UKRAINIAN PRO HOCKEY UPDATE

by Ihor Stelmach

Red alert: Wings tough

The Detroit Red Wings' Stanley Cup win was a story not of mice, but men. Brendan Shanahan would have it no other way.

"A field mouse?" Shanahan asked incredulously amid the Cup-winning celebrations. "I was never called a field mouse. Never."

A little bird had suggested otherwise, that Red Wing coach Scotty Bowman, just prior to Game 6 of the Western Conference final against the Colorado Avalanche, had challenged Shanahan and Sergei Fedorov in front of their teammates. Bowman's general theme that particular night was imploring players to seize the opportunity before them or regret it for the rest of their lives. His specific message was to light a fire under Shanahan and Fedorov.

One version of the story was that Bowman mentioned something about Shanahan's ample size and strength, but that he'd been playing like a "field mouse."

"That's just not true," Shanahan said. "What Scotty said to me was, 'You're sleeping. Colorado wants you to sleep and you're asleep.' He was right. It's always toughest to hear when it's true."

Whatever was said, it worked. Fedorov scored the winner that night (more on that later) and Shanahan scored the empty-netter as the Wings sent the defending cup champions packing to earn yet another shot at ending the storied franchise's 42-year-old cup drought.

Bring on the Philadelphia Flyers, they said. Say good-bye to the Philadelphia Flyers. That's how quickly and efficiently the Wings handled them en route to Detroit's first Stanley Cup win since 1955. The Wings-Flyers four-game sweep looked exactly like the 1995 final, with the 1997 Red Wings playing the part of the 1995 New Jersey Devils and the Flyers making like the 1995 Wings.

It was no contest this year. Of the 240 minutes played in the finals, the Flyers held a lead for precisely two minutes. They scored just two even-strength goals in the series. Legion of Doom? More like the Legion of Gloom. Or maybe the Legion of Broom, in honor of the third consecutive sweep in the Stanley Cup finals.

The title-starved fans in Detroit cared only that captain Steve Yzerman finally was able to hoist the cup on a carefully choreographed victory lap around Joe Louis Arena. He then handed it off to owner Mike Ilitch, whose deep pizza pockets rescued this proud franchise from its darkest days, before passing it off to the elder statesmen of the Red Wings' Russian contingent, Slava Fetisov and Igor Larionov.

The modern-day Red Wings of the Yzerman era may not have known how to win for a long time, but when they finally won, they certainly knew how to celebrate.

No team in the NHL has been as good, and as bad, as the Red Wings in the last five years. They were 12 games over .500 this season, and that was their worst mark in the five-year span. But in 1993 they lost in the first round against the Toronto Maple Leafs. In 1994 there was a first-round loss to the San Jose Sharks. In 1995 there was the cup sweep at the hands of the Devils and last year a Western Conference final defeat by Colorado.

Somewhere along the line, the lovable losers learned to finally win when it counts. They went from being timid field mice to aggressive field generals. And the "big sleep" was over. While there are any number of angles upon which to focus, the Wings are champions not because of their skill and speed, which has been there all along, but because they finally became almost as tough as Terrible Ted Lindsay.

For far too long, Lindsay, the 71-year-old Hall of Famer, has been the toughest dude in the Wings' dressing room. His stall is over in the far corner, beside Aaron Ward. A few times a week, Lindsay shows up and, while the players are practicing, he's in there pumping iron.

With the arrival of Shanahan and the return of Ukrainian Joey Kocur from the midnight beer leagues (more on Kocur later), Lindsay finally has some rivals for the Wings' toughest man competition. But just as important as adding some players with physical presence has been adding physical dresence to dlavers who were already there.

There's physical toughness and there's mental toughness. Thanks to a whole host of factors, the Wings had an ample supply of both this spring. And any time it looked as though one or the other was cracking, someone stepped up to steel their resolve.

For example, take Fedorov, whose glowing career playoff stats belie the truth that at playoff time he was tougher to find than ex-commissioner John Ziegler. Fedorov is a marvelously gifted athlete who, in the midst of the conference final against Colorado suggested: "If my name were Sam Jones, I would be a superstar here forever. People judge me differently because I am Russian."

On the occasion of Game 6 against the Avalanche, Fedorov was getting an equal-opportunity butt-kicking, along with Shanahan, from Coach Bowman. When Fedorov injured himself trying to hit Colorado defenseman Aaron Miller in the first period that night - his diaphragm was in spasms, he was having difficulty breathing and an existing shoulder injury was aggravated - it looked as if he might be done for the night.

Sensing he needed a little prodding, Yzerman paid a visit to Fedorov in the trainers' room.

"Stevie told him, 'Sergei, I can't tell you how much we need you out there, but if you can't go...' " Bowman recounted. "Stevie was trying to get him going."

Yzerman's visit, and its intent, have been well documented. But another player, Fedorov's good friend Vladimir Konstantinov, also paid a visit with a message not nearly so subtle as Yzerman's.

According to one Wing, Konstantinov all but ordered Sam Jones, er, Fedorov, to take a shot of painkiller and get back on the ice, admonishing him for doing something that would give "Russians a bad name."

Fedorov returned to score the Game 6 winner to eliminate the 'Lanche. He was a major force in the finals, too, scoring winning goals against the Flyers in Games 1 and 3. He finished the playoffs with eight goals, including a league-leading four game-winners, 20 points and a plus-5 rating in 20 games. Not bad, considering he had just one goal and three points in his first eight games.

