You never forget your first hockey love. Mine was Joe Nieuwendyk.
I make fun of fans that want to bring back aged players from their team’s glory days, but if Joe Nieuwendyk wanted to play for the Stars again, I’d sign him. I wouldn’t care if he just stood around chatting with the refs during his whole shift. It’d be worth it.
Unlike a certain Swedish player who won’t give it up already, Nieuwy retired in 2006 because of back problems that just wouldn’t go away. Problems he probably got from being crosschecked in the back over and over again as he stood at the edge of the crease and tipped in shots from the point.
I might have been a bandwaggoner when I first picked him out of the lineup to be my very favorite player, but I never jumped off it. I even cheered for New Jersey in 2003. And I tried to watch the Leaves and even the Panthers while he was on those teams.
I cried on the day he was traded. At work. At my desk. Even though I thought Doug Armstrong did a pretty good job otherwise, I never really forgave him for trading Nieuwy.
I was sure I was going to lose interest in hockey altogether. Fortunately, I discovered the joys of NHL Center Ice.
Joe will now be working for the Toronto Maple Leaves as Special Assistant to the General Manager.
Since I’m a Western Conference girl, I don’t really hate Toronto or anything. I find their struggles to be pretty comical, but I don’t hate them. Hopefully Joey can help them out.
I’m happy to see he’s working on his GM résumé. Once he’s a GM, we’ll get to hear from him more often. Ooh! Maybe I can meet him at a Draft someday!
A Nieuwendyk story:
When I was in high school, I had a new friend. I was hopelessly into hockey, and I was hoping she would get into it too so that I’d have a hockey friend. (Being into hockey was a rare and lonely proposition for a Bay Area kid, let alone a girl at an all-girls school)
My new friend Christina showed some interest in hockey, but mostly we bonded over are love of messing around with the “new media” programs on the school’s computers… namely the cool new tool Hyper Card. (I should say that this was 1994)
One day Christina surprised me with a new Hyper Card “movie.” It was all about how her favorite player (Jaromir Jagr… in full mullet glory back then) saved the NHL from a mad man who was going around smacking heads off. That mad man…. Joe Nieuwendyk. She had nothing against Joe. I just think that was the only good hockey player picture she could find on that new Internet thing.
Anyway, long story long, the Hyper Card “movie” ended by saying Jaromir Jagr saved the day, and saved the NHL from “Joe Nieuwendyk, one bad ass Dallas Star.” Ever since, I’ve always thought of Joe Nieuwendyk as “one bad ass Dallas Star.”
I still have the Hyper Card project on a diskette. If I ever find a Mac with both a diskette drive and Hyper Card, I’ll be set!
That’s great, Sarah! Of all the Stars that might be smacking people’s heads off, Nieuwendyk probably wasn’t at the top of the list.
I like to think that Nieuwy was never the bad guy, but he sure was one bad ass Dallas Star. :D
I just sent this to Christina, and she reminded me of the best part. In the end, Jaromir Jagr didn’t save the NHL. Instead his partner in crime-fighting, Dave Babych, did.
Typing the finale doesn’t do it justice. But Dave Babych actually eats Joe. Each “bite” was accompanied by a sound capture of PeeWee Herman’s yell.
Pope John Paul II was in there somewhere, but neither of us can remember his role.
Wow. That’s hilarious! I have never heard of Dave Babych. I’ll be honest.
The headshot she used of Dave was a bit older than this one, but it looks almost identical. Take a look, and you’ll see why our 16 year old selves thought it was so hilarious: http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d133/bergmanrocks/babych.jpg
Hell, I still think we were hilarious. =)
Wow! I could have written every word of that post! (Except for one tiny detail – I was at home when I heard about the trade.) Everything else . . . .
Thanks, Mary! It sure would have been nice to have him come back here, wouldn’t it?