Same old Stevie

January 16, 1999

BY JASON LA CANFORA

Free Press Sports Writer

Awards don't interest Steve Yzerman much.

Never have. Never will.

Not when he was a 15-year-old playing hockey in Ontario for his hometown Nepean Raiders. Not now.

The NHL might have changed the way it views Yzerman, but Yzerman has not changed. He always has been the ultimate team player. He never has been much for hardware. All he ever dreamed about was winning the Stanley Cup.

Yet in the past year he has received more accolades than ever in his proficient 16-year career with the Red Wings, including recognition by Free Press readers as Michigan's Best of 1998. Yzerman was the runaway winner in voting for the state's leading sports figure.

He also won the award in 1988.

Yzerman, 33, is now trumpeted unanimously as the ultimate leader, competitor and two-way player at a time when he has scored about half as many goals as he did in his best offensive years.

After being overshadowed for more than a decade, Yzerman now is synonymous with his trade. He's not doing anything differently; he's just being noticed more.

"I've got to tell you, if you ever look at tapes of him in junior hockey with Peterborough, he was just like he is now," said Darren Pang, former NHL goalie and one of Yzerman's closest friends. "He is the same kind of player. Everybody talks about Stevie changing how he plays. He always had that in him. He always played both ways all the time."

Yzerman was 14 when he befriended Pang. They played for the Raiders the next year, then went on to the Ontario Hockey League.

Yzerman starred for the Peterborough Petes and was the Wings' first-round draft pick in 1983. Pang played three seasons for Chicago and now is a commentator for ESPN. He still watches his buddy closely, on and off the ice.

"I see pretty much the same guy," Pang said. "He's still the same way. He's still quite reserved in the ways he comes across, but get him alone and get together and have a few laughs, and he's still pretty witty."

So if Yzerman hasn't changed, why have so many people changed their perception of him?

Why, after years of being snubbed from international competition, was Yzerman selected for Canada's entry in the 1996 World Cup and a central figure on Team Canada at the Winter Olympics? Why did the entire league embrace Yzerman's selection as the Conn Smythe winner as playoff MVP almost as if it had been their own teammate?

Why, after all these seasons, was he selected by fans to start at center at the Jan. 23 All-Star Game? Why did the Raiders, who now play at Steve Yzerman Arena in the Yzerman Division, retire his sweater last week?

"You get it all because you win," Yzerman said. "Everybody gets more recognition when in a winning atmosphere. Your games are on TV more, you're in the paper more. There's a lot more recognition that comes along with being on a winning team.

"There's always a different perception in hockey of a player who has been on a Stanley Cup winner and a player who hasn't. There's always the perception that this guy has what it takes to win, because he's won, and this guy doesn't because he hasn't won. I've never bought into that, and I still don't buy into it, but there's definitely a little more recognition now."

For much of his career, Yzerman was a victim of his image. He was too young to be a captain. He was flashy but not gritty enough. All offense and not enough defense. He wasn't a winner. None of it was true.

"He's proven (the media) right so often, and he's proven them wrong so often," said Hall of Famer Bryan Trottier, Yzerman's boyhood idol. "For me, it's so much fun to see a great player like Stevie do that because I had to do it, too. It's fun to do that."

No one gives more of himself, plays with more pain, spends more time working out than Yzerman. He's now considered a poster boy for leadership and all-around superior play.

"Nobody has more pride than Yzerman," Red Wings legend Ted Lindsay said. "Yzerman could have played this game in any era."

Still, before the Conn Smythe, Yzerman had won just one major award -- the 1989 Lester B. Pearson Award, presented to the NHL's outstanding player as voted by the players themselves. That season he scored 65 goals and 155 points; in the history of the game, that points total was surpassed only by Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux.

Gretzky and Lemieux.

Two of the most prolific offensive players in NHL history; the two reasons Yzerman, who posted six straight 100-point seasons, wasn't the popular player in the 1980s. Together, the two centers have produced the 13 best seasons ever in total points. They cast an awfully large shadow.

"You look at a couple of guys taking most of the awards in this league for a long time -- Mario and Wayne," said forward Joey Kocur, Yzerman's longtime teammate. "It's pretty tough to wrestle anything away from those guys. Stevie's had an unbelievable career, one of the best all-time. It was just tough timing when he came in, but right now things are working out well.

"I think deep down, Stevie is very happy with the way things have turned out. But he keeps that to himself; he's not going to tell me about it and he's not going to tell you about it. Making a birdie on the golf course, that's about the most emotion I ever see from him."

Yzerman's teammates more than compensate for his lack of exuberance. They couldn't be happier for him, and they're not afraid to say it.

"He deserves it all," Darren McCarty said. "It's all perseverance. He's stuck through some tough times -- tough times when Scotty (Bowman) first came here, trade rumors, some 20-win seasons -- he's been through a lot.

"He's all about the team, and he proves that the way he plays and the way he carries himself. I'm proud of him as a player. Just from watching him, he's taught us younger guys about being a professional athlete, playing in the NHL and being a good role model.

"He's getting everything he deserves."