The Wings' story, though, was not one of superstars, all flash and dash. It was balance.

"We had four good lines this time," Bowman said. "Against New Jersey [in 1995], I couldn't put out four lines and that was the difference."

Good luck to anybody trying to figure out, on any given night, which line was No. 1 and which was No. 4. On reputation, the Wings' Grind Line of Kris Draper between Kirk Maltby and Kocur should have been No. 4, but by the time the Wings were closing out the Flyers, those three were getting as much or more ice time as any of the other three forward units.

Many of the Grind Line's shifts were against Lindros, LeClair and either Renberg or Zubrus.

"I don't think Draper's line was on for a single (even-strength) goal against in the finals," Bowman said. "And they scored huge goals for us."

The Wings were a tough team to shut down because there was no No. 1 line. And no unit, with the exception of Fedorov-Brown-Kozlov, was without a mucking and grinding element, and that shortcoming was taken care of with the defense pairing of Konstantinov and Fetisov.

In all, the Wings had only six players this spring who weren't with the team for the 1995 cup final debacle in New Jersey. The important number, though, is nine, the number of players who moved on in the interim. Cutting loose right winger Dino Ciccarelli paved the way for more ice time for Martin Lapointe and Darren McCarty. It wasn't just that the Wings injected size, strength and grit with the addition of Shanahan, Kocur, Maltby and others, it was that Lapointe and McCarty were given prime-time roles to do what they do best. Both chipped in with key goals.

The greatest testament to Red Wing toughness, though, was the fact that so many playoff failures failed to dim the desire to win. They actually drove the Wings to be successful. When they found themselves tied 2-2 against St. Louis in the opening round, team captain Yzerman, poster boy for the Wings' reign of springtime error, rallied the troops with a fire-and-brimstone speech. He challenged each player, especially the stars, to do better. And they did.

The first hint that these Wings would be different than their predecessors was when they never once panicked or broke ranks in a pressure-filled second-round sweep (three overtime games) against the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, precisely the type of opponent that used to send the Red Wings packing. When the Wings outplayed, but lost Game 1 to Colorado, it was Yzerman again who calmly reassured his mates all would be well.

It was from that point on that here was not one post-game gathering without Yzerman putting the night into proper perspective for his mates.

Many have worked hard to raise the Stanley Cup; none have worked harder or experienced as much heartache along the way.

It was a long wait for Steve Yzerman. It was an even longer wait for the Red Wings and their loyal fans.

Kocur's dream season ends with cup

Joey Kocur's remarkable path to the Stanley Cup was paved with barley, the boys and belief in himself.

"What happened to me in the past six, seven months," said the Detroit Red Wings' enforcer, "is what people dream about."

Even with the benefit of hindsight, it's tough to say which was more surprising: Detroit's stunning Stanley Cup finals' sweep of the Philadelphia Flyers, or Kocur's jaw-dropping breakaway deke, top-shelf goal past Ron Hextall in Game 1.

It was the biggest goal of his life and left about 20 of Kocur's buddies in the Lakeland (Mich.) Arena over-30 Sunday night beer league talking about copyright violation. "A lot of those guys have called me up and said they taught me that move," Kocur said.

Maybe so, but he taught them about perseverance. Seven months ago, the 12-year battle-scarred veteran was an unwanted foot soldier. He was traded from the New York Rangers to the Vancouver Canucks last season, but no offers came this year.

Still the right winger played twice a week at midnight with his softball buddies. No hitting, no slapshots, no fighting. Kocur, 32, played five games with the San Antonio Dragons of the International League and waited for the phone to ring. When Wings' coach Scotty Bowman called last December 23, Kocur, who played in Detroit for six years (1984-1991), was being called back to his hockey home.

Kocur played his first road game on January 5 against the Chicago Blackhawks and predictably had fights with Bob Probert and Cam Russell on his first two shifts.

"I just wanted to make a statement to the guys in this room that even though Probie was probably my best friend (in Detroit), I was brought here for a job, and I'm going to do my job," Kocur said.

Kocur's job during the playoffs was to join Maltby and Draper on the Grind Line. Kocur had one goal, four points and 22 penalty minutes in 19 games. The line was a tremendous force right to the end.

Kocur and Maltby set up Nicklas Lidstrom's first goal of Game 4, a turning point late in the first period. A little more than 40 minutes of action later, the Red Wings ended 42 years of misery, earning their first Stanley Cup since 1955.

It truly was meant to be. For the record, streak-buster Joey Kocur was also a member of the 1994 New York Rangers, who that year ended a 50-year Stanley Cup drought.

(Quotes courtesy of Bob McKenzie and Mark Brender from The Hockey News.)

Final Ukrainian Stanley Cup Scoring:

Player	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	PIM
W. Gretzky	NY Rangers	15	10	10	20	2
D. Hawerchuk	Philadelphia	17	2	5	7	0
K. Tkachuk	Phoenix	7	6	0	6	7
B. Bellows	Anaheim	11	2	4	6	2
J. Kocur	Detroit	19	1	3	4	22
D. Nemirovsky	Florida	3	1	0	1	0
E. Olczyk	Pittsburgh	5	1	0	1	12
R. Matvichuk	Dallas	7	0	1	1	20
O. Tverdovsky	Phoenix	7	0	1	1	0
A. Zhitnik	Buffalo	12	1	0	1	16
D. Andreychuk	New Jersey	1	0	0	0	0
K. Daneyko	New Jersey	10	0	0	0	28

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, July 20, 1997, No. 29, Vol. LXV

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