NEWS BY DIVISION
- 2010-11 preview: Minnesota Wild Northwest
- 2010-11 preview: Los Angeles Kings Pacific
- Chelios retires, joins Wings' front office Central
- 2010-11 preview: Florida Panthers Southeast
- 2010-11 preview: Buffalo Sabres Northeast
- 'Boogey Man' no laughing matter Atlantic
COLUMNS
- For most rookies, stargazing is a popular pastime Justin Bourne
- Will Twitter create an even duller hockey player? Justin Bourne
- Can a defenseman play forward? Should he? Justin Bourne
| Ducks' Cup run legitimized hockey in California |
 |
| Features | |
| Written by J.P. Hoornstra | |
| Monday, December 28, 2009 20:00 | |
|
California has seen many hockey teams in its history, but none captured a Stanley Cup until the Anaheim Ducks went all the way in 2007. For reasons great, small and shiny, that made a difference. Editor's note: This is the seventh in a series highlighting the NHL's most memorable and important moments of the decade.
The Stanley Cup will make its first official visit to the Inland Empire region of Southern California in January. Stanley is much like a prized college recruit in this way; there are such things as official visits and, no matter where he goes, everyone in the vicinity knows him by name. In this case, it’s the ECHL All-Star Game, which is to be hosted by the Los Angeles Kings’ affiliate in Ontario, about an hour east of Los Angeles. Perhaps if the Kings ever win a Stanley Cup, there will be a second tour of duty. But this is the first and, in this most non-traditional of hockey markets, Stanley will be a more recognizable name than any in the game itself. You could say there was a brush with the Cup in Ontario recently. David McNab, the top assistant to Anaheim Ducks general manager Bob Murray, took in his first game at Ontario’s Citizens Business Bank Arena on Dec. 16 to watch the hometown Reign play the Bakersfield Condors, the Ducks’ ECHL affiliate. There is only one way to wear your championship ring, and like every other member of the 2007 Ducks, McNab wears his proudly. The press box in Ontario is small, room enough for two reporters, three public-relations staffers, three off-ice officials, McNab, and (barely) the ring. As soon as McNab entered this cozy space, the other eight were looking at the ring. It holds 110 diamonds, 14-karat gold and an engraving of the Cup itself. The Ducks’ stylized "D" is laid in yellow gold, and overlaid with a black onyx webbed duck’s foot. The old Mighty Ducks logo is there, too, sandwiched between "93" and "07," indicating the franchise’s lifespan. One side of the ring features a banner that reads "California’s First Cup," "16-5" (the team’s playoff record) and the year 2007. On the inside is engraved the team’s playoff motto: "Destiny is Heart, Sacrifice and Passion." Nearly 200 people associated with the 2007 Ducks were given the rings — players, coaches, administrators, Honda Center employees, practice-rink employees. It is not often that a philanthropist owns an NHL team, so this piece of jewelry offers a unique opportunity to translate Henry Samueli’s definition of philanthropy into hockey terms. Wherever the rings go, from Ontario, California, to Ontario, Canada, the message is loud and clear — a two-word phrase that didn’t need to be engraved in gold, diamond, or onyx to make its point — "WE WON." Random question: If the Ducks don’t win the Cup, is there such a thing as “Stache Gear”? George Parros is a cult hero in Anaheim. The journeyman enforcer took his Princeton economics degree, long hair and intimidating moustache to Anaheim in a Nov. 2006 trade with Colorado, and fought his way to a team-high 102 penalty minutes. Considering the Ducks won the Cup while leading the league in regular-season penalty minutes, this was no light task. Parros began to cut his hair for charity once a year. Long-haired Ducks fans, male and female, joined him. In Nov. 2009, Parros introduced a line of clothing called “Stache Gear,” sold in the Ducks’ team store, with proceeds going to a pair of children’s charities. Fans bought so much ’Stache Gear that more had to be ordered within days. His value to the team was spelled out in ink in Jan. 2009, when the Ducks gave Parros — owner of five goals in 146 games to that point in his career — a three-year contract extension. “It was an up and down period, because I was released by the Kings, picked up by Colorado, then traded here,” he recalled of the 2006-07 season. “You’ve got the highs and lows at the beginning of the season within a month and a half. I didn’t really know where I was going to end up. I found a home.” Parros did not play a game in the Finals, or in half of the Ducks’ regular-season games, but general manager Brian Burke insisted on making room for Parros’ name to be engraved on the Stanley Cup. “I’m glad,” Parros said. “It was definitely thrilling to get my name on there.” Random question, Part II: If they don’t beat the Ottawa Senators four games to one in 2007, do any of the remaining eight holdovers on the Ducks' roster say “hi” to Phoenix Coyotes goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov? Bryzgalov started four 2007 playoff games as the backup to Jean-Sebastien Giguere, winning three. Since then his numbers against his former team, like his numbers against the rest of the NHL, have been very good: a 2.36 goals-against average, .916 save