When Shanahan saw Patrick Roy roaring from his net to defend Lemieux, he intercepted him with a full-speed collision in the middle of the ice. That prompted Foote to come to Roy’s aid, and then Vernon abandoned his net to help Shanahan. Then Vernon fought Roy while Shanahan fought Foote.
Roy ended up cut. Forsberg aggravated a previous injury and didn’t return to the game. Pools of blood were visible on the ice and there was a bloodstain on the boards.
Already infuriated by the beating I put on Lemieux, the Avalanche became even more enraged that I was only assessed a double-minor for roughing. They thought I should have received a gross misconduct.
Was referee Paul Devorski influenced by Lemieux’s turtling? I don’t know, but it really wasn’t a fight in the truest sense of the word. Lemieux didn’t deserve a penalty because he didn’t fight back.
The Vernon vs. Roy battle, which established Vernon as a legend in Detroit, wasn’t the last fight of the game. The entertainment was only beginning. Adam Deadmarsh and Vladimir Konstantinov fought shortly after. Shanahan and Foote had a rematch four seconds into the second period. Later, Mike Keane took on Tomas Holmstrom, and then Ward fought Severyn. I fought Deadmarsh and then Pushor had his second fight of the game, taking on Uwe Krupp.
People ask me whether Lemieux said anything to me during that beating, and the answer is no. He didn’t have time to say anything.
The following November, we faced each other for the first time after I administered my beatdown.
He earned my respect that day by coming out and lining up right across from me on the opening faceoff. I called him every motherfucking name in the book trying to goad him into another brawl. I talked shit about his wife and kids. There was no reaction.
“Everyone hates you, you piece of shit. What are you doing out here across from me?” I said to him. “You come over here, but you aren’t going to do anything?”
Kris Draper won the draw and got the puck to Nick Lidstrom, and the next thing I know Lemieux blasted me right in the nose.
I remember thinking, Good, he’s going to fight this time.
He’s bigger and stronger than I am. But my assessment was that I won the fight, although he stung me with that first blow. That seemed to be the end of our need to fight each other.
In 2002–03, Lemieux was playing for the Dallas Stars and he skated up to me like he may be looking to start something
“What the fuck do you want?” I asked. “You looking to go again?”
“No, I just want to say I’m happy for you that you’re doing better in your life,” he said.
He obviously had heard that I was trying to clean up my act regarding my substance abuse. To be honest, that moment changed how I viewed Lemieux.
The two of us never spoke together about the incident until 2010, when we were both guests on Michael Landsberg’s Off The Record.
When you watch that interview, it’s difficult to believe that it’s the same guy who was public enemy No. 1 in Detroit. After the hit he laid on Draper, a guard had to be posted outside his hotel room to assure his security.
Lemieux said he appreciated the role that I played on the Red Wings. Landsberg asked me whether I would want Lemieux as my teammate and I said, “No.”
On April 4, 2011, we met again, at the Gibraltar Trade Center for an autograph session. We were both offered $10,000 to come in and sign photos.
We talked, not about hockey, but our children. We both have sons, roughly the same age, who are playing hockey. As we talked, I could see why Shanahan and Lemieux were good friends when they played together in New Jersey. Obviously there was an off-ice Lemieux and an on-ice Lemieux. I didn’t respect the on-ice Lemieux. But I did like the off-ice Lemieux.
In the Windsor Star, the day after our appearance at the Gibraltar Trade Center, Lemieux was quoted as saying that getting together with me was easy.
“I always actually admired the way he played, admired the way he stuck up for his teammates,” Lemieux said. “I admired everything he brought to the game. But if we got on the ice today and competed, it wouldn’t change the way I would play and it wouldn’t change the way he played.”
We were supposed to sign from 2:00 to 4:00 pm, but the crowds were so big we signed until about 8:00 that night.
Just to show how time heals all wounds, Lemieux agreed to sign “Turtle” on some of the photos he signed. He seemed to have fun at the event.
