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Speed thrills Coffey has a lifetime to recall magic moments
By Jim Taylor, SLAM! Sports He was standing in the middle of the Team Canada dressing room in the Saddledome, minutes after making the play of his life: Paul Coffey, age 23, gulping a little as he tried to get the words just right. "Fifteen years from now, or 20 years from now," he said, "I want to say I was part of this and damn proud to be here." "This" was the semifinal of the 1984 Canada Cup tournament, a 3-2 overtime victory over the Russians in which Coffey first saved the day, then helped end it. The saving part came in overtime, two Russians breaking in on Coffey, the lone defencsman back. Paul Coffey, the one the book said was a one-dimensional defenseman, and that dimension was go, not stop. Vladimir Kovin glided in, then flipped the puck across to a teammate who'd have gone in alone on Pete Peeters and possibly put Russia in the final against Sweden. Coffey lunged. The pass hit the shaft of his stick. He fired it down-ice into the corner, where the tireless John Tonelli was there to muck it out front -- where Coffey, with those matchless wheels, was now waiting. Coffey snapped a shot. It never got there, because Mike Bossy tipped it past goaltender Vladimir Myshkin, after first knocking the goal stick out of Myshkin's hands. Team Canada 3, Soviet Union 2. A classic that almost rendered the two-game final sweep over Sweden academic. A playoff win to atone for two losses to the Russians in the round-robin. A night Paul Coffey tucked away in the memory book, so proud he looked a breath away from bursting. The book will be full now, crammed with the 14 All-Star Games, the four Stanley Cups, the three Norris Trophies, the three Canada Cups, all the camaraderie and the laughter of the glory years in Edmonton, where the run-and-gun Oilers of Gretzky, Kurri, Messier, Coffey, Fuhr and so many others played with youthful exuberance and cheetah speed. And now he's closing it, to be opened at leisure over the years. After 21 seasons, Coffey is packing it in, caught by Father Time when almost no one else could. Maybe there's been a better skater in the NHL. Bobby Orr, perhaps, before he ran out of knees. But no one covered the ice as smoothly, or matched the gliding, ice-eating stride, so effortless you sensed the speed only by the way others were left in his wake. As a kid, he never went to hockey camps, which were out of town and would interfere with the sports of summer. He took power skating because it was at home. You didn't just see the results, you heard them. Standing at ice level you'd hear the others, skates snick-snicking in the ice. With Coffey you heard a seamless hiss, as though his blades were gliding on a sheet of oil. In a perfect world, he'd have been an Oiler forever, as would they all, the future Hall of Famers from that matchless, magical team. But Glen Sather knew from the beginning he could never keep them all. Too costly, and if he did, they'd all get old at once and he'd be starting over. Coffey was moved to Pittsburgh for four seasons plus, then to Los Angeles, Detroit, Hartford, Philadelphia, Chicago, Carolina and Boston. Another season, another town and in the end, more points than any defenseman but Ray Bourque, more than all but eight players, any position, in NHL history. He'll be in the Hall, of course. It's merely a question of when. And if his grandkids ask, he'll be able to open the memory book lovingly wrapped in his mind and heart and tell them tales of the days when he felt the wind as he skated, and the game was going to last forever. They should ask. There are treasures in there, matchless and ever-young.
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