He was the accidental Red Wing. He
never dreamed of playing in Detroit, never fantasized about pulling the blood
red sweater with the winged wheel over his chest. Far from it, as a matter of
fact.
Chris Chelios was as Chicago as the
Cubs, Second City and dirty politics. His was a Greek family couched in
Evergreen Park, Illinois, where the Blackhawks ruled the roost when it came to
hockey teams you rooted for.
When Chelios entered the world, the
NHL had six teams and if you weren’t born in Canada, it was almost a death
knell for your chances of playing in the league.
Americans played hockey, but they
just didn’t play it in the NHL, which at the time only had about 120 jobs
available, and it seemed like 115 of them went to Canucks. The European
invasion was still a decade off in 1962, when Chelios was born.
It didn’t help Chelios when his
family moved to Southern California in 1977. If you were an American and
harbored dreams of being an NHLer, moving to the beaches of San Diego wasn’t
exactly the way to make those dreams come true.
There wasn’t any high school
hockey, number one. Chelios played youth hockey in Illinois, but when he got to
San Diego as a 16-year-old he was a boy without a team. In San Diego, they used
sticks to pick up sushi, not to swat at vulcanized rubber pucks.
Because he didn’t play hockey at
the high school level, no colleges recruited Chris Chelios. At that point,
playing in the NHL was the mother of all pipe dreams.
Strangely, there was actually an
NCAA Division I hockey program that was San Diego-based. In fact, it was the
only such program west of the Rockies. It was called U.S. International
University, and it floated Chelios a scholarship offer.
“Sure, kid. Show up to campus and
let’s see what you got,” might have been the terms of the scholarship.
It didn’t work out so well for
Chelly at U.S. International. He arrived on campus in 1979 and immediately he
knew he was outclassed. The other players were bigger, stronger, and many were
steeped in junior hockey experience. Not surprisingly, Chelios was cut from the
team. The mother of all pipe dreams looked to be going poof.
When in Rome, do as the Romans do,
so Chelios decided to try Canada, where just about every boy is born with a
black eye and sharp elbows.
He tried out for a couple of Junior
B teams in Canada and was cut both times. Chelios was Rocky Balboa, but going
in the wrong direction.
Chelios returned to California—he
had to borrow money from strangers to get back home—and it looked like hockey
wasn’t going to be his vocation.
Then a fascinating thing happened
to him, physically. It was like something out of a Charles Atlas magazine ad.
Chelly grew a few inches and put on
about 40 pounds, most of it muscle. No one was going to kick snow in his face
any longer.
From that point on, Chelios’ hockey
story made an about face. He made the Moose Jaw Canucks—that could only be a
hockey team—of the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League, and he terrorized the
league.
In his final season at Moose Jaw,
Chelios had 87 points and 175 penalty minutes in just 54 games. It was enough
to be drafted by the Montreal Canadiens, no less, in 1981.
From bumming a ride to California
to being drafted by an Original Six team, in just two years, Chelios was
hockey’s ugly duckling that turned swan.
After being drafted by Montreal,
Chelios went to college, that level of hockey that at one time didn’t recruit
him, and played a couple years at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
While in college, Chelios played in
the World Junior Ice Hockey Championship and in 1983, he was part of the
Badgers’ NCAA championship team.
By this time, Americans had been
infiltrating the NHL in greater numbers. Europeans were dotting league rosters
at a growing rate as well. You no longer had to be Canadian to play in
the NHL. Your birth certificate was made moot.
Chelios played for Team USA in the
1984 Olympics, and then made his debut for Les Canadiens, playing in 12 games.
Two years later, he was hoisting the Stanley Cup for the 1986 Montreal team
that beat the Calgary Flames.
Not bad for a guy who, just seven
years prior, was being shoved around like a runt by other teens.
Chelios’ hockey story came full
circle in the summer of 1990, when the Canadiens traded him to Chicago for
Denis Savard, even up. Chelly was a defenseman, Savard was a center—a magician
with the puck who was adored in the Windy City. The trade wasn’t exactly
received with bells and whistles in Chicago, despite Chelios being a native son
of sorts.
Chelios wore number 24 in Montreal,
but that wasn’t going to happen with the Blackhawks. In Chicago, fellow
defenseman Doug Wilson wore that number, and Wilson was almost as revered by
the Blackhawk faithful as Savard was. So Chelly pulled on number seven.
In Chicago, Chelios gave the
Blackhawks nearly nine full seasons, sticking his big, fat Greek nose in other
people’s business to the tune of about 200 penalty minutes per season. He was
especially despised in Detroit, whose rivalry with the Blackhawks had been
reinvigorated as the Red Wings did their own ugly duckling to swan move and
began dominating hockey in the 1990s.
But as the Red Wings rose, the
Blackhawks began to fall. After facing the Red Wings in the 1995 Conference
Finals, the Blackhawks soon turned slapstick more than slap shot. It got so bad
that late in the 1998-99 season, Chicago hockey management started dumping
salaries—including that of hometown kid-made-good, Chris Chelios.
I’ll never forget where I was when
I heard the news that the Red Wings had acquired Chelios in March, 1999 at the
trading deadline. I was in my car, and nearly ran it into a ditch.
Chris Chelios, a Red Wing?
It was Ted Williams to the Yankees.
Larry Bird to the Lakers. A Hatfield to the McCoys.
Chelios was 37 when the trade was
made, and it looked like so many the Red Wings were famous for making—a wily
veteran on his last legs, for a prospect that would never find serious ice time
in Detroit anyhow.
Chelios was traded for a defenseman
named Anders Eriksson, who was 24 at the time and who would play in the NHL for
another 11 years, but whose career reads more like a travelogue. Eriksson
played for six more teams after being traded to Chicago, never carving out much
of a niche anywhere he went.
But a funny thing happened with
this Chelios-for-Eriksson deal. Despite being 13 years Eriksson’s senior,
Chelly nearly played in the NHL for as long as Eriksson would last.
Chelios became a Red Wing, and
eventually the Winged Wheel was tattooed emotionally on his heart. Detroit
slowly replaced Chicago as Chelios’ home. He opened restaurants in metro
Detroit, got involved in charity work and won two more Stanley Cups along the
way (2002 and 2008). He played in Detroit until he was 46 years old, beating
Gordie Howe in that category by three years in the age department.
Last week, Chelios—along with
fellow Red Wing Brendan Shanahan—was voted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.
Hockey’s HOF isn’t like baseball’s.
The inducted player doesn’t have to choose a sweater, like baseball folks have
to choose which hat they’re going to wear on their plaques. Remember the
controversy when Sparky Anderson chose to be depicted wearing a Cincinnati Reds
lid?
But if hockey did have that
requirement, I have little doubt that Chelly would choose to go into the Hall
as a Red Wing. He is still employed by the Red Wings, as GM Kenny Holland’s
Executive Advisor.
“I always say I’m from Chicago,
proud of that fact, but Detroit has been my home now for the last 13 years. I
love it,” Chelios told the Free Press last week.
In this case, Chicago truly is the
Second City.
