Steve Chaisson Article

Tuesday, May 4, 1999

Bob Wojnowski

Detroit- Steve Yzerman took the call about 7:45 a.m. and was painfully familiar with the voice's edge, and the urgency. When he heard the news, his legs went weak, and he dropped into a chair.

"You just sit there and stare at the wall for a while," he said, six hours later. "it's devastating. It sucks the life right out of you."

Reality does that, without warning or reason. Into the fantasy world of games and fun, life again intrudes, bringing tragedy with it. Steve Chaisson, 32, was a Red Wing from 1986-94, plenty of time to become more than a teammate to Yzerman. Monday at 4:15 a.m., after Chaisson's Carolina Hurricanes had returned from playoff elimination in Boston, Chaisson's pickup left the road and flipped, ejecting him, ending his life.

There are no new lessons here, just the old sad ones. Police in Raleigh, N.C., said alcohol, speeding and the failure to use a seat belt might have been factors in the single-car accident. Beyond those larger issues, there remain the most basic and immediate ones.

Yzerman hung up the phone and could not stop thinking about Chaisson's wife, Sue, and their three young children, two boys and a girl.

"My God, what was it like for her to go in and wake them up and tell them?" Yzerman said, staring now at a Joe Louis Arena wall. His own wife, Lisa, is pregnant with their third child, due any day. He stared silently for several seconds.

"To hear that, and then have to come down to the rink and practice, you don't even feel like doing it. I guess hockey has its importance, to a point. This renders it all so insignificant. The thing that bothers me is, the next day, life goes on, hockey goes on, nothing ever stops."

In some ways that's both the horror and the comfort. If it seems unfair that everything continues, it's also a time honored fact of survival, one that Yzerman and the Wings know well. Nearly two years ago, team members Vladmir Konstantinov and Sergei Mnatsakanov were badly injured in a crash just days after the Wings won the Stanley Cup. It was Yzerman who took that call at a team golf outing.

This one is different, for Chaisson is gone, and Yzerman, among the Wings, is nearly alone in the depths of his grief. A few played alongside Chaisson for a year or two, but Yzerman knew him the longest and stayed sporadically in touch. For most of eight years, until Chaisson was traded to Calgary for Mike Vernon in the summer of '94, they would drive together to the rink, or to the airport, part of a Grosse Pointe group of Wings who carpooled like any other co-workers, to beat the traffic, to become better acquainted.

Chaisson never stood out, never was the loudest or funniest, but was dependable and accountable, the type of person Yzerman likes. He was a solid enough defenseman to be an alternate captain and make the All-Star team once.

"As a teammate, Chase was underappreciated," Yzerman said. "He played hard, he played through serios injuries, he never complained. I remember one thing he always used to say, and I thought it was the best thing to say when things weren't going well. We'd be breaking it down and overanalyzing and Chase would stand up and say, 'Just shut up and play.'"

Yzerman smiled at the memory.

"He was a simple guy, a bright guy, but simple about certain things. He was just a normal guy. He came to the rink, worked, went home."

Because sports heroes are held so high in our society, sometimes we forget who they are. Behind the winged crest on the sweaters, they deal with tragedt as most humans do. The uniqueness of thier talent does not extend to their mortality, or their ability to handle it.

So on this day, as he stood in a dark hallway, sage captain of a championship hockey team, Yzerman had no answers, no special healing power, no relief.

"As you get older, you have more and more experiences like this, and each time, you feel totally helpless," he said. "Should I call? I mean, I will call, but my gosh, how do you make that call? Who knows what to do?"

In those moments when our legs buckle and our stomachs churn, were all tragically, simply the same. Mostly, you do what you can, understand as much as possible, learn a little, and hope you never get experienced enough to figure it all out.