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Notebook Buzek not taking All-Star status for granted
Posted: Saturday February 05, 2000 06:14 PM
By David Vecsey, CNNSI.com TORONTO -- A low-drafted rookie playing defense for an expansion team? Hey, Petr Buzek isn't going to apologize for being in the All-Star Game. In fact, he may deserve it more than most. Critics say the International Showdown lends itself to unknown European players receiving bids to the big game. Advocates might just as well point to Buzek, who has five goals and nine assists for Atlanta, as a reason to open the game to more up-and-comers. Four and a half years ago, not even a month before he was to enter the NHL draft, Buzek was driving home from a game in the Czech Republic when he fell asleep at the wheel and took his car headlong into a tree. He was unconscious for two days. When he woke, hockey wasn't even a question. They weren't sure he was going to live. "I was in bed and I couldn't move," he recalled Saturday. "I was basically fighting my life." Doctors wanted to take his leg, but he wouldn't let them. Hockey was all he knew and he was determined to reclaim his life. Both legs were broken, his right kneecap was shattered, his right wrist was broken, he had a fractured cheek and a broken nose, a cracked forehead and a concussion. Twenty-one pins were needed in various places to keep him together. The pins are still in there. He can feel them when it rains. "I don't think they'll ever come out," he says. "I think I'd fall apart." Bound to a wheelchair, he flew to North America for the draft. He wanted people in the NHL to see the determination on his face. The Dallas Stars did, drafting him in the sixth round, 63rd overall. "Guys were pointing at me saying, 'Hey, who's this guy in a wheelchair? Nice pick by Dallas!' " Buzek said. But he fought his way back. He was walking within a year, skating shortly after that even though all the muscles in his legs had deteriorated. He played two years in the Dallas Stars' system before Atlanta selected him in the expansion draft. He wasn't even considered the expansion team's best young Czech rookie. "Yeah, everybody would have guessed that it would've been Patrik Stefan here," Buzek said. "I guess I have played well and they picked me. "It's a great feeling to be a part of the All-Star Game. It was (strange) to walk in the lockerroom and see Teemu Selanne and Jaromir Jagr … but I definitely feel like a part of it. I have my own jersey and everything."
Ray of hopeYes, Ray Whitney felt slighted when he wasn't selected to the All-Star team. It took an injury to St. Louis' Pierre Turgeon for Whitney to get the call. But when he showed up for practice Saturday, something struck him funny. "There wasn't one guy in that lockerroom -- and even Pierre Turgeon, who wasn't here -- who I felt I should have been chosen over," he said. "It makes you appreciate what it takes to get here and what an honor it is to be among these players." With 22 goals and 28 assists for the first-place Florida Panthers, Whitney is having what some would have called a third-straight career year. As far as Whitney is concerned, it's simply the career he was meant to have. After being the 23rd overall pick in the 1991 draft, Whitney scored only 48 goals in 178 games with the Sharks over the next six seasons. He signed with his hometown Edmonton Oilers in 1997, only to be put on waivers after scoring only one goal in nine games. It was a particularly cruel cut, seeing as Whitney had once worked for the team as a stick boy in the late 1980s. But the Florida Panthers gave Whitney a chance … and has he ever responded. In 171 games with the Panthers, he has 86 goals and now his first All-Star appearance. "No, there's no vindication involved," he said. "If anything, I got that out of my system the first year in Florida. But I've been doing it for three years pretty consistently now and that stuff is all in the past."
Veterans DazeNothing is tougher on a veteran player, especially a star veteran, than living with the possibility of being traded in the middle of the season. Both Mark Messier and Brendan Shanahan have heard the whispers this season, but both have chosen to ignore them. Shanahan, who's contract with the Detroit Red Wings is up after this season, is putting together a strong season and is starting his second consecutive All-Star Game. He said his agent has had two conversations with the Red Wings and that a deal could be in place before the March trading deadline. "There has been a lot of money spread around in Detroit," Shanahan said. "Hopefully there's enough to keep our group together a few more years. They seem to want me and I want to stay." For Messier in Vancouver, it's a little more complex. If he finishes this season with Canucks, a provision in his contract will start giving him a small percentage of the team. The team has said it wouldn't trade him unless he gives the OK, something he said he hasn't sought. "So much has happened over the last three years," Messier said, "that we don't need to darken the spirits of the fans any more. What's most important is that we all be professionals and make the decisions that are best for the franchise and the fans in Vancouver. "My loyalty and allegiance is to Vancouver. The thing that's important is to make sure that when I'm long done with my career, Vancouver will still be playing hockey."
Speed thrillsWhat's more important than winning the All-Star Game, according to Teemu Selanne? Winning the game's MVP honors. "The car is more important," Selanne laughed, alluding to the usual new wheels awarded to the game's MVP. Selanne scored a hat trick and was the MVP of the 1998 game in Vancouver. Selanne also said that European players need to be put on a grading curve when they first come to play in the NHL. "When Europeans come here, they don't know what it takes to win a Stanley Cup," he said. "And it's because they didn't grow up in the culture. But when they realize how tough it is to win a Stanley Cup … that is all they want to do."
Wayning interestWayne Gretzky is gone but not forgotten at the All-Star Game, which will be the first in 20 years without him. "I think about just what he meant to the game," said longtime friend and sometime teammate Mark Messier. "He was a fun guy to have around, everybody enjoyed his company." "It'll be different," said Anaheim's Paul Kariya. "He was such a big part of the game for so many years." "I don't think anybody can say enough about what Wayne did for our game," said St. Louis defenseman Al MacInnis. "Obviously he's missed, but he's around here and there and it's great to see him involved."
Orr maybe notLike any good Canadian kid who plays defense, Al MacInnis said it was Boston legend Bobby Orr who inspired him. "After watching him over in Boston Gardens so many times," MacInnis said, "when I skated there for the first time some years later and I saw how small the ice was … he made it look like the St. Lawrence River. I mean, he changed the way defensemen play the game." So why has MacInnis worn No. 2 his whole career and not No. 4. "When I got to Calgary, it was taken," he said. "And when you're a kid getting your first chance with an NHL team, you take any number they give you."
Little Housley on the prairiePhil Housley said he got his fair share of grief from the homefront when he recently signed a contract extension with the Calgary Flames. Many people anticipated the Minnesota native signing a free-agent contract with the expansion Minnesota Wild next year. "It would have been great to go home, but some things weren't meant to be," Housley said. "For right now, I think Calgary's going in the right direction, and with two expansion teams coming in there wasn't going to be a lot of talent … and I wasn't sure I could take losing that much. "My ultimate roots will be in Minnesota when I'm done playing, but right now I'm staying in Calgary."
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