The last chapter in my childhood officially closed last night.  With the retiring of his jersey number, never to be worn by another Detroit Red Wing again, the person I grew up watching had now made it official that he would never lace up the skates again.  It’s really not smart to use the word “hero” when talking about athletes, so let’s say he was the person I looked up to while growing up.  This entry isn’t about hockey at all, rather how a young boy had an athlete he admired and wanted to emulate.  Now that I’m older and I don’t get emotional about players or teams like I used to, Steve Yzerman reminds me of a simpler time when I lived and breathed Red Wings hockey.  To an extent, I still do, but I’m not as emotional anymore when they win or lose like I was when my world revolved around sports.

Even when I was growing up, athletes were quickly becoming assholes.  Not all of them, mind you, but the vocal minority that always got the press were the jerks that very quickly ruined baseball, football, and basketball.  For whatever reason, with a few exceptions, hockey players were, and still are, the most down-to-earth people and generally have manners that match what most of us were taught regarding how to act in public.  Steve Yzerman was one of those guys.  I had actually waited to write about him until after his number was retired, as I was hoping that he wouldn’t make the mistake of other great athletes who unretire and partially tarnish their name and reputation (see Michael Jordan and Evander Holyfield).

Like most boys growing up, I was deeply into sports – watching them and playing them.  I lived on the canals in Detroit and during the winter I would skate all day with my stick and puck (weather permitting).  Who did I pretend to be when I was playing?  Steve Yzerman, of course; the local hockey star.  Sometimes I’d pretend to be Wayne Gretzky but for the most part I was #19.  Keep in mind the Red Wings really stunk back then but all my friends that I knew loved hockey and we didn’t care that people called them the Dead Wings or Dead Things.  And Steve Yzerman was one of the few reasons at the time to watch them.

Around the mid-80s was also when I was “graduating” from the comics section of the Detroit Free Press and began reading the Sports section voraciously.  For every home Red Wings game, the Free Press would print a color photo of that game on the front page of the sports section.  During each season I would cut that photo out and tape it on my bedroom wall, and by season’s end it would be an impressive collage of Red Wings action shots.  Steve Yzerman would usually be in at least 30% of those shots, so the wall was semi-dedicated to him each season.

In this day and age when athletes don’t stay on teams for long, leaving via free agency or being traded or retiring early because of an unfortunate injury, he was the exception to the rule (like Cal Ripken of the Baltimore Orioles).  Steve Yzerman became the youngest captain in Red Wings history in 1986 at age 21.  I mention this because I bought his jersey in 1987 with the “C” on the shoulder and that jersey stayed relevant until 2006.  He wound up serving the longest captaincy in hockey history and my jersey never became “dated” for twenty years.  Imagine that – my jersey was current throughout high school, college, my entire stay in Chicago (5 years), and all the way until last May (an additional 6 years in Atlanta).

Let’s not forget to mention how tough he was too.  While baseball players go on the Disabled List for sneezing (Sammy Sosa) or putting on their socks (Randy Johnson) or other minor injuries that seem laughable to hockey and football players, Steve Yzerman epitomized playing through injury and pain that most hockey players are known for.  He had several career-threatening knee injuries and came back from every one of them.  One year he basically carried the team through the playoffs and helped Team Canada win Olympic gold when his knee was basically nothing but powder.

Anyway, the ceremony was very touching last night but one moment stood out for me.  It actually was a happy/sad moment.  They trotted out a lot of Yzerman’s ex-teammates and other Red Wing greats, and one of them was Vladimir Konstantinov.  To make a long story short, a week after the Red Wings won the Stanley Cup in 1997, the team had a private party and had rented limos so the players wouldn’t have to drive home drunk.  The limo that Konstantinov was in was being driven by a guy who had a suspended license for drunk driving.  He plowed the limo into a tree on a street median and Vladimir suffered extensive physical and brain damage.  He went from one of the most feared defensemen in the league to a cripple with barely any motor functions at all.  While he has recovered somewhat, he’s still wheelchair bound and the coordination still isn’t’ there.  It’s been a while since I’ve seen him and when they introduced him, the crowd went nuts.  He’s now in a walker but it’s still a struggle for him to walk and do basic things like clap and it really gives us all a quick reality check.  You can be on top of the world and in one quick second that can all go away.  We’re all damn lucky to be alive and sometimes it takes a reminder like that to jolt us back to reality.  Seeing him at the ceremony made me glad he’s recovering, but it was also really sad to see how hard it is for him to do simple physical tasks like walking and clapping even after almost 10 years of intense rehabilitation.

Back to Steve, he was typically gracious during the ceremony and tried to deflect the praise heaped upon him to his family and teammates, just like he had always done throughout his career.  If the sporting world had more Steve Yzermans in it, I might not be as cynical about modern day athletes as I am.

Thanks for the memories, #19. You gave to a kid in Detroit who grew up in a city that didn’t have a lot going for it at the time a lot of great memories.  For that, I am forever grateful.