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Monday, February 5, 2001
Even NHL players look up to Lemieux
By Brian A. Shactman
ESPN.com
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DENVER -- Philadelphia Flyers forward Simon Gagne is 20-years old. So naturally, he's a bit nervous about being at his first All-Star Game. His jitters are amplified 100-fold because his locker-room stall is directly next to his boyhood hero -- Mario Lemieux.
"I feel a little bit like a kid," said Gagne, 20. "I feel like I'm 12- or 15-years old around him. And out of all the players, for me to be next to him, I was a little nervous.
"I told him I was nervous (in general), and he just said to relax and have fun. I feel better now, but I bet tomorrow, it will come back."
|  | | Lemieux stands above even the game's biggest stars like Luc Robitaille. |
Lemieux sees some of himself in the young Gagne, a fellow French Canadian with tons of talent and success at a young age.
"I had the same nervous feeling when I was 18 and at my first All-Star Game," he said. "It's a little weird sitting beside him."
NHL players have to deal with plenty of issues normal people don't. The media covers them closely. They travel all the time. They need to be in great shape all the time. But by all accounts, they're still human beings. So, like everyone else since Lemieux came back, they're excited to be near him and see him play. And they don't mind answering questions about Lemieux even though the story has been played up ad nauseam.
"He's the best player in the world after a 3½-year layoff," Tony Amonte said. "It's not overblown; it's amazing. … You feel embarrassed getting on the bus with him."
When the 51st NHL All-Star Game is played Sunday in Denver, a lot of players like Gagne will see Lemieux up close for the first time. For some, it will be the first time they face him on the ice.
"I knew him from Russian television," said World goalie Evgeni Nabokov. "But I've never played against him."
Nabokov better get ready because Lemieux is downright nasty in the NHL showcase game, scoring 11 goals and amassing 20 points in eight appearances. Nabokov wasn't even a teen-ager when Lemieux scored three times and had six points in the 1988 All-Star Game. Gagne was seven.
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Rocky Mountain home
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Having a hometown player in the All-Star Game is always a treat for the fans. But during Sunday's game in Denver, five members of the Avalanche take to the ice.
On the "treat scale", that's an 11-scoop banana split.
Late addition Milan Hejduk joins Peter Forsberg on the World Team, while Joe Sakic, Patrick Roy and Ray Bourque don the North America jerseys.
Based on the crowd reaction during Saturday's SuperSkills competition, the Colorado fans will have no problem firing up their players.
Roy received a roar when he didn't allow a single goal in the "Pass and Score" event, which is basically a 3-on-0 drill.
Though Bourque has been around less than a year, he's been adopted as a native son. He received one of the biggest ovations of the night after winning the shooting accuracy contest for the eighth time in the event's 10-year history. |
The general awareness -- even awestruck nervousness -- of being next to a legend is not reserved to just the wide-eyed All-Star neophytes.
"I'm nervous around him, most definitely," said Doug Weight, who was an All-Star with Lemieux in 1996. "It's not a bad nervous. Wayne (Gretzky) is Wayne, and Lemieux is one of the two best to ever put skates on in the game I love.
"And I'm absolutely embarrassed. I miss two games and feel like I've been out six months. And I never score my first game back. He misses three years and averages two points a game."
New Jersey denfenseman Scott Niedermayer echoed the thought.
"A guy like Lemieux could probably still do it when he's 50," he said.
The question has come up a lot whether Lemieux's comeback -- and subsequent success -- reflects poorly on the rest of the league because he's made it look so easy. Of course, players can be accused of prideful defensiveness, but it seems authentic that his fellow NHL players think it's more a testament to Lemieux than a knock on the league's talent.
"It doesn't say anything negative about us," said Bruins forward and first-time All-Star Bill Guerin. "I think it says more positives about him. He's an incredible human being. He was battling a lot of things before he retired, and I didn't think he was slowing down at all. That's just how much better he is than anyone else."
From an attention standpoint, Lemieux is also bigger than everyone else. Every player at the All-Star Game media day stands on a mini-podium with their shirts hanging behind them and media crowding them. They answer question after question and handle repeats with aplomb. But Lemieux gets his own press conference. No repeats. No hanging jersey from behind. No one gets close.
"He's always been above the game," Paul Kariya said.
Brian A. Shactman covers the NHL for ESPN.com. He can be reached at brian.shactman@espn.com.
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