 |
| |
|
 |
 |
|
|
|||||||||||||
|
Closer Look Panthers' Jokinen gives home fans something to cheer aboutPosted: Sunday February 02, 2003 8:50 PMUpdated: Sunday February 02, 2003 10:51 PM
By Jamie MacDonald, CNNSI.com SUNRISE, Fla. -- Ray Bourque played the role at the 1996 All-Star Game in Boston. Owen Nolan took his turn a year later in San Jose. Dormant since, the Florida Panthers' Olli Jokinen took center stage with a 2003 reprisal of the starring role of hometown hero. While Jokinen didn't score a game-winner with 37.7 seconds remaining (as Bourque did) or call his shot to complete a hat trick (as Nolan did) in front of his fans, the Finnish winger did wrest the 53rd edition of the All-Star Game from the forgettable file and helped turn 45 minutes of uninspired hockey into a genuine game worth remembering. Playing on the Eastern Conference's only effective line, which included All-Star MVP Dany Heatley and Jaromir Jagr, Jokinen scored the game's 10th goal to draw the East level at 9:38 of the third period.
Shortly thereafter, the game snapped from its slumber (cheer of the day from the peanut gallery: LET'S GO, EVE-RY-ONE!) and roared, with some help from a cooperative crowd, into something that might very well be mistaken for hockey, which is no small compliment for an All-Star affair. The game's turnaround mirrored that of Jokinen, who admitted afterward to a curable case of the butterflies. "First couple shifts, I was a little nervous," he said. "Playing on the same line with [Jagr], anyone would be. After the first couple of shifts, I started feeling better." By that time, Heatley was halfway to history, while Jokinen, who assisted on three of the MVP's goals, waited for his better-late-than-never moment. Just past the halfway point of the final period, Jagr threaded a pass to Jokinen, who sailed into the clear between the circles and aimed his sights in the direction of West goaltender Marty Turco. Turco made his flashiest save of the afternoon only minutes earlier on a Miroslav Satan shot that was ticketed for the top-right corner. But Jokinen, bearing down on Turco, gambled on a hand he's grown comfortable playing -- the goaltender's glove hand, top right. "That's the place where I've been trying to shoot this year, and it's been going in," said Jokinen, who has already set a career high with 25 goals this season. "I saw [Turco's] glove was a little lower than usual, so I tried to go high. And it went in." Turco summed up his thought process as simply -- "He's shooting it. [I] missed it." -- and copped to being a bit too deep in the crease at the time of Jokinen's shovel-wrister. The former University of Michigan goaltender later was exonerated, of course, though he didn't mind being on the hook of what, thanks to his own misfortune, became a game worth watching when it shifted out of first gear. An advanced gear found only after the Heatley Show ceded a second stage to Jokinen. Not long after, Devils defenseman Scott Stevens was -- gasp! -- bumping a guy in the corner and Mike Modano was -- surprise -- shooting instead of passing. In other words, the 5-5 score gave this an All-Star game some -- what's this? -- urgency. "You could see that nobody wanted to be on for the goal against," Flames star Jarome Iginla said. "And everybody else wanted to get it." The crowd, now energized, was cheering. Posts were hit. East goaltender Patrick Lalime was tested often and he continued to make outstanding saves. "That was fun," Turco said of the final 10 minutes. "That was hockey. The other guy out there's standing on his head and I let one in and I'm the goat. Even though I was prepared to be one, I didn't want to be [the goat]. The fans and the players made it into an awesome spectacle." Until that point, "spectacle" was appropriate, with the definition leaning in the direction of an eyesore. After shaking off the nerves and playing unselfish hockey, Jokinen put a fresh coat of paint on the show with his late goal. He might have failed to extend the shootout and he might have played second fiddle to his linemate, but this much is true: If Dany Heatley made it a game, it was Olli Jokinen who saved it. |
|
|||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
Olli Jokinen suggests the game is easy when you have Dany Heatley and Jaromir Jagr on your offensive line. 
