I CAME HOME from the World Cup snakebit. Nothing came together. In my first eight games I came up with maybe one assist.
Coming off a big series is a major adjustment. There’s inevitably a letdown. I’d just finished playing high-quality, high-intensity hockey, as good as it can get, and now it was time to rejoin my team, where the skill level was lower and the practices were long and focused on the basics. For weeks, I’d been surrounded by players who could see the ice as well as I could, but now, when I gave my Calgary teammates the same opportunities to score, chances were it wasn’t going to happen. We had only two guys who ended the season with more than 55 points—me and Dave Gagner. On paper against the other teams, we never had a chance. Add to that the fact that I was under tremendous pressure, courtesy of the investigation into the allegations against Graham James. I knew the dam would burst, I just didn’t know when.
Our NHL season started on October 5, 1996, against the Vancouver Canucks. Vancouver had three top scorers in Alexander Mogilny, Martin Gélinas and Pavel Bure. We lost 3–1. It was a typical result. Each time we went out on the ice, I’d have to play the game of my life in order for us to win. But I figured if I could compete at the level that nobody else competed at, maybe it would rub off on some of the guys. I’d been captain in 1995–96 and 1996–97, and I had to try to do the best I could with what was going on because I hated to lose.
You might recognize five names from the team when I was the captain. I am not saying my teammates weren’t good guys, but I am saying that most didn’t belong in the NHL. We did have some talent that would emerge eventually, like Jarome Iginla and Derek Morris and Trevor Kidd, but most of them were babies at the time. I really loved some of the Russian guys. German Titov, he wasn’t a huge guy—five foot eleven, 176 pounds—but he was unstoppable. Very strong mentally. I used to sit beside German every day. Once he started speaking better English, I started having some good conversations with him. I remember asking him, “Teets, man, where did you come from?” He said, “Well, you know I was in army. For four years. I was in army.” “You didn’t play hockey in the army, Teets?” “No. Fuck, no. I didn’t play hockey. I drive tank in the Russian army.” “Holy fuck, what was that like?” “Is crazy,” he said. “We blowing up things all the time.”
He was so funny. Some days he would be dragging his ass at practice and I’d say, “Teets, why are you so tired today?” “Ohhhh, last night we have big party at my house. I drink three bottles of wine … a couple bottles of vodka … I’m very tired.”
In 1995–96 we had Michael Nylander, Phil Housley and Gary Roberts, and we made the playoffs, but as usual the Flames ended up getting rid of all our best players. Fuck, it was frustrating.
Anyway, I was at the start of the biggest slump of my career after the World Cup of Hockey. On October 6, we won our home opener against the Buffalo Sabres, and I set up a couple of scoring chances, but nada—no assists, no goals. Then we lost 3–1 to St. Louis at home on October 9. The Blues had ex-Flames Al MacInnis and Brett Hull, which sucked. Two nights later, we beat the Detroit Red Wings with Brendan Shanahan, Steve Yzerman, Sergei Fedorov and Nicklas Lidström, 2–1, and two days after that we put John LeClair, Eric Lindros and Rod Brind’Amour of the Philadelphia Flyers down 1–0. But I was pressing—hitting crossbars, fanning on shots, bouncing shots off the post. I was ready to run out in front of a car.
Next up on that road trip were the New York Rangers, who had Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier, Brian Leetch, Mike Richter and Adam Graves, and we lost 5–4. Then we played Montreal, who had Vincent Damphousse, Mark Recchi, Brian Savage, Saku Koivu and Martin Ručínsky, and we lost 4–2. These eastern games are important to a team like Calgary, which is usually out of the view of the national press. I came up dry in all these games. I was past breaking sticks. I needed a goal like a crackhead needs a fix.
When I went through slumps, I made sure I was the first guy at the rink. I’d take a bucket of pucks and pick the corners to get my confidence going. It was insurance so that when I did get an opportunity, I wouldn’t bury it in the goalie’s belly. Another thing that happens to a player in a slump is that superstitions take a front seat. And hockey players are really superstitious by nature. I had my game-day routine down and did the same thing before every game for thirteen years in a row.
