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Close to a Flame
Posted: Tuesday November 27, 2001 1:40 PM
I've always liked Calgary forward Jarome Iginla. I don't know him
beyond a few postgame Q's and A's -- and the way his on-ice giddyap gets me
juiced -- but it has been personal between us for a little while now.
This goes back to a late morning last February when I was standing by the rink
in East Rutherford, N.J., watching the Devils practice and talking to a veteran
hockey writer. I proposed for debate a "Whom would you rather have?"
between Iginla and Devils right wing Petr Sykora. It was a hard choice,
I said -- Sykora's a hell of a player -- but I'd take Iginla.
The hockey writer was incensed: "You fool!" he shouted. "Sykora's
one of the 20 best forwards in the league, and the other guy ... well, I don't
really know much about the other
guy."
That stuck in my craw and, in light of the season Iginla is now having, it leads
me today to ponder why I like "the other
guy":
That a few months ago many people East or South of Alberta -- even
alleged hockeyheads -- didn't know much about him.
That those people include commissioner Gary Bettman and the
rest of the braintrust at the NHL who, somehow, managed not to include Iginla on
the 2002 All-Star
ballot.
That to this oversight Iginla says, "I don't take that
personally. Roman Turek and Derek Morris are great candidates
for us."
That now, all of sudden, people are talking about him, and the media
is feasting on him, as if he were a New Kid -- even though this is his sixth
season in the
league.
That he plays in Calgary, which can use a star like
him.
That he leads the league with 20
goals.
That he leads the league with 37
points.
That he has scored consistently when the Flames were zooming out to
their spectacular start and that even as Calgary has slipped (just slightly) of
late, he's still scoring
consistently.
That being without center Marc Savard for more than six
weeks this season hasn't slowed
him.
That he is a reasonably sized human being (6-foot-1 and 200
pounds).
That he has the same birthday, July 1, as my
Mom.
That in a league full of names with vowel-less syllables, people for
some reason can't pronounce his name (it's jah-ROHM
ih-GIHN-lah).
That, he says, he "loves playing in Calgary" and wants to
be there when the Flames become a good team
again.
That in 1995-96 with the WHL's Kamloops Blazers he put up 63 goals
and 73 assists in 63 games.
That he had 120 penalty minutes that year,
too.
That Wayne Gretzky recently called him the best forward in
the
NHL.
That there is no part of the game -- penalty kill, power play,
checking duties -- that Iginla doesn't want to
play.
That for each goal he scores he donates $1,000 to KidSport Calgary,
an organization which aids impoverished
children.
That he appears in the CBC television drama Tom Stone and
doesn't say a
word.
That his father's name is Elvis.
That his mother is a
teacher.
That his last name means "Big Tree" in a language called
Yoruba.
That his nickname is Iggy and that he has
pop.
That he is an awesome black player in a sport that could
use an awesome black player and that he says, "if young kids of color want
to play the game, I'd love it if I could be a role model for
them."
That his ethnicity comes second to the other things that he is
first: A good man and a bang-up hockey player that I, for one, would rather have
than all but a handful of superstars in the
league.
Sports Illustrated senior writer Kostya Kennedy covers the NHL beat for
the magazine and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com. "Seen and Heard" will
appear Tuesdays throughout the NHL season. To send a question to his Mailbag, click here.
The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.
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