The Iginla Factor

There is some argument as to who is the quintessential “Cam Neely” power forward: Vinny Lecavalier or Jarome Iginla. You could say Lecavalier is more finesse, while Iginla is grit and grind. Cam Neely was both.

They can both fight their own battles. They’re both media darlings. They both have scored enough to challenge for the NHL scoring lead. They both have faced adversity in that their teams have struggled to make the playoffs over the years.

Which player gets the nod depends on which conference you reside in. I happen to reside in the west, so Iginla is my choice on the matter. While it’s doubtful any team would turn down a chance at Lecavalier, if they had a choice, I think Iginla would have the edge due to the extra grit factor.

He might have been an afterthought for the 2002 Olympic Winter Games. (He was called in by Wayne Gretzky after the September 2001 evaluation camp had already started.) That was before he took ownership of the 2001-02 NHL season, when he won the Art Ross Trophy as the leading point getter, the Maurice Rocket Richard Trophy for leading goal scorer, and the Lester B. Pearson Award as the Players’ Association most valuable player. He missed out on the league MVP – the Hart Trophy – by an eastern conference media vote.

And still, he faced trade rumors.

In 2003-04, there was no question of Iginla’s leadership. His team traveled the unlikely journey straight to the Stanley Cup final and pushed for a seventh game in the series, only to come out on the short end. He won the King Clancy Memorial Trophy for leadership qualities on and off the ice plus humanitarian contribution. He tied Ilya Kovalchuk and Rick Nash for the Maurice Rocket Richard Trophy.

With all this history, it’s hard to believe there was a time when the Calgary Flames’ acquisition of Jarome Iginla had people thinking “bust,” where he didn’t fulfill immediate expectations. He was touted as the next coming of Theoren Fleury when he arrived at the Pengrowth Saddledome in time for the 1995-96 playoffs – the last time the club would see the post-season until 2003-04.

During his tenure thus far, Iginla has gone through seven head coaches, three team presidents, and three general managers. The team traded an icon in Joe Nieuwendyk (along with Corey Millen) to acquire Iginla December 1995, which is likely why he’s faced so much criticism. But you could say they ultimately traded one icon for another.

The 2007-08 season marked another milestone year for Iginla. He was named captain of the Western Conference All-Star Team, netted 50 goals on the season, and became the franchise all-time goal scoring leader. He received the team’s J. R. McCaig Memorial Award for extolling the virtues of respect, courtesy, and compassion for all individuals he encounters in both his professional and every day life.

With yet another chapter to go in his career, there is no doubt Jarome Iginla has proved his worth, and the naysayers have been noticeably silenced.

Hell Bent for Leather: Cam Neely One-on-One

Unless you were a Habs fan, if you’ve ever watched the Hall of Famer Cam Neely play, you probably still pine for him as a player.

Perhaps The Boston Globe’s Kevin Paul Dupont describes him best. He said that whenever Neely moved on the ice, space became available because others backed off or were left chopped up in his wake.

Neely could crush a player into nothing with his hits; go toe-to-toe, fist-to-fist with a Donald Brashear and any other tough guy a team could throw at him; he could instill fear and anticipation of his next move when he flew up the wing towards the net; he could ring a bullet shot from outside the circle and zoom it by the goalie; and he could do the Denis Savard-ian spinorama and sink a Crosby/Ovechkin-like pretty perfect goal.

The former junior Portland Winter Hawk spent his first three NHL seasons (1983-84 to 1985-86) posting so-so numbers. But it was June 6, 1986 that really changed his life. That was the day of THE trade: Cam Neely to Boston with Vancouver’s first round 1987 draft pick (Glen Wesley) for Barry Pederson. It was in Boston where he had two 50-plus goal seasons to add to his career 694 points (395 G, 299 A).

Q: What was it about Boston that ignited your career?

A: “I was really given an opportunity as soon as I got to training camp in Boston. They put me with some of the top players on the team and gave me an opportunity to see what I could do. I was really able to play a lot more physical. And really, confidence grew from that.”

Q: With all that intense emotion on the ice, how different were you off the ice?

A: “I’m a Gemini, so it’s kind of a split personality. On the ice, I kind of had this short fuse. Off the ice, it’s a little longer, not much maybe, but a little bit longer. Certainly much longer now.”

Q: What was your most memorable fight?

A: “Rick Tocchet. The referees didn’t even have to really break it up. We both connected with some punches, and then we just both kind of quit and kind of patted each other. Hey, that was a great fight.”

Q: Special on-ice moment?

A: “I don’t think anybody would forget their first NHL goal. And then for me, my 50th goal in my 44th game is something I won’t forget. And then on another level, when I became the all-time Bruins’ playoff goal scorer. That was a huge thrill for me. Not necessarily in those orders.”

Q: It was the 1995-96 season. Bruins fans consider it a black mark in their franchise history. Coach Steve Kasper benched you in a January 3 game at Toronto.