We had to be at the rink at 9 a.m., so I got up at 8, was in the car by 8:13 and in line at Tim Hortons by 8:15, ordering a double-double. I’d smoke three cigarettes on the way, lit at certain stop lights. Drove the same route—Deerfoot, Southland, Blackfoot, past the Cash Casino, up to the Saddledome player entrance. Then there was my rink procedure—I’d get another coffee, get undressed, take a shower, sit in the hot tub for exactly three minutes, go to meetings, practise, shower again, get in my car. I’d head for La Brezza for lunch and eat penne Romanoff and tortellini with soda and orange juice. Then I’d get back in my car, drive home and be asleep by 2 p.m. I’d wake up at 4 p.m., get back in my car at 4:13, Tim Hortons for another double-double by 4:15. I’d follow the same route to the rink, park, shower, spend three minutes in the hot tub, then stretch and tape my sticks—which was another ritual in itself. My sticks were very important to me, as they are to pretty much every hockey player. A stick can make a huge difference to your scoring ability. I would retape my stick between periods too. Always heel to toe, and I’d use a glue stick on my blade to make it sticky.
The glue I used was the stuff that held the stick into the shaft—we used two-piece sticks back then. The brands changed. I was with Jofa for a few years, then Nike and Easton. Jofa and Nike each paid me a hundred grand to wear their stuff—sticks, helmets, gloves, pants. If you look at my hockey cards, you can see which years I wore which brand. When I switched to Easton during my second year in New York, the very first time I shot the puck, it was like, holy cow! That stick increased the speed of my shot by ten to fifteen miles an hour. Today’s one-piece sticks are unbelievable for shooting the puck. But for taking passes and handling the puck, it’s a completely different feel from the wooden ones. The sticks today are stiffer. In fact, the blade is so stiff that when the puck hits, it jumps off unless you have an extraordinary set of hands. You see guys out there who have trouble with the puck. Why? Because they don’t have the hands to control a stick that is that stiff. NHLers pass the puck as hard as we shoot it. So if you have a pass coming at you at eighty or ninety miles an hour and you have a stiff stick, it’ll bounce unless you’re a very skilled guy.
I decided not to take any money from Easton because I had run into trouble with Nike. I really liked Nike’s original stick, but when they came out with a new shaft and a different type of blade, I wasn’t as keen. I scored only 15 goals that year. It just didn’t feel right. Some of those Nike sticks were okay, but some were heavy, and when I shot the puck it didn’t go anywhere near where it was supposed to go. When you pick up a stick, you know whether you’re going to score with it. In 1990–91, the year I scored 51 goals, I was using Louisville sticks, and for some reason they were perfect for me. I don’t know if it was because I was feeling so confident or what, but when I picked up a Louisville it was like, “Yes.”
I didn’t like to be around the team before a game. I liked to focus.Gary Taylor, our video guy, would make me an up-to-date video of all the goals I scored, and I’d sit in the back room, put in my tape and watch all the goals. This would get that good feeling going. The coach would have his pre-game meeting and we’d all be there. Next, I would get dressed—always left to right—and make sure I was in line directly behind the goalie for the warmup. I would do exactly the same thing each time: start every drill from the same place (when and where I shot was the same too), go back in, grab a Gatorade and watch the video for a few minutes, put a chew in under my top lip (I don’t know how many times management would come up to me and say, “You can’t have chew in your mouth during interviews”), then back to the locker room. The ritual would end with me standing in line behind the goalie, coming out for the game, looking up at the flag during the anthem, counting the thirteen points on the maple leaf when I heard, “O Canada, we stand on guard for thee,” touching the ice and making the sign of the cross. After all that, I was ready to play.
ON OCTOBER 19, 1996, the pressure was on. We had Edmonton at home the next day and I was tense. Edmonton had four really good scorers—Doug Weight, Ryan Smyth, Andrei Kovalenko and Jason Arnott. They also had Curtis Joseph in goal. I called my dad and he told me that Grampa Fleury taught him that if you are not having fun at something, you will be too uptight to do a good job.
Against Edmonton, I scored my first goal and added two assists in the first period. We won, 6–3. Two nights later I got a hat trick against Colorado. They had a very strong team—Peter Forsberg, Joe Sakic, Sandis Ozolinsh, Valeri Kamensky, Adam Deadmarsh and Patrick Roy. I beat Roy on a penalty shot that night and we won 5–1. Two nights after that, we beat Pittsburgh 7–5. That team included Mario Lemieux, Jaromir Jagr, Ron Francis and Petr Nedvěd. I was back.
One of the pianos I was carrying around on my back was gone, but there was still another one I had to get rid of.