BS: Hockey's back...Are ya happy about it?

Subject: RE: BS: Hockey's back...Are ya happy about it?
From: Steve Latimer
Date: 04 Jul 06 - 08:31 AM

I'm sorry to hear that Stevie Y has retired. He embodied everything that a hockey player should, both on and off the ice. The game was better for having him.

Subject: RE: BS: Hockey's back...Are ya happy about it?
From: Beer
Date: 04 Jul 06 - 04:52 PM

A message from two great players.
Beer


"Steve Yzerman was a tremendous hockey player who epitomized everything good about our game. He loved the game and played with passion every night. He was a winner who led Detroit to three Stanley Cups and was always there for his country to represent Canada on the international stage. He was the face of the Detroit Red Wings for the past 20 years and will be remembered as one of the best players and leaders that ever played the game of hockey. It was a pleasure to have worked with him.
-Wayne Gretzky

"Steve was a great ambassador for the game of hockey and will be sorely missed by everyone associated with the Nation Hockey League. Steve was a great leader, a great teammate and most importantly is a great person. I was fortunate to play at the 2002 Olympics with Steve and we won a gold medal together. It was a memorable experience and something I'll always cherish. I wish Steve the best of luck."
-Mario Lemieux

Subject: RE: BS: Hockey's back...Are ya happy about it?
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 04 Jul 06 - 05:27 PM

The Bruins have made some big moves and will certainly be stronger next season. The picked up Zdeno Chara and Marc Savard in free agency. The Senators Signed Martin Gerber as a free agent who attributes his poor performance against Montreal in round 1 to the flu. We shall see.

Subject: RE: BS: Hockey's back...Are ya happy about it?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 04 Jul 06 - 07:15 PM

4:18 PM EDT, 07/04/2006
Front office beckons for Yzerman after 22 years on ice with Red Wings

(CP) - Scotty Bowman calls Steve Yzerman "a real dream to have on your team," and expects the Red Wings' long-time captain to remain a part of the Detroit franchise now that he has retired as a player.

Bowman, who coached Yzerman from 1993 to 2002, doesn't see him as a coach and certainly not as a public-relations man, shaking hands with season-ticket holders and dropping ceremonial pucks at kids' tournaments. He sees Yzerman working in the front office - perhaps as a special assistant to the general manager, as baseball legend Al Kaline does with Red Wings' owner Mike Illitch's other team, the Detroit Tigers.

"He likes to make decisions," Bowman said Tuesday. "I think he'll step back for a month or so and then meet with people to see what he'll do.

"He wants to learn the business."

Detroit general manager Ken Holland and vice-president Jim Devellano told reporters Monday at Yzerman's retirement announcement that they hope Stevie Y will join them in the front office, although that decision has not yet been made.

It is expected that Yzerman will be named assistant GM.

Devellano told the Detroit Free Press they have groomed their captain for front-office work in recent years on the sly, including him in talks on trades, contract signings and other matters.

"We just kept it quiet, obviously, because he was a still a player," Devellano told the newspaper. "Over the last three, four, five years, Kenny Holland and myself have talked to him about eventually joining us on the management staff."

That would keep the 41-year-old Yzerman with the team he spent 22 stellar seasons as a player.

The gifted centre from Ottawa retired as a career Red Wing and the NHL's sixth-leading scorer of all time with 1,755 points. He also led the club to Stanley Cup titles in 1997, 1998 and 2002 and splits most of the team's scoring records with all-time great Gordie Howe.

"He was a wonderful player and a real dream to have on your team," said Bowman. "Some players don't need much coaching and he was one of them."

When Bowman was hired in Detroit, Yzerman was a 10-year NHL veteran and had been the team's captain for eight.

Bowman took a slick, speedy goal-scorer and playmaker and turned him into one of the NHL's best two-way centres while remaining an impact player on the attack.

"When I got there the team was one of the top-three on offence in the league, but they didn't play well defensively," he said. "I told Steve that if he would lead the charge and play well defensively, it would help.