Time didn’t heal everything for some fans. A few yelled “Turtle” as Lemieux walked to the signing area. Honestly, there were some who wanted me to beat up Lemieux again right there in Taylor, Michigan.
Lemieux donated his fee directly to charity. All of his signing fees go to charity.
In hindsight, I should respect Lemieux. He made no excuses for the way he played.
He played on the edge. I should understand that because I played on the edge. But I think I knew the location of the line that shouldn’t be crossed. He didn’t seem to know where that line was.
What is sometimes lost in the memory of Bloody Wednesday is that we won the game. To me, that was the most important aspect of what occurred on the ice. If we had won the battle, and then lost the game, it would not have had the same impact on our team. We needed to prove to ourselves that we could physically dominate them and also beat them on the scoreboard.
This was the night that the Red Wings laid the foundation for the back-to-back championships in 1997 and 1998 and another title in 2002. It was the night we started to see ourselves as an unstoppable force.
From 1996 until 2002, the Colorado vs. Detroit rivalry was the greatest rivalry in all of sports.
When you consider the storyline, the drama, the physical play, and the offensive play, that contest might have been the most entertaining game of the 1990s. The game featured 11 goals and 39 penalties, including 18 fighting majors. The Avalanche led 5–3 early in the third period, but Marty Lapointe and Shanahan scored 36 seconds apart to tie the score.
Now that I’m in retirement and living in Florida, I meet people who don’t know hockey. I like to introduce them to the sport by showing them the video of that game.
At least once per year, I feel the need to pull out the tape and watch it.
7. Tomas Storm Trooper
“You can do this if you try, all I want for you my son, is to be satisfied”
—“Simple Man”
Lynyrd Skynyrd
Only once in my NHL career was I able to beat a defenseman one-on-one. But it came at the best possible moment. Timing is everything in life.
I used an inside-out move to beat Philadelphia’s Janne Niinimaa, and then made a sweet move around goalie Ron Hextall to score what turned out to be the Stanley Cup–clinching goal in the 1997 Final.
“What the fuck was that?” captain Steve Yzerman screamed at me as we celebrated near the boards.
“I don’t know,” I screamed, “but who gives a fuck!”
Yzerman’s eyes were as big as dinner plates, like he had just witnessed a miraculous transformation. My scarred and battered hands had suddenly performed magic.
The play had started in our end with Vladimir Konstantionov moving the puck ahead to Tomas Sandstrom, who in turn head-manned the puck to me as I cut through the neutral zone. The Flyers were in the midst of a line shift.
Guys on the bench were yelling for me to dump the puck in, and that’s what I was going to do. But as I got near the Philadelphia zone, it was like my automatic pilot engaged.
The two previous summers I had traveled to Sweden to work with stick-handling coach Tomas Storm. We worked on moving our hands back and forth, with the idea that controlling the puck would become second nature. I’d spend 10 days on the ice with him, mostly working alongside 12-, 13-, and 14-year-old players. It’s no wonder that Swedish players have such exceptional hands because they spend hours upon hours learning t
o handle the puck.
The best player in our sessions was a 16-year-old named Kristian Huselius. I nicknamed him “Magic” because of the tricks he could do with the puck.
As I crossed the blue line in the Stanley Cup Final, I could sense Niinimaa was diving into me. I thought to myself, Holy shit, I’ve got him beat.
At that point, it was all muscle memory. Storm taught us to abandon our traditional thinking of moving the puck laterally with our stick and think about moving it north to south. If you watch Pavel Datsyuk, that’s how he moves the puck.
Niinimaa moved in to knock away the puck, and I moved the puck outside and past him. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Flyers goalie Ron Hextall driving out of the net, embracing his own plan to poke the puck off of my stick. But just like Storm had taught me, I pulled the puck back and went around him.
Suddenly, I was in the blue paint with the puck on my stick and a vacant net in front of me. My only thought was not to miss the fucking net with my shot. I guided the puck in to give us a 2–0 lead in the second period. With the way we were playing defensively, it seemed as if my goal was going to seal the deal.
