8701190033 DETROIT FREE PRESS 870417 Friday, April 17, 1987 METRO FINAL CHASER

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1D Photo MITCH ALBOM SEE ALSO STATE EDITION PAGE 1D ; SEE ALSO METRO EDITION PAGE 1D Copyright (c) 1987, Detroit Free Press COMEBACK PLAYER AT 21? YZERMAN TAKES IT IN STRIDE Aw, come on. The guy doesn't even shave. Comeback Player of the Year? Steve Yzerman? The one with the Reebok sneakers and the jeans and the face off a teen magazine cover? That Steve Yzerman? How old is he? Nine? "Twenty-one," he says, shyly, sipping a Coke. Twenty-one? Ho. Did he really say twenty-one? Well. OK. Comeback Player of the Year. Twenty-one. What's next? Retirement? Maybe each team will give him a clock or an oil painting or a rocking chair on his final visit. And the book. He can write the book. Then the movie. Twenty-one. Comeback Player of the Year. Now I know that hockey is a young sport. I have walked through the Red Wings locker room during these playoff times. I have seen Shawn Burr, who cannot drink in certain states, and Joe Kocur, who could borrow Burr's ID. They look young. They may ride a school bus to practice. But none of them won Comeback Player of the Year. "It did kind of surprise me," Yzerman says, of the announcement by the Hockey News that he, Darren Veitch, 26, and Brian Hayward, 26, had been selected -- one forward, one defensemen, one goalie. "It isn't an award I was ever thinking about. I'm sure I'll hear about it from the old guys on the team, like Dave Lewis. " Lewis, "the old guy," is 33. He started slowly, got worse Did you know the first goal Yzerman ever scored was in a baby league in Canada? He was five and he couldn't even skate. He just sort of slid around on his butt. One game he happened to be nearby when a kid accidentally shot the puck into his own net. "I got credit for the goal because I was the closest opposing player," he says. We should have known right then that little Stevie was on the fast track. "I've always had a baby face. I've taken jokes about it, and I'll get my share of teasing for this award. But it's nice to be recognized for having a good season. Especially after last year." Ah. Last year. The year he's coming back from. How bad was it? He would rather forget. He didn't score a goal in the first 10 games. "Every night I said to myself, 'This is the night I begin to turn it around!' And nothing would happen. We were disorganized. It was the worst team I was ever on. It was disappointing, it was depressing. . . " And then it got bad. He broke his collarbone in a collision and missed the last 29 games. He was so fed up, he went to Mexico the first week of rehab. That may not sound tough. But this is a hockey player. How much ice do they have in Mexico? "I was really turned off with hockey," he says. "And I guess deep down I wondered if I had peaked. I had been the runner-up to Rookie of the Year (Buffalo goalie Tom Barrasso in 1984) and I thought about all the flash-in-the-pan players in hockey. Maybe I was going to be one of them. Maybe I would never improve." And then Jacques Demers took over the Wings, and he saw something. He named Yzerman his captain -- in retrospect, a brilliant move -- and the kid with the Rob Lowe face responded with a tremendous season, a career-high 90 points. Demers says he "couldn't have asked for more." That's understandable. A Comeback Player of the Year. A survivor. A grizzled veteran. In Reeboks. The older guys listen Today, it is true, Yzerman earns well over six-figures with the Red Wings. It is also true he buys Dire Straits albums. He is articulate, well-mannered and mature beyond his years. He also could get carded at an R-rated movie. "It took me a little while to get used to being captain, you know, with the older guys on the team," he admits. "I only called everybody together once, towards the end of the season. I felt a little funny. But nobody objected or made any faces. I said what I had to. And it worked out OK. "And this season has been great. We won our first playoff series in what, nine years? Now we're into the second round (against Toronto). We play as a team and we don't distinguish between age much. That's thanks to the older guys like Snepsy (Harold Snepsts, 32) and Higgy (Tim Higgins, 29). They know I'm never going to say to them, 'Hey, listen, you're gonna do it my way . . . " So things are going well. Finally. And whenever this surprising Wings season ends, Yzerman can still look forward to picking up one more award for the trophy case. Comeback Player of the Year. Age 21. "Hey," he suddenly asks. "Do you get anything for winning that?" I don't know. A razor, maybe? CUTLINE Steve Yzerman COLUMN;REACTION;AWARD;STEVE YZERMAN