Play On! Hasek Earns His Millions; Wings Rattle Roy, Force Game 7 At The Joe
DENVER — You ain’t going nowhere. The ice has not yet melted. Summer has not yet arrived. From the opening minutes to the closing horn Wednesday night at the Pepsi Center, the message was as clear as a telegram:
Not done. Stop. Not losing. Stop. The Red Wings are not hitting the golf course. Stop. The Avalanche is not dancing into the Stanley Cup finals. Stop. There will be a Game 7 in this series, because one team was not ready to give up on its destiny and one man was more than ready to face his own.
Stop.
You ain’t going nowhere.
HOCKEY IS THE CRUELEST GAMETO STAY ALIVE, WINGS NEED PASSION — AND PATIENCE
After he missed the shot that might have changed everything, after he watched it ping off the post and flick harmlessly away, Brendan Shanahan skated to the bench, balled his fists, and clapped himself on the head.Arrrrrrrgh.”I was thinking, ‘How did that...
FOILED AGAINMITCH ALBOM: WINGS FACE ELIMINATION AS FORSBERG BEATS HASEK
He is the wildest of wild cards, the guy with a wand instead of a stick, the one man on the ice who makes the entire arena shudder in anticipation. There is Peter Forsberg with the puck and there is everyone else, it is simply that way in this NHL springtime. And so,...
Our Airports Aren’T Secure, Just Tedious
Itook off my jacket. I emptied my pants pockets. I put the bag on the conveyer belt.
I walked through. Beeeeep. “Step over there,” the security man ordered. “Wait for someone to wand you.”
Ah. I slapped my forehead. My glasses. In my jacket pocket.
“It’s these,” I said, waving the glasses. “Can I put them through? I’m sure I won’t beep then.”
“NO, SIR,” he barked. “You only get one chance!”
“But if I don’t beep without the glasses, isn’t it the same as . . .”
“You only get one chance!”
Leading Man? Not With The Red Wings
DENVER — Hollywood is interested. They want a hockey movie. They dispatch a young producer to the Western Conference finals to assemble a cast. He wears sunglasses, a diamond earring, a leather coat and four cell phones.
He asks me to help.
“I hear this Detroit team is loaded with stars,” the producer says.
It is, I say.
“Good. Get me the guy without a spleen.”
I beg your pardon?
“The guy without a spleen. Sign him up. The Spleenless Swede. I love it!”
You mean Fredrik Olausson, I say?
Mile High! Olausson’S Goal In Ot Completes A Wings Thriller
DENVER — Last year, at about this time, Fredrik Olausson was in a hospital bed in Bern, Switzerland, with a ruptured spleen. The idea of scoring an overtime goal in the Western Conference finals was as likely as his getting up and doing the rumba.
But time passes and things change, and here he was, one year later, on Wednesday night, in overtime, taking a pass in from Steve Yzerman and lining up a big slap shot that somehow did what all the other great Detroit shots could not do on this night — got past Colorado’s Patrick Roy.
OUR SERIES, THEIR SERIES AREN’T ALWAYS THE SAME
DENVER — Brendan Shanahan stood alone in his street clothes near the lower seats of the Pepsi Center. He watched the Red Wings staff unload duffel bags of equipment.”How are you guys doing after last night?” I asked.”Oh, good,’ he said....
IT’S HOCKEY NIGHT IN THE MOUNTAINS
FRISCO, Colo. — Chris Drury faked out Jiri Fischer, faked out Dominik Hasek, shot the puck, won the game . . . and everyone in the place went crazy!If that sounds backwards for a Detroit writer, that’s because I was not at Joe Louis Arena, where the Red...
After His Career Year, Draper Keeps Grinding
It is not his favorite subject. When you remind Kris Draper that this blood-feud rivalry between Detroit and Colorado really began with him, six years ago, when he was cheap-shotted into the boards by Claude Lemieux and an all-out hockey war was declared, he gives a rare sarcastic response.
“Yeah, lucky me,” he says. “I got to have my face rearranged to start a rivalry.”
The wounds have healed. The scars long since passed. And Draper would rather be singled out for something else these days. He has worked hard to make that so.
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