Say it ain’t so. Joe can’t go.
Rumor- and fish-mongers are suggesting that Joe Sakic could become a rent-a-scorer with the NHL trade deadline approaching like a Cap Sak shot on freshly Zambonied ice.
Hold your breath until 1 p.m. Tuesday.
The Avs are finished for the season, but Sakic’s career in Denver must not be. Instead of dealing him, the Avalanche should give Sakic a lifetime pact with the club as a player, an assistant coach and, eventually, a head coach or general manager.
The man who is quieter than Tranquility Base as a coach?
ESPN.com polled NHL players, asking the customary questions, and Sakic received several votes for best natural scorer and best overall athlete in the league. But, most intriguing, he was picked No. 1 (24 percent) as the current player who would make the best coach.
Hard to imagine Sakic climbing over the glass to chew out an opposing coach or pulling out a mascot’s tongue or berating one of his own players.
Harder to imagine one of the league’s greatest stars ever playing with any organization other than the Avs.
For Denver, Joe Sakic is to hockey what John Elway was to football and Molly Brown to lifeboats. All three have been unsinkable and unflappable and unforgettable.
Colorado almost lost Sakic in 1997 when he became a restricted free agent. The New York Rangers signed Sakic to a three-year, $21 million contact, and tried to twist the vise on the Avalanche with $15 million up front. With some creative financing, Charlie Lyons, then the CEO of Ascent Entertainment Group (which owned the Avs and the Nuggets), matched the offer and sent the Rangers a fax featuring a photo of the international symbol of defiance.
Sakic won another title in 2001. After that season he could have left again, but said Denver “is my home. I’ve grown in this organization, and my family has been raised with this team.”
The Avalanche moved once more to keep Sakic and skate-
mate Peter Forsberg (who finally signed with Philadelphia as a free agent in 2005). Last offseason Sakic agreed to a one-year contract, and is free to leave this offseason.
What if Sakic (who has been in the playoffs every season with the Avs, strike year excepted) were sent to Nashville to rejoin Forsberg, a Predator (for crying out loud) since Feb. 15? The Predators are battling Detroit for the top seed in the Western Conference.
Remember the good old days when the Red Wings annually battled a team close to our hearts for the top seed?
Vancouver would love to have Sakic. He was born in the Vancouver suburb of Burnaby and learned to speak English and play hockey in Vancouver. Sakic’s parents emigrated (escaped) to western Canada from Croatia. A New York hockey writer is begging the Rangers to take goalie Jose Theodore, The Phantom of the Goal, just to get Sakic. Other contenders crave the forward who hasn’t slowed at all at 37.
Joe speaks softly (and rarely), but carries a big stick. He recently scored his 600th goal, is among the all-time leaders in goals, assists and points and just became the record-holder in all-star assists. After earning four this season, he has 16 in 13 All-Star Games.
He owns the only hockey quadruple – MVP in the regular season, MVP in the NHL playoffs, MVP in the All-Star Game and MVP in the Winter Olympics. And he has won every trophy named for some obscure person (Smythe, Hart, Byng and Pearson), but the most meaningful are two named for Lord Stanley. He also has won gold medals in the Olympics, the world juniors, the World Cup and the world championships.
He started playing as a pro in 1985 with the Broncos – that’s not a misprint. The Leftbridge Broncos came to Denver with the Quebec Nordiques in 1995 and won the city’s first major-league title the inaugural season.
If I seem to be drooling excessively, it’s because Joe patiently has answered all my stupid questions, invited me into his home outside Vancouver, yelled out my name on a crowded street in Japan, not to complain, but just to say hello, and has been a constant joy to behold.
Sakic always has skated masterfully on the ice and never stepped out of bounds. He signs every kid’s autograph, is involved personally in several charities, is a good husband and father with wife Debbie and three children and, without attention, has handled a serious health issue in his own family.
Joe Sakic is an incredible world-class hockey player and a world-class gentleman.
The Denver Iceman must not goeth.
Staff writer Woody Paige can be reached at 303-954-1095 or wpaige@denverpost.com.