"I said it may cut into his stats, but he didn't care. I compared him to (former Montreal Canadiens centre) Jacques Lemaire, who played with (Guy) Lafleur and (Steve) Shutt, but did a good job on defence.

"He really wanted to win a Stanley Cup. He'd played 10 years for that team and there had been a lot of disappointment. And then he won it three times and he got an Olympic gold medal as well."

Yzerman, who had been turned down by Team Canada early in his career, helped end Canada's 50-year gold medal drought with a victory at the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City.

He was known as one of the NHL's great leaders, although teammates say he lead by example rather than with inspirational speeches or in-your-face confrontations.

"He didn't say a lot, but when he did he meant it, and then he'd go out and show them what to do," said Bowman. "And he was a wonderful role model.

"He never had any incidents in 22 years. No controversies. He was very humble."

Bowman recalled Yzerman several times playing through great pain, particularly with knee injuries late in his career. Some thought he was done when he missed most of the 2002-'03 season to have major knee surgery, but was back the next season.

But age and bad knees finally forced him to retire.

While Yzerman showed last season with 14 goals and 20 assists in 61 games that he still had something to contribute, his production had slowed to where, as he said Monday: "I've given up hope that I'm still improving."

"This was a tough decision for him," said Bowman. "He wanted to play again.

"He told me he could handle most things on the ice, but he didn't want to be a part-time player."

Subject: RE: BS: Hockey's back...Are ya happy about it?
From: Beer
Date: 04 Jul 06 - 07:25 PM

Thanks Susan. That was much appreciated. I hadn't seen that article.
Beer

Subject: RE: BS: Hockey's back...Are ya happy about it?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 04 Jul 06 - 08:13 PM

Hockey coverage has changed so much since my Esposito-era fandom. I feel like I am more a fan of ALL of them than of any one team-- and Yzerman was awesome!

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Hockey's back...Are ya happy about it?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 12 May 07 - 09:48 AM

Since we discussed streaming radio games somewhere upthread, I thought I'd put these tips here.

~S~

======================

Here's how my husband and I enjoy radio games.


1. We really like our "local" team's play caller. He's GOOD. We stream the game on the PC and use Total Recorder-- a nifty, almost freeware program-- to record it as it comes in, which makes that game [I]portable.[/I] So we'll have summer hockey reruns to get us through the post-Stanley Cup withdrawal, long drives for vacay travel, etc. Some of these are games we recorded without listening to them at the time they were playesd, and therefore we have no idea how they turned out.


2. We make the radio calls more "real" for the half-dozen or so teams we halfway follow, like this:

Say my husband will take the home team of the day's game, and I'll take the visitor. We each have a roster printout and we sit in adjoining recliners. He's in his goalie's end for periods 1 & 3 and we can follow the game SO much better because we're each only trying to suss out [I]one[/I] set of players' names in the call, and we can visualize "our" team heading into the other team's zone to score on their ass because the call includes left/right orientation, relative to the offensive team's wing setup.


3. We have mock fights. "You almost scored on my ass, I'm gonna have to kill ya now," for instance, can get pretty hilarious as we playfully try to smack each other, grab and squirt water bottles, sword fight with folded rosters, etc. (The dog gets pretty upset.)

We don't trade chairs for the second-- we each have our chairs pretty well broken-in for custom fit. We just trade rosters. As a result we know quite a bit about quite a few players. By the end of a game we have each got two team's guys fairly well fixed in our minds-- IF it's a good play-by-play caller.


4. We keep a cheap binder chairside, with rosters and broadcast schedules. By the second or third time we've heard a team play, we don't need the rosters anymore after a quick pre-game scan to remind ourselves of their setup.


5. If we're so much in hockey withdrawal this summer that we fire up a game in our camper on a rainy vacay day, it's only going to be a matter of time before the mini-sticks come out, because the only comfy place to sit in there is facing each other, at the small table. I suppose we could curl up in our bunk, but..... well never mind, I won't say. :~)