percentage, three wins and one shutout in five career starts. Put simply, trying to score on the guy isn’t fun. But the numbers do not matter. “When we’re on the road, and maybe there’s a team that has a player we played with that year, you look across and you see that guy and you know what you went through,” said forward Todd Marchant, one of the eight still playing in Anaheim. “You know what kind of sacrifice, what kind of passion that player brought to the table that year, to that playoff run. It’s definitely a special feeling.” To Marchant, who coined the motto “Destiny is Heart, Sacrifice and Passion," winning the Stanley Cup was like climbing a mountain — one he had tried and failed to climb seven times before in his NHL career. “I think that in the back of your mind, you think you know what it takes before you win,” he said. “But until you go through it, it’s that and more. The one thing people didn’t see is how hard the guys would play night in and night out, then the next day come in here having bruises, bumps, fatigue, and being able to go out and do it the next day to the same level. “To be able to go that long, through that hard of a stretch and play at that level, takes a lot of hard work and sacrifice. Every guy in this dressing room did that.” Random question, Part III: Just how hard is it to win the Stanley Cup? Burke and I are counting. “Atlanta’s never won a Cup,” he said. “Nashville. L.A. Florida. Buffalo. Columbus. Minnesota-Dallas. Wild. Ottawa. Phoenix. St. Louis Blues?" "They had some good teams," I replied, thinking out loud, "but no." “San Jose. Vancouver,” he continued. “I think 13 teams.” The unlucky 13. I don’t have to ask Burke if he was happy to cross one team off that list. There are more important questions for the general manager of the 2006-07 Ducks. Like this one: The Kings have been around since 1967, the Sharks since 1991, the California Golden Seals for nine seasons in the ’60s and ’70s — and each of those teams managed to leave room on your ring for the “California’s First Cup” banner. How did your team win it? “We met after we were eliminated in the playoffs the year before,” Burke recalled, speaking via telephone from the Toronto Maple Leafs’ headquarters. “After we lost, we sat down and said, ‘Are we for real? Are we the ’03 Ducks that rode a hot goalie, or are we for real?’ “We said, ‘We’re for real.’ I said, OK, so what do we need? We said, ‘we need a stud defenseman.’ So we went and did the Pronger deal. We overpaid for him. Paid a very high price for him.” In so doing, Burke unwittingly laid the blueprint for how to win in the NHL’s salary-cap era, practically inventing the term “Cup Window,” and touching off a trend of teams getting bigger and meaner. That it all started in Southern California is a small part of the bigger picture. Of course, there is nothing small about Southern California and its 17 million residents. The denizens gave the Ducks a bear hug in the form of 78 consecutive sellouts at Honda Center from 2006-08. This is part of the team’s legacy, too. “Ten years from now,” Burke said, “some 8-year-old drafted will say ‘I started playing when I was 6 because the Ducks won.’ The Miracle on Ice had that effect in the U.S., an effect of seismic proportions. Short-term, I think it energized the fan base.” Burke added the finishing touches of Chris Pronger, Scott Niedermayer, Francois Beauchemin, Chris Kunitz, Travis Moen, Kent Huskins, Sean O’Donnell and Brad May. But he was not the team’s only architect. His predecessor, Bryan Murray, drafted Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry, traded for Rob Niedermayer and signed Dustin Penner. Murray’s predecessor, Pierre Gauthier, traded for Giguere and Sammy Pahlsson, drafted Bryzgalov and signed Andy McDonald. Gauthier’s predecessor, the original Mighty Ducks GM Jack Ferreira, first traded for Teemu Selanne in 1996 (before Burke brought Selanne back twice as a free agent). Each of these acquisitions took time. After the Cup run, marquee free agents seemed to fall out of the sky. Todd Bertuzzi, Mathieu Schneider, Brendan Morrison and Saku Koivu were all past their primes when they chose to sign in Anaheim — which, in a way, adds to their prestige. Each was that much more intent on winning a Cup before he retired. “Before the Cup happened, this organization was hit or miss,” said Giguere, a Duck since the 2000-01 season. “It was a nice place to play hockey but if you wanted to have fun playing, it might not be the place to go because you might not know what kind of team you’re going to get. I think (winning the Cup) changed that. It gave us a lot of credibility around the league.” The Ducks’ “Cup window” is probably closed, but the organization’s credibility remains — along with the rings, the ’Stache Gear, and that silent sense of pride whenever former teammates cross paths. Most of all, there is finally an awareness that Stanley has been here before and, like everyone else, he probably wouldn’t mind visiting California sometime in the future. “If you ask hockey fans what’s the toughest road trip right now, they’d say California,” Burke said. “Dean Lombardi’s done a terrific job for the Kings. Doug Wilson has done a tremendous job in San Jose. The Ducks are two years removed from a Cup. “I don’t think it has to prove itself to anyone to be legitimate. It is legitimate.” |