The Flyers didn’t score until Lindros found the net with 15 seconds left, and that made my goal the series-clinching goal that ended the 42-year NHL championship drought in Detroit.
With seven seconds left, there was a neutral-zone faceoff and I was on the ice with Yzerman, Brendan Shanahan, Konstantinov, and Nicklas Lidstrom.
Yzerman won the draw, delivering the puck to Konstantinov with the perfect touch to prevent icing. But I’m superstitious, and I don’t like taking chances. Even with victory assured, I raced down the ice as if the game hung in the balance. I chased that puck with every ounce of energy I had at my disposal.
When the horn sounded, I was deep in the Philadelphia zone. As I turned around, I had a panoramic view of the ice as the boys streamed off the Detroit bench to celebrate our first Stanley Cup in 42 years. The sight of my teammates mobbing goalie Mike Vernon is a memory I will never forget.
The noise was deafening, and yet it seemed as if there was no sound as I skated toward the pile. It was like everyone was moving in slow motion.
The first person I came upon was Marty Lapointe, who had his arms stretched out to greet me with a bear hug. I jumped into his arms and we collapsed into a pile of guys. As wipeouts go, this was the greatest of my career.
What made the moment even more special was the fact that my grandmother and my stepfather were in the stands to see it. Tomas Storm was also at the game, no doubt analyzing what I had done with my hands on that play.
It was my moment. I scored the most beautiful goal of my career. I had played a big role in helping us win the Cup.
In the championship video from that season, you see me talking to referee Bill McCreary before a faceoff as more than 20,000 stand and cheer during the closing moments of the game. We called McCreary “No Bullshit Bill” because he was a straight shooter and an exceptional referee.
He looked at me, and said, “It doesn’t get any better than this, does it?”
“If it ever gets better than this, you call me, okay?” I said, laughing.
Coming into the series, we had been the underdogs. The media didn’t believe we could handle the Legion of Doom line. John LeClair had been a 50-goal scorer that season, and Eric Lindros had 32 goals in just 52 games. Mikael Renberg had netted 22 goals and added 37 assists for 59 points. Renberg was the small guy on the line, and he was 6'3", 226 pounds.
Five seconds into that series I hit Philadelphia defenseman Petr Svoboda so hard that he is probably still sore today. I almost put him through the glass.
I wanted that championship badly enough that I was willing to hurt a friend to get it. Paul Coffey had been my buddy in Detroit, but I steamrolled him in Game 2 and knocked him out of the series. He didn’t speak to me for five years.
When we won both games in Philadelphia, I think we started to realize that we were an even better team than we thought we were.
It’s fascinating to me that I ended up with the series-clinching goal because I was not a guy who needed the limelight to feel validated. I was content to be a spoke in the wheel. As long as I felt like my teammates and coaches thought I was contributing, I was a happy guy. And there was never a moment when the Red Wings made me feel anything but needed.
When the champagne was being sprayed around the dressing room, Yzerman came up to me and said that I was the lucky one because I was the only player who was clearly going to remember how we celebrated.
I wondered how I was going to react as I saw all of my teammates celebrating with booze. Draper was quoted in the newspaper as saying no player would have thought less of me had I drank champagne out of the Stanley Cup.
But I didn’t do that. I didn’t need to do that. I was drunk on the success of my team.
Draper and I enjoyed victory cigars that night, and when the boys took the Stanley Cup to Big Daddy’s for late-night celebrations, they made sure that I didn’t feel left out of the celebratory drinking from the Cup.
When they were finished drinking their fill of beer out of the Cup, one of the players fetched a towel and cleaned out Lord Stanley’s mug obsessively before it was re-filled it with Coca-Cola for me.
It was a memorable night, even without drinking booze out of the Stanley Cup.
The celebration. The parade. It seemed as if we partied for a couple of days. I remember Red Wings owner Mike Ilitch came up to me at a party at his home and said, “You’re my Rocky.”
