Friday, May 23, 2008
By Ron Cook, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Pittsburgh Penguins
Mario Lemieux and the 1992 Penguins celebrate with the Stanley Cup after defeating the Chicago Blackhawks, four games to zero.
It's funny, the littlest details that an athlete remembers from the greatest moment of his career.
For former Penguins Hall of Famer Ron Francis, all these years later, it's a brief conversation he shared with teammate Paul Coffey as they hopped over the boards into the on-ice pandemonium after the Penguins won the 1991 Stanley Cup in Minnesota.
"Coff knew all about winning Cups and he told me to enjoy the moment, but that it would get better every day the rest of my life," Francis recalled this week. "He was right."
That hokey NHL slogan?
The Cup Changes Everything.
It really is true.
Penguins captain Sidney Crosby will find out if the Penguins beat the Detroit Red Wings in the Cup final. The change always is most profound for the superstars. When the Penguins won in '91, Mario Lemieux went from great player to winner. That's an enormous difference.
But Penguins role players extraordinaire Max Talbot and Jarkko Ruutu also will share a life-altering experience, should the Penguins beat the Red Wings. Bob Errey and Troy Loney -- two of the 20 players who won Cups with the Penguins in '91 and '92 -- are remembered almost as fondly for their dirty work as Lemieux is for his otherworldly brilliance.
"You get that next level of respect," said winger Mark Recchi, who played on the '91 team and was traded to Philadelphia for power forward Rick Tocchet during the '92 season. "People say, 'This guy knows how to win.' There's no better compliment for a hockey player."
"People just look at you differently," Tocchet added. "Suddenly, in their eyes, you're not just a good player. You're a great leader. Or you're a real team guy. Everything increases tenfold."
Not that Crosby, Talbot and Ruutu will be thinking about their place in hockey history, should the Penguins get that fourth victory against the Red Wings in the two weeks ahead. Those thoughts will come much later. At the moment, all they will care about is getting to the Cup.
To hoist it.
To embrace it.
To kiss it.
Just as they did hundreds of times in their imagination when they were kids playing on a frozen pond or at the hometown rink.
"The best part about it is being with your teammates," said Francis, now the assistant general manager of the Carolina Hurricanes. "The bond you have with each other after you sacrifice so much to accomplish the goal you've dreamed about all your life is incredible."
For the '91 Penguins, the clinching game against Minnesota seemed to last forever. "The slowest game I ever played in," rugged defenseman Ulf Samuelsson said.
Pat yourself on the back if you remember it was Samuelsson who scored the first goal, "the game-winning goal," as he gleefully pointed out the other day. Known then as "Jack Lambert on skates," Samuelsson says now of Pittsburgh, "Man, that town sure loves defense." Goals from Lemieux, Joey Mullen, Errey, Francis, Mullen again, Jim Paek and Larry Murphy soon followed. The Penguins didn't just score a touchdown on that unimaginable night, they made the 2-point conversion and won, 8-0.
"I didn't even want to be on the ice in the second and third periods," Errey said. "I mean, I did, but I couldn't wait to get back to the guys on the bench. We knew we were going to win. It was so much fun."
"It was like, 'Is this ever going to end?' "Recchi said. "We were up, 8-0, and Badger Bob [Johnson] still was coaching like it was 0-0. We were like, 'Relax, Bob, we won.' "
The players swarmed Lemieux after he was handed the Cup by NHL president John Ziegler. On YouTube.com, you can see Samuelsson chasing after Lemieux like a little kid, jumping up, just trying to touch it. It's priceless video.
"I know I was a babbling fool when I finally got it," Errey said.
That joyous scene was repeated the next year after the Penguins clinched in Chicago with a 6-5 victory against the Blackhawks in Game 4.
"I couldn't wait my turn to hold the Cup. I just jumped up and grabbed it," Tocchet said of that June night in '92. "That whole season was the most fun I had in 18 years of hockey. But getting that Cup? It was like an out-of-body experience."
Crosby, Talbot, Ruutu and the rest of the Penguins should be so lucky to live it.
If they do -- who knows? -- maybe the Cup will end up back at Lemieux's swimming pool.
Or, rather, in Lemieux's pool.
That legendary story about the Cup sinking to the bottom the night after the Penguins won in '91? "It's absolutely true," Errey said. "We couldn't get the darn thing back up. The top of it broke off. It was so heavy after it filled up with water ...
"The next morning, it was all rusty and corroded because of the chemicals in the pool. They had to send it off somewhere to shine it up and put it back together before we had the party at The Point."
The Cup survived.
It always lives on.
Good thing because that means the hockey world always will remember the achievements of the '91, '92 and just maybe the 2008 Penguins. The name of every player from each championship team is engraved on it.
When Francis went to Toronto in November for his induction into the Hall of Fame, the first thing he did was take his kids to the Cup. "See it? See my name? There is it is, right there."
Errey, finishing his eighth season as a Penguins broadcaster, did the same thing during a Hall of Fame visit two years ago. "Look, it's there, B. Errey, and there, Bob Errey. ... Yep, your dad really did win it."
Samuelsson, Tocchet, Recchi, probably even the great Lemieux, they're all the same. They are humbled in the Cup's presence, but that doesn't stop them from immediately checking to make sure their name still is on it.
"It seems like there's always someone around asking, 'You won the Cup, right?' " Samuelsson said. "I say, 'I sure did. Here, let me show you.' Man, I never get tired of that."
The fortnight will determine if there's a place on the Cup for the names Crosby, Talbot and Ruutu.
The early-90s Penguins think this bunch has a shot against the Red Wings.
"Those guys might be young, but they know they're world-class players," said Samuelsson, the associate coach of the Phoenix Coyotes under Wayne Gretzky. "They're an unbelievable team."
"They're playing dynamite right now," said Recchi, who, after his third run with the Penguins, was claimed off waivers by Atlanta in December. "They're sharp. They're skating well. One line is doing it one night. Another line is doing it the next. That's what it takes to win a championship."
"What impresses me is how mature they are for being so young," said Tocchet, another Gretzky assistant in Phoenix. "It's like they're on a mission. After they killed Philly the other day, they all went to [goaltender] Marc-Andre Fleury, then they just sort of stood there. There was no fist-pumping or any of that. It was like, 'OK, bring the next team on.' "
Game 1 is tomorrow night in Detroit.
"You're so close that you can almost taste it," Errey said. "You wish you had it won already, but you know those last four wins are the toughest road to hoe. Only one team can win. Two weeks from now, you'll either be the happiest guy in the world or the forgotten bridesmaid."
The anticipation is overwhelming.
"I'm almost jealous of those guys," said Errey, who will work the series for the NHL Network. "I know what they're going through. I know how much fun it is to play those games. I know how great it is when you win.
"I'd love to be able to do it one more time."
The Hall of Famer Coffey wasn't the only one with insightful words back on that magical night in '91. Bob Johnson had a few for Penguins power forward Kevin Stevens and a few stragglers, long after most of the players had left the champagne- and beer-soaked dressing room and taken their celebration into the night.
"Boys," The Badger said, "make sure you enjoy this because it's not like this every year."
Johnson died six months later from brain tumors.
The Penguins won the Cup again six months after that under coach Scotty Bowman.
"You just never know," Francis said.
"That's why the time to do it always has to be now, right now," Errey said.
Crosby and the others don't need reminded.
They know what is at stake.
They know the hard truth.
The Cup changes everything.
Ron Cook can be reached at rcook@post-gazette.com.
First published on May 23, 2008 at 12:00 am
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