B.D. Gallof
9/9/2011

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You can’t change the past but you can ruin the present by worrying about the future
- Anonymous quote on a tea bag label

I recall an old college buddy’s candid observations of 10 years ago. He spoke of the memory of the bizarre reality of a plane crashed into the idyllic morning of downtown New York City. How when the planes hit that body parts rained down onto the streets and sidewalks. That macabre description transferred an imagery that added to my own as I watched far more “safely” from about 30 blocks away in midtown that fateful day.

He described the panic, as there was realization that the buildings were falling from people who had come far too close. As the towers fell, people raced over one another to get away in sheer animal-like panic. He described on how those he passed-by in that mad scramble did not make it. When the debris hit, filling the air with the dust many would carry in their exodus out of the city later on, he described it as is trying to put your face in sand and attempting to take deep breaths. The dust was thick and choking, and those panicked scrambled survivors found it impossible to get even a breath for what seemed an eternity. Imagine escaping that crazed lunacy of the buildings falling only to feel that you are now suffocating, covering in that white miasma.

He walked in a dull shock along with so many others, crossing the bridge into Brooklyn. His visage can be seen from in some newspaper photo, his girlfriend holding a just as bewildered small dog. I’d find the photo, but I do not even want to see it again. It is part of those memories that come tumbling out each time a year. I don’t want to add other photos to mesh into that locked box that pours out of me each September. Don’t think I could take much more added in anymore.

It haunts me to even write about that conversation, just as it haunts me to even write another piece about 9/11. I have usually repeated my piece from 2007 each year feeling that I had no further words to give on the subject. Well, now it is 10 years later, and though those who died are still gone, it is those survivors, this nation, that also seems to be missing since then.

In ten years, it seems we have not walked very far from those towers fall. Where an area still sits waiting to be rebuilt is no different than our shattered psyches and memories that still leave us haggard and covered in a foul dust even years after. Where each year high-powered lights blaze to fill that empty space to show the ghosts of two towers in the night’s sky. Yet what fills the space in our empty hearts and minds since then? What light straightens our staggered souls?

That idyllic morning is far-gone. That halcyon daze of being outside the whims and schemes of religious zealots tumbled along with each floor of the towers that morning. The pitch-black smoke of jet fuel melting metal, people, offices, and building material has fouled far more than a morning air. For in 10 years we are no different than those on an exodus from Manhattan, trudging along with soured acrid air filling raw lungs and throats, while covered with soot and detritus.

It is ten years and we are still gone. Not just those who died. It is all of us who survived. It is all those who stare at ground zero and still see the open gaping wound. It is all of us who survived left to pick up pieces of the scrambled reality and face the cold hard fact that nothing would be the same again. Nothing has been the same, illusions and facades dropped like a house of cards. Since then, those cards have been blown of the table.

I sit and wonder if Pearl Harbor stood the same for many people as long as ground zero has sat forlorn. But upon some research, it does not appear so. A week after the Attack on Pearl Harbor began one of the largest salvage operations in history. By just over a year later, several ships were repaired, some actually then serving in battle during WWII.

We as a nation have not done enough with the World Trade Center ground zero. It lies unfinished like so many other things that America used to stand for before two jets slammed into the Twin Towers.

A lethargy and heavy weight still drags upon us as a country and a people. It has been a massive albatross around the neck of a nation who has not been able to do much right nor been able to step past it.

Time is supposed to heal all wounds they say. Instead, it has been more like Groucho Mark’s remark: “Time wounds all heels”. A nation of downtrodden lost, and bewildered souls crossing some sort of bridge of ten years, feet aching, still wondering what happened and when would things ever be the same again. For everyday ground zero lies undone while this nation sinks further into recession is another stone to bear upon already drooping shoulders. How much more can we take? How long must we wait to step forward?

For everyday more rhetoric spout from politicians, groups, and fears assail us from our media channels and websites. With no solution or progress, we will continue unable to heal. Instead it will sadly serve to seal our fate as a doomed generation, unable to move much past that bridge that we have been stuck on now for a full decade. Every year, that gaping wound grows bigger, further separating who we are and who we were. One day, we might not even recognize who we were on that other side. If so, the terrorists victory that day would be complete.

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It was a Dickensian Decade for the Pittsburgh Penguins: the best of times and the worst of times from 2000 to 2009.  To create a challenge, I forced myself to select just one outstanding moment or story – good or bad – from each year, that was the most memorable event related to the Penguins in that particular year.

2000: December 27.  Team co-owner Mario Lemieux unretires and skates onto the ice at Mellon Arena for the first time since spring, 1997.  Lemieux scores a goal and adds two assists in a 5-0 drubbing over visiting Toronto.  It was as if he had never left.  In just forty-three games, #66 passed all but twenty-eight NHL players on the scoring chart, finishing with thirty-five goals and seventy-six points.  The inspired Penguins participated in the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time since 1996.

2001: July 11. The best player in the game at the time, Jaromir Jagr had just won his fourth straight scoring title.  A Penguin for all of his eleven NHL seasons up until that point, his relationship with the team had soured to the point that he requested a trade numerous times during the 2000-01 season.  Finally, the financially-strapped Penguins dealt him to Washington for three prospects – all busts.  Forwards Kris Beech and Michal Sivek combined for thirteen goals and thirty-three points in 134 games with the Penguins while defenceman Ross Lupaschuk played just three games wearing black and gold.

2002: February 24. Canadian captain Lemieux leads his country to Olympic gold in a 5-2 win over the U.S. at Salt Lake City, Utah.  He had been playing with a sore hip all season.  When the NHL schedule resumed, Lemieux scored two points versus Los Angeles including his 1,600th career point, then took the rest of the year off to rest.  In a rare instance of the city of Pittsburgh showing anger at Lemieux, many fans excoriated him for making Team Canada his priority.  However, the Penguins were not going to make the playoffs that year anyway with or without him.

2003: June 21. Rebuilding the franchise was the order of the summer as the Pens had plummeted to the second-worst record in all of hockey.  At the draft in Nashville, Pittsburgh swung a trade with Florida to move from the #3 spot to #1.  They drafted an eighteen year old goaltender from Cape Breton Screaming Eagles of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League.  He made forty-six saves on opening night that autumn in a loss to the Kings, but earned rave reviews from everyone.  Like the entire decade for the club, there would be ups and downs for the netminder with the permanent smile, but in the end, the Penguins’ faith in Marc-Andre Fleury was rewarded when he backstopped the team to two Stanley Cup appearances in 2008 and 2009.

2004: February 25. Defenceman Ric Jackman scores in overtime at Phoenix to give the Pens a 4-3 win.  Big deal, right?  Well, the victory ended an eighteen game losing streak that stretched from January 13 to February 22.  2003-04 was truly one of the most rancid, repugnant, revolting seasons in the Penguins’ forty-two year history.  Jackman, acquired in a mid-season trade from Toronto, was -5 in twenty-five games as a Pen.  Not too shabby on a relative scale.  His teammate Rico Fata was a sweet -46.  After loss #16 during the losing streak, I sent the following email to my friend “Annie Spezza”:

Subject: go penguins go  Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 14:53:27 -0800

annie: after yesternight’s 4-3 loss to the islanders, i am formally dressing in sackcloth and sprinkling ashes upon my head to mourn the loss of dignity of my beloved team. the plight of pittsburgh right now is the equivalent of having one’s pants pulled down in a public place by street urchins while homeