9101130209
DETROIT FREE PRESS
910327
Wednesday, March 27, 1991
METRO FINAL
1E
MITCH ALBOM
Copyright (c) 1991, Detroit Free Press
THESE THREE WINGS ARE TOUGH ENOUGH
I must admit, I was a little worried when the Red Wings traded Joey Kocur
a few weeks ago. After all, hockey is a tough sport. And in giving up Kocur,
the Wings were giving up one of the toughest guys around.
I don't want to say Joey spent a lot of time punching opponents. I will
say I once looked at him and said, "Hey, nice leather gloves."
"Those are my hands," he said.
You trade a guy like that, you trade away a lot. Sure, you have Bob
Probert -- who, if you ask me, could probably beat both Foreman and Holyfield
-- but Probert can't travel to games out of the country. And what happens
then? I was concerned that, without Kocur, our traditionally grinding hockey
team might be seen as . . . timid.
Not anymore. I just returned from a visit to the Wings' locker room. There
I met three of the newest players, Dennis Vial, Brad Marsh and Marc Potvin,
who all joined the team within the last seven weeks.
Ladies and gentlemen, I don't think toughness is going to be a problem.
Take Potvin. He recently arrived from the minor leagues. And boy, were
they glad to see him go. Potvin apparently set a record for fights down there,
skate, punch, skate, punch -- "It's a good way to get playing time," he
admitted -- but it got so that every time he took the ice, someone wanted to
challenge him, as if he were Jesse James walking into a saloon.
"There was this one guy from Newmarket," Potvin told me Tuesday, "he
kept bugging me to fight. 'Come on. Come on,' he said. I didn't want to fight
him. But he kept bugging me. So finally, I dropped my gloves."
"And?"
"I broke his jaw and cheekbone."
"Long fight?"
"One punch."
See what I mean?
Bite off more than he can chew? Not Vial
And then we have Dennis Vial. Whoo. You gotta like this guy. For one
thing, he looks a lot like his nickname, "Dancing Bear," with narrow eyes,
short-cropped hair and the body of a baby grizzly. He, too, has had his share
of fights, considering he is only 21.
But this is not what makes him impressive.
What makes him impressive is something he did last year in a steak house
in Peoria, Ill. His friends challenged him to eat the biggest steak they had.
"It was a 48-ouncer, about this big," Vial recalled, making his hands the
size of a hubcap. "The restaurant had this deal: If you can finish it, you
don't have to pay for it."
He smiled at me.
"I like to eat," he said.
No!
"So the steak came, and I figured, as long as I'm eating it, I might as
well find out what the house record is for speed. They told me the fastest
anyone had eaten a steak that size, in that restaurant -- with a salad and
potato -- was 34 minutes."
"How fast did you eat it?"
"Seventeen minutes."
Now. For the math whizzes out there, that's nearly three ounces of steak
per minute -- chewed and swallowed -- not to mention the salad and potato. And
you have to allow for breathing time.
And believe it or not, Vial came back the next week and ordered another
steak. The following morning, he had stomach pains so bad, he had to crawl to
the doctor.
"He said I had a protein build-up that was blocking my system."
Gee, I find that hard to believe.
"He suggested I eat some fiber."
And?
"I went to the grocery store, bought a load of bran cereal and bran
muffins, and I ate those. Felt better, too."
Like I said, why worry?
Marsh is the one who plays bareheaded
Wait. I didn't tell you about Brad Marsh, the defenseman. He's one of
those guys that everyone calls "too slow, too unskilled" -- so naturally,
he's been in the NHL for 13 years. At age 32, he has as many goals in his
career as Stevie Yzerman gets in a month. But he does do one thing that
neither Yzerman nor many others do these days -- he plays without a helmet.
And not because he's showing off.
"I grew up watching guys play without helmets," he said Tuesday. "I just
always felt that's the way hockey should be."
This is very noble. It is also dangerous. Marsh learned that the very
first game he played sans plastic, when he took a stick to the side of his
head. And then there was the night in Philadelphia when he crashed headfirst
into the boards and was knocked unconscious.
They carried him from the ice.
Yet he still goes without a helmet. "There is no sane reason for it," he
admitted. "It's just me."
And that's what we want to hear. Who cares if it's sane? I mean, let's face
it. How sane is it to play a game in which a slam into a wall is perfectly
legal?
So, anyhow, all of this makes me feel much better about the Wings'
playoff chances -- with a hard head, a hard fist and hard stomach in the
lineup. True, they might not score a lot of goals. But you never know. . . .
"The other day, in practice," Vial said, "Jimmy Carson skated up behind
me. He said, 'If you make the next shot past Glen Hanlon, I'll buy you another
48-ounce steak.' "
Vial aimed. He swung. Score!
Don't forget the bran muffins.