ed Martin that brought the banners down from the Crisler rafters and several penalties upon the current basketball program, to name a few. Yes, there certainly is a magic in that hometown vibe, for Webber was almost universally cheered by the Palace crowd as he appeared courtside at the Palace of Auburn Hills on Tuesday.

Webber is here now, but he has not been around since 1993, when he left U-M early to enter the draft. Maybe he’s noticed already, but in that time, we Detroiters have become a bit picky about who we let assume that hometown label. Take former MSU basketball standout and “Flintstone” Mateen Cleaves; he might have been a local boy, but fans made him earn his stripes—and he didn’t. Now, he no longer plays professionally.

But don’t let that fool you. Every so often, there is a sports figure who we in this struggling city grasp onto as our own. After all, why not? There isn’t much else left to take hold of.

Imagine this: it’s the summer of 1986. Right around the time that yours truly is making her debut into the world, the Tigers are battling it out for the AL East, the Pistons have most of their “Bad Boys” lineup in place, and the Lions are coming off a 7-9 season—and are about to go 5-11 (some things never change). And, at Joe Louis Arena, a brand new coach—a French-Canadian with his heart on his sleeve (the worst kind of French Canadian)—names a soft-spoken, peach-fuzzed, twenty one-year old kid captain of one of hockey’s most storied—but, in ’86, squandering—franchises.

Now, twenty-one years later, the number of that boy—yes, I can call Steve Yzerman a boy because, surely, at that time he was one—flutters next to those of some of hockey’s all-time greatest players. Perhaps you’re one of those kids, who, like me, knew no other captain in their lifetime. Perhaps you never saw a single season draw to a close without Stevie Y gracing the ice at least once, if not every night. Perhaps you are a bit older and remember the years before the Angel Yzerman came down from Peterborough, Ontario to save the team. Maybe, like me, you saw one of the countless articles written about Yzerman in recent days that lays claim to his class and dignity, his talent, and his leadership both on and off the ice.

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Office of the Governor (Jennifer Granholm)
January 13, 2007

Whereas, The Detroit Red Wing organization with the support of the National Hockey League and Olympia Entertainment, LLC have designated January 2, 2007, as a day to honor Steve Yzerman; and,

Whereas, Yzerman, who recently retired from the Detroit Red Wing Hockey Club, will be only the 6th Detroit Red Wing to have his number retired, after serving twenty years as Captain and playing his entire 23-year career in the city of Detroit; and,

Whereas, Yzerman’s retired jersey number will join Red Wing greats Gordie Howe, Alex Delvecchio, Ted Lindsay, Terry Sawchuk, and Sid Abel high above in the Joe Louis arena rafters; and,

Whereas, Yzerman has been an important representative of the city of Detroit and the State of Michigan throughout his career, and is known as a model professional athlete, father, and husband; and,

Whereas, Yzerman has brought honor and acclaim to the city of Detroit and his fellow Michigan citizens throughout his illustrious career; including three separate visits to The White House to be honored by sitting Presidents after the Red Wings won the Stanley Cup in 1997, 1998, and 2002; and,

Whereas, Throughout his career Yzerman played 1,514 games, scored an impressive 692 goals, tallied 1,063 assists, and is the Red Wings’ all-time leader in assists, and ranks second all-time in goals and points; and

Now therefore be it resolved, That I, Jennifer M. Granholm, Governor of the State of Michigan, do hereby proclaim January 13, 2007, as Steve Yzerman Day in Michigan. Congratulations to Steve on an exemplary career with the Detroit Red Wings. You have made Detroit and the State of Michigan proud.