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.
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!"
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?
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.
Mitch Albom writes about running an orphanage in impoverished Port-au-Prince, Haiti, his kids, their hardships, laughs and challenges, and the life lessons he’s learned there every day.
