9301160378
DETROIT FREE PRESS
930429
Thursday, April 29, 1993
METRO FINAL
1D
MITCH ALBOM
Copyright (c) 1993, Detroit Free Press
RED WINGS FACE A STARK DIVIDE
YZERMAN CAUGHT 'TWIXT RAGE, REASON
Steve Yzerman wanted to break something. He paced the locker room, while
his sweat-drenched teammates slumped on their chairs, reeling from the
evening's defeat. Yzerman grabbed a glass and moved to a private area behind
the showers. Now he was alone. He cocked the glass like a baseball pitcher --
"Throw it! Vent your anger!" the voices sang in his head -- and he was about
to smash it into a thousand pieces, when, suddenly, another voice inside
whispered, "What good will that do? It won't change things."
And he froze.
Picture Yzerman this way, stuck between rage and reason, and you have an
accurate look of the Wings' captain right now. What is the man supposed to do?
Kick down the wall, or patch its cracks? They keep talking about his
leadership, his leadership, but his team is one loss from elimination in the
playoffs' first round -- the Grand Canyon couldn't hold Detroit's
disappointment if that happens -- and all Yzerman knows for sure is this: "If
I score three goals and we win, they say that's leadership. If I don't and we
lose, it wasn't."
He put the glass down. He went home.
What happens to a dream deferred, a poet once asked? Yzerman knows: It
slowly drives you batty.
"We can't lose! We can't lose," he repeated, as if chanting a mantra,
before leaving for Game 6 of this tooth-gnashing series against Toronto. Every
player feels defeat. But no player feels a Red Wing defeat more than Yzerman
these days. For some unfair reason, his reputation is now intertwined with the
club's progress. And like a man being watched from a one- way mirror, he
wonders if his moves are appropriate.
"Do I scream, cry, laugh, bang my head, what?" said Yzerman. "This is the
strongest team I've ever been on. We screwed up. We should be ahead 3-2 now.
But still. . . . "
He shook his head.
"Just once, I'd like to know how it feels to be champion. Not to be a
winner -- anyone can be a winner. You become a father; you get a good job;
you raise a family -- you're a winner.
"But to be the best at something, once in a lifetime, you know? You want to
be able to say you did it, and nobody can take it away from you."
He paused. "Then you can relax."
There is no relaxing in Yzerman these days. It's as if a wasp flew into his
ear and is rattling his brain. Are they right? Is he somehow responsible?
After all, he hasn't scored in the Wings' three losses. And every time
Detroit loses a playoff game, certain critics cluck their tongues and say
Yzerman -- who has only been the best hockey player around here for 10 years
-- is not one of The Chosen Ones (i.e., Gretzky and Lemieux). He is not
special enough to lead a team to a title.
Baloney. There is a myth in sports that one man can put a team on his back
and carry it across the finish line. This is for people who believe in the
tooth fairy. Leadership doesn't come in a bottle that you pour on teammates'
heads. And Yzerman isn't a puppeteer.
"If I thought going to every guy on the team and saying something would
make a difference, I'd do it," he says, "but it doesn't work that way. I've
spent a lot of time this year asking how other guys lead their teams. I asked
about Wayne, about Mario, all of them. And the answers come back the same:
They go out and play the game.
"That's all I do."
He drooped in his chair and sat quietly for a moment, his body swallowed
by frustration. I know this: If the Wings ever do win a Stanley Cup, Yzerman
will never stop sighing.
Late Tuesday night, after the overtime defeat by the Leafs, he drove home
with a million questions in his head. He sat with his wife, Lisa, spouting
his disbelief. And after she finally went to sleep, he stayed up until 5 a.m.,
looking at cable movies and trying to exorcise the demons. With the sun about
to rise, he heard himself say, "Hey, there's a Game 6. I gotta get ready." And
he crawled into bed.
Steve Yzerman is not Knute Rockne. He is not Mike Ditka. He is not Babe
Ruth, pointing to the stands before hitting a home run. Steve Yzerman is the
same decent, soft-spoken, wonderfully skilled fellow that he was the day he
arrived in Detroit. The only difference is, back then, "forever" meant the
time he had left to win a Stanley Cup. And now it means how long he has been
waiting.
"There's a stigma in hockey: 'This guy never played on a Stanley Cup
winner, and this guy did,' " Yzerman said. "Well, I've played with guys who
won Stanley Cups. Some of them were great. And some of them weren't. They
didn't have any magic."
Right. Witches have magic. Fairies have magic. Hockey players have seven
chances to win four games or they go home. Steve Yzerman can't play goalie, or
defense; he can't call line changes or blow the whistle. "All I can do is what
I know how to do," he said.
And that's all anyone should expect. Early Wednesday morning, on the
flickering TV, Yzerman watched a film about a South African boy who fights
apartheid. It had grand music and a tear-jerking climax and, naturally, the
kid wins in the end. It was titled "The Power of One."
If life were only a movie.
DREDWINGS; HOCKEY;Red Wings