Some people never change, appearance-wise. You know the type. Forever young, maybe a few pounds heavier. But you'd still recognize them upon first look. These people are blessed with good stock.
Then there are the people who never change, inside. Life's experiences never seem to change their countenance. Of course, this could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on the person.
In Steve Yzerman's case, it's a good thing. A very good thing.
Listening to Yzerman speak last night at his jersey retirement ceremony, as I was tucked away near the Zamboni entrance (doing some freelance work for Fox Sports Detroit), and hearing him give everyone credit except himself for his amazing career, I realized he was basically the same person, at age 41, as he was at age 18, when I first encountered him.
It's a story I've often told, but here it goes again. October, 1983. I'm working as a cub reporter for The Michigan Daily (U-M's student newspaper), and the assignment is a Red Wings game, opponent long forgotten. And irrelevant. For the story, to me, isn't the game, but the scene afterward, in the lockerroom.
The Wings have won this one, and the cameras and microphones and notepads are surrounding the established veterans: John Ogrodnick; Brad Park; Ron Duguay. I'm crowded around them, too, being jabbed away by the brutish camera operators. Standing behind me, dressing quietly by himself, is this teenager who looked more in place in a high school dressing room than that of the NHL.
I asked him a few questions. His answers, I don't recall. But I remember clear as day how they sounded: quiet, barely audible in the din of the lockerroom. He seemed almost ready to blush, that I was speaking to him, when there were grizzled veterans in the same room.
Today, there's been little change.
It happened again last night. Fetching Yzerman for a post-ceremony interview on FSD, he shook my hand and accorded me nothing less than cooperative courtesy. When I tracked him down in late October at the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame dinner, he was the same way.
"I got a kick out of Jimmy Devellano saying, 'We think he can contribute,' during that video," I said to Yzerman, referencing Jimmy D's induction video, when he was describing the drafting of #19 in June, 1983.
"Well," Yzerman said, with that shy grin, "we really didn't know back then, did we?"
Perhaps not. But we know now. Oh, how we know.
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During the game, I sat in the suite occupied by Red Wings alumni, along with coaches Scotty Bowman, Jacques Demers, and Dave Lewis. The three of them sat, along with Ted Lindsay, beside me as we watched the game below.
Listening to these guys talk hockey, past and present, as the players of today skated, was wonderfully surreal. Bowman and Demers gabbed for a while, Jacques his usual animated self. Lindsay watched the game intently, as if he was an opposing GM scouting players for possible trades.
Sometime during the second period, I started in on Larry Murphy.
"How badly did you want out of Toronto?," I asked Murphy, who was acquired from the Maple Leafs by the Red Wings at the trade deadline in 1997. Toronto fans took to booing Murphy relentlessly near the end of his career as a Leaf.
"Well, it's all about winning," Murphy said.
Did the booing and catcalls bother him?
"Naah. Not at all."
"They booed you in Toronto for years afterward," I said. "Get over it!"
Murphy laughed and agreed.
I asked Steve Duchesne, a 2002 Cup winner in Detroit, about goalie Dominik Hasek.
"Is he playing as well," I asked, "as when you won the Cup with him in '02?"
"Maybe," Duchesne said. "But he gets hurt a lot. Sometimes he breaks down."
True.
Lindsay finally looked up from his intense viewing and spoke at one point.
"It's a skater's game," Terrible Ted said, to no one in particular.
True again. Not that Ted was much of one. He played with a brute force that is often missed in today's game. But I think he'd like to get on the ice and show the kids a thing or two.
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I really enjoyed one particular moment last night.
In the suite was longtime Red Wings team physician Dr. John Finley. I remembered a quote about Dr. Finley from Gordie Howe, and I recounted it to the doc to his glee.
"Someone once asked Howe, 'Who has the hardest shot in the league? Gordie said, "Dr. Finley."'"
Dr. Finley remembered the quote, as I suspected he had. But he was no less happy to hear it again.
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