A: “Obviously, he wasn’t very happy with the way I was playing. At that particular time, my hip was really bothering me. I felt that I was doing all I could out there. He felt that I could have been doing better, I guess. From what I gather, he didn’t have any intentions of sitting me for the whole game. His intentions were to start the game without me playing. He said he liked the way the team was responding to the fact that I was sitting on the bench. He just decided to keep me on the bench. From my point of view, I certainly played with a lot of players that would have deserved to be sat on the bench before I ever would have.”

Q: You announced your retirement after that last season on September 5 of 1996, thanks to a degenerative right hip. How tough were those ongoing injuries to play with?

A: “They were extremely difficult. I was probably in the peak of my career and went down with what I thought was going to be the Charlie Horse that turned into the myositis (inflammation of the muscle), something I would never have guessed in a million years that could happen. That kind of set me back a half a season. When I started playing again, I got off to a really strong start. I woke up one day and my knee was really swollen without really doing anything. I went in for a scope a couple of weeks later, as it wasn’t responding to anything. Thinking that I might be out of action for a couple of weeks, I wake up from surgery, and the doctor tells me that my season is over and he’s concerned about my career.

“Subsequently, I had another knee injury on the same knee. Unfortunate for me, it was really more time I was spending in the training room, in the gym than on the ice. But I was doing all I could to come back to play. Hockey was everything I really had. I wanted to come back to play.”

Q: Many believe the Ulf Samuelson open ice hit, where you took a blow to his right thigh, was the one that made him ultimately leave the game.

A: “It’s been well chronicled, the history that we have had.”

Q: What did you learn the most from playing hockey?

A: “I think being positive and working hard and continuing to do that outside of hockey. Really stay focused, and like anything in life, you need some breaks along the way, but if you’re not working hard, nothing really good comes of it.”

Q: Did you think about retirement when the injuries first started?

A: “It’s hard. It’s very difficult. Your whole adult life, you’re really just focused on what you have to do to be in the NHL and stay in the NHL and improve your abilities. Even though you know that one day it’s going to end or someone’s telling you you’re not good enough anymore or your decision to retire or an injury telling you to retire, it’s still difficult to try to figure out what it is you’re going to like to do. It’s really a difficult transition. I don’t think anybody can really understand what it’s like until they go through it.”

Q: Before retiring, you founded the Cam Neely Foundation for Cancer Care in Boston. Both your parents died from cancer and it was a way of using celebrity to give back. The Foundation has raised over $14 million in 11 plus years and help funded the construction of a brain tumor center.

A: “We went into this not knowing where we were going to go with it, just knowing we wanted to try and help cancer patients and their families, being family members ourselves without really having much support behind that. The amount of people and families that we’ve been able to help support over that time frame is far greater than I’d ever thought we’d have the opportunity to. There’s no way, in my wildest dreams, would I have guessed we’d be able to do that.”

When trauma hits the big leagues

After more than 15 years of direct access to NHL dressing rooms, this is my truth: regardless of how well you know a player, a staff member, fellow media, there is one underlying fact. When something serious happens, we are one fraternity.

You don’t have to know a person well. Sometimes, you may have barely encountered them, but the emotional tug is the same.

I didn’t know Ace Bailey or Mark Bavis well when their United Airlines flight 175 was hijacked and driven into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. I barely encountered them at many a Calgary Flames home game, when they sat just a few seats down from me in the press box. Their sudden and violent deaths shook me to the core, compounded by the enormity of the event. I felt as connected to them at that moment as I would have with my closest friend.

When Detroit Red Wings’ defenseman Jiri Fischer went into cardiac arrest and collapsed on the bench with his life hanging in the balance, I felt more connected because I had a one-on-one interview with him the previous season. We talked about some very personal topics, such as his decision to come to Canada from the Czech Republic to play junior hockey, how he dealt with the language, the culture, and some other elements of his experience.

Jiri admitted the main reason for his move was to get noticed enough to increase his chances of making the National Hockey League. He knew some English from taking it in grade nine, but German was his second language. However, when he arrived in Montreal, he had yet another language to navigate. He was glad that coach Claude Julien ran most of the practices in English.

“There were always a few guys who didn’t speak proper English, but during the year, Claude wanted us to have the best possible chemistry we could have, so I was learning English, and the native Quebecers were learning English…obviously the guys from Ontario were picking up some French.”

The lifestyle changes he had to make upon his arrival were the toughest adjustments for Jiri. His billet, Linda Landry, became very important to him. He continued to visit with her often after he made the NHL.

Florida Panther RW Richard Zednik and I spoke one-on-one in the same season about the same issues. He wanted to stay in Slovakia, but others convinced him to move to North America, where he could also be seen.

As far as understanding his coach or his teammates … “The only language we had was hockey.”

The hardest adjustment for Richard was food. He hated the typical pre-game meal of chicken and pasta. He didn’t like the sauce. Over the years, it has become his favorite food but he missed his mom’s cooking in the first couple of seasons.

“At home (in Portland), the lady where I was staying, I ate everything. She was a great lady but she didn’t cook much. I was always starving. We always went to Taco Bell or something like that.”

Through those interviews, Jiri Fischer and Richard Zednick had created a soft place in my heart.

