FRISCO, TEXAS — “Tell him I’m right in here. At the end of the pier.”
This was my first Game 7 at Dallas, and Todd Marchant had just blasted past a stumbling Grant Ledyard to score on Andy Moog in overtime, giving the 1997 Edmonton Oilers a Round 1 win over Ken Hitchcock’s Stars.
Just the day before I’d lamented in my old newspaper, The Edmonton Journal, that “poor Todd Marchant. He couldn’t put one in the ocean from the end of the pier.” So, of course, he scored the Game 7 winner, and it was his turn.
I was on deadline and late to the dressing room, and he was done with his interviews and in the trainer’s room when I arrived. “Spector wants to talk to you,” someone shouted into the trainer’s room.
A voice shot back from inside: “Tell him I’m right in here. At the end of the pier.”
Touché.
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Game 7s provide us with hockey’s finest moments. Its most memorable choke jobs, its best comeuppances, and its most memorable heroes. As a writer, the post-game quotes are unmatched in emotion, regret or pure joy.
A few years later we were back in Dallas, as Colorado and Dallas played Game 7 of the Western Conference Final. Dallas won that game 3-2, and Colorado goalie Patrick Roy didn’t know whom to blame.
“In my 15 years in the league I have never seen such (fluky) goals go in against me as in that game. The first one went off someone (defenceman Aaron Miller), the second one was a foot in the air (when Mike Modano shot it in), and the last one hit three guys before it went in. It seems to me that the breaks weren’t on our side,” he said that day.
He should have looked in the mirror, I thought that day. But who am I to say that?
So, as we return for one more Game 7 — this, between St. Louis and the Stars for the right to move on to Round 3 — we reminisce about all the different Game 7s we’ve been lucky enough to be a part of.
Like the one in 2004, when the Calgary Flames lost in the Final at Tampa. “Heart is all they were playing on. That’s all they had left,” head coach Darryl Sutter said afterwards.
Or the first round series back in 2011 when Alex Burrows scored in overtime to kick start the Canucks run to the Final.
“This is what it’s all about,” Roberto Luongo said after that game. “Game 7, OT. This is what we dream about as a kid. Someone is going to take the opportunity, become a hero.”
Two months later Luongo was a beaten man, after the Bruins walked into Rogers Arena and put four behind him in a 4-0, Cup-clinching, Game 7 win.
“Playoffs, the last couple of months, has been the hardest thing I’ve had to deal with in my professional career,” he unloaded after that game. “Mentally, it’s just a grind the whole time. Much tougher mentally than physically. I’ve learned a lot about myself the last couple of months.”
They dream of Game 7s their entire lives, these hockey players, yet only a fraction ever get to play in one. Then, only half of them win — that’s why it is so devastating when you get one and don’t come out on top.
“On my driveway it (was) always Stanley Cup playoffs, Game 7s. It’s what you dream about as a kid,” Dallas centre Jason Spezza was saying on Tuesday. “I’ve lost a bunch to my brother, and beat my brother in a bunch. Don’t know what my record is… I was Mario Lemieux. I was Steve Yzerman. I was Dougie Gilmour. Everyone was Gretzky too, at some point.”
It becomes about who handles the moment best; who can process the situation and remain calm, so when (or if) opportunity falls to your stick you are ready to cash in.
“They’re not worried about what’s at the end of 60 minutes. All they’re concentrating on is what’s at the end of 45 seconds,” said Dallas coach Lindy Ruff of the successful Game 7 player. “At the end of that 60 minutes, something good will happen for you.”
I remember 2009 in Detroit, when Sid Crosby left Game 7 with an injury and Max Talbot — of all people — scored twice in Pittsburgh’s 2-1 win.
“We’ve been on the other end of it a lot. To be on this end of it — to come this far and not be able to finish it off — especially here at home,” Detroit’s Kirk Maltby told me that day, his voice trailing off. He’d won a Cup the year before, but he was still crushed.
Maybe because he had believed all the way to the game’s final second that the Red Wings culture would come through in a Game 7. Because he believed in his team.
“You always have to believe,” said Dallas winger Ales Hemsky. “You always think you will win. It’s the only way to prepare yourself.
“It’s Game 7. All in.”
“The whole third period, it seemed like the clock was broken. It was ticking so slow,” Pittsburgh defenceman Brooks Orpik said after the game.
Hemsky can relate. His only Game 7 came as an Oiler, a loss in the 2006 Cup Final. The clock flew by that night in Raleigh.
“In those games when you’re down, it’s 10 minutes, 20 minutes gone. All of the sudden, ‘We have only 20 minutes to do this. This is it!’”
His Oilers couldn’t get the job done that night. On Wednesday in Dallas, perhaps his Stars will be able to.
“It’s why you play hockey,” Hemsky said. “Those moments, they’re great, and you remember them for the rest of your life.
“It’s like life. It’s memories.”