He always called me “Rocky” after that, and constantly told me that he thought of me as one of his sons.
Mike and Marian Ilitch treated all of their players with great respect, but I always felt as if our relationship was special. Obviously, they had a special place in their hearts for Steve Yzerman, but it seemed like they had a different place in their heart for me. They always made me feel special.
The 1997 championship revelry didn’t stop until June 13, when my teammates, Slava Fetisov and Vladimir Konstantinov, along with team masseuse Sergei Mnatsakanov, were badly injured in a limousine accident on Woodward Avenue in Birmingham, Michigan, after a team party.
What haunts most of the Detroit players still to this day is that those injuries occurred despite the fact that the players and the team took precaution to assure that we wouldn’t have an accident like that.
Limousines were purposely brought in to take players home because we knew there was going to be drinking at the party.
We were stunned when we were told the news. Since I had not been drinking, I drove some of the guys to the crash site. The driver of the limousine, Richard Gnida, who was driving on a suspended license, had struck a tree in the median. When we saw the wreckage of the limousine we thought it was possible that we might have fatalities. The limousine was so twisted up, I remember thinking, No one could survive that.
Our only thought at that point was to get to the hospital as quick as we could.
Once we arrived at the hospital, we discovered that Slava Fetisov had walked away with very minor injuries, but Vladdie and Mnatsakanov suffered serious head injuries. Both men were in comas for a long time.
As you know, Konstantinov never played again. He suffered brain damage. He can’t communicate the way he once did, but I know the Vladdie we know is still inside. He certainly recognizes his teammates.
Certainly it was a tragic end to what would have undoubtedly been a great career, maybe even a Hall of Fame career. He was a warrior. I remember he and Jeremy Roenick used to battle like gladiators. One night, Roenick hit Konstantinov with such force that it shattered a pane of glass. The workers repaired it and on the next shift Konstantov hit Roenick in the same spot along the boards and the replacement panel shattered.
He might have been able to compete with Nick Lidstrom for a Norris Trophy. I never saw a defensema
n better at scoring on a breakaway than Konstantinov.
The next year, the Red Wings rallied around the idea that we had to win to honor Konstantinov. We did that, finishing off the job with a sweep against the Washington Capitals. I had one of my best seasons in 1998–99. I had 14 goals and 40 points in 69 games.
That was also the first season I made $1 million. Over the next five years, my salaries would rise to $1.6 million and then to a high of $2.2 million.
You want to believe that you won’t be changed by money, but money does change you. It changes the people you meet. It changes the people who want to meet you. When money is no object, you live in a world with greater temptation.
I know now that it wasn’t a good situation for a person with an addictive personality. But I didn’t know that then.
Another event that contributed to my downward spiral was the death of my stepdad, Craig, in 1999.
Cancer took him from his family on November 22 that year. I was supposed to be on a road trip, but I ended up with a sports hernia. Because of that, I was able to see him often, almost every day, in the days leading up to his death. I believe that things happen for a reason.
We talked about all of the issues we had when I was a kid. He explained why he did and said the things he did.
I apologized for some of the things I did and said. We cleared the air. We made peace with our relationship, and I believe he knew then how much I admired and appreciated what he did for me. Now, as I’m more in tune with my efforts to be a father, I draw on my memories of how Craig filled that role.
Near the end of his life, we had resolved all of our issues, and we shared a laugh when I said, “Now that we have all of that resolved, what do we talk about now?”
Although I knew his death was coming, I didn’t handle it well, maybe because I knew in my heart and soul that losing Craig would have severe consequences. Not long after Craig’s death, I started using drugs, particularly ecstasy. My marijuana use also escalated.
Today, I realize that Craig was the only person in my life who was holding me accountable at that time. I would listen to him more than anyone else. Maybe I was always trying to win his approval. My grandfather and Craig were the two male role models that mattered to me and they were both gone.
My Last Fight Page 8