So when Richard’s Florida teammate C Olli Jokinen was pushed off balance and his legs came up from under him, with his skate blade catching Richard in the throat, partially severing his carotid artery, I personally felt his fear, pain, and trauma. Like everyone else, I held my breath until learning he was stable; shed a sigh of relief when he was moved from the Intensive Care Unit; and felt absolute joy when he was released from the hospital. I also felt Jokinen’s anguish.

As much as there is sometimes a “we/they” thing going on at the rink when reporters are madly trying to reach their deadlines, players are trying to get out of the venue as soon as they can, and staff members are trying to appease both sides, when something happens, you can’t be human and not feel something. But when you have even just a tiny or passing connection to one of those people, it keeps you grounded amongst all the pomp and fluff.

Richard Zednik: Photo by Debbie Elicksen

On the bubble

Being on the bubble isn’t about the table-top boards being fought over in half of hockey fans’ basements. It’s not the Missouri 2007 national bubble hockey championships being hosted by the St. Louis Blues.

Life on the bubble is the stark reality for about 80 percent of NHL players. It means you can be sent up or down to and from the minors at any given moment, no questions asked. You may not even know why. You make a mistake on the ice, you think, is this going to be my last shift in the game? On the team? There are players nipping at your heels for a spot on the roster.

When you get the call, nobody tells you for how long. They just say get your stuff and go. RW Chris Clark says, “It could be that some guy came back that was hurt. You could have had a hat trick that night and they send you down the next day.”

Clark says you only pack for a couple of days. “You don’t want to come in with your six bags and hockey bags packed and say, where am I going to be living? You just be there, go under the radar, and play your best.”

G Jamie McLennan defines it as being mentally stressful. “There are 60 goaltenders in this world who get a chance to play in the NHL. It’s easier to make the NHL and harder to stay there. There’s always somebody coming for your job, especially when you’re a backup.”

It doesn’t matter whether you were a first- or eighth-round draft pick. “I was drafted in the first round and had high hopes for a while,” says D Philippe Boucher. “I made it at 19, got sent back to junior, and from there, it was a little more of a battle to stay with Buffalo. I had some success in Los Angeles. I missed a full year of hockey after six or seven years in the league. At that point, it became real hard to get my spot back.”

A lot of great NHL careers started out on the bubble before they discovered some semblance of stability — at least to stay in the league, not necessarily with one team. Then there are others who never get off the bubble or become career minor leaguers.

Being on the bubble is an emotional roller coaster. G Dwayne Roloson once described being sent down as walking out on a plank and having it fall out from under you.

Family life and the professional athlete

The life of an athlete can be very demanding. The schedule, the pressure, the travel – all of it wreaks havoc on families. Nobody is complaining, however, as the athletes cherish every moment of their careers.

Before the kids – it’s all about the player — his schedule, his pre-game meal, his pre-game nap, and what time he leaves the house for the rink. But after kids – well, it’s hard to tell a two-year-old they can’t play with their riding toy because daddy has to rest before the game.

Some of the social aspects a husband and wife enjoyed before are now shelved for the good of the family. With kids, you can’t go out every night. But in looking at the families a little bit closer, it’s the wives that hold the lion’s share of the work in raising them.

RW Bill Guerin has four children (Kayla, Grace, Lexi, and Liam). He says juggling the kids’ schedules with his hockey schedule wouldn’t be possible without his wife Kara. But even though she takes care of business while he’s away, with kids, stuff always happens. “I can’t tell you how many phone calls I’ve gotten: kids being sick, taken to the hospital. That doesn’t stop because you have practice.”

RW Martin Lapointe and his wife Tania have four children: Guyot, Philippe, Noah, and Chloe, plus a Golden Retriever named Buddy. “They’re (the kids) always asking me, why you going on the road? Why are you always in hotels? I tell them, that’s my work.” His 10 year old is okay with that, but the younger ones don’t understand. They’re told it’s daddy’s job, but they think he’s just playing.

Professional hockey mixed with family is also all about sacrifices. Sacrificing sleep and eating schedules for the good of the kids, but also sacrificing family milestones and holidays for the good of the career. Missing birthdays, anniversaries, first words, and first report cards comes with the territory.

Minnesota Wild defenseman Keith Carney juggles a household of four kids under the age of six – five-year-old triplets (Aiden, Cole, Kade) and a three-year-old daughter Morgan. If you think about it, when he helped take the Anaheim Ducks to the Stanley Cup final in 2003, Morgan was just a newborn and the triplets were a year and a half.

“It’s hard for me to go on the road and be away for any time. After a few days, you’re ready to get home. You start missing people. During the summer, you’re there every day. Then it’s stopped and dad’s back to work.”

Then add the element of being traded, particularly in mid-season. Even moving teams in the off-season is difficult – trying to get settled from July 1 to training camp.

“There’s all sorts of things like schools to think about,” adds Guerin, “doctors to think about, signing kids up for sports, buying a house, all sorts of stuff like that. It’s all part of real life. Just the fact we play hockey doesn’t change it.”

No matter how many complications having children may bring to the mix, every player will tell you it’s worth it – every moment. They have absolutely no regrets.

Their children also help the players put their careers into a new perspective. After moping around the rink, when they go home after a devastating loss, their kids don’t care they lost the game. They only care that daddy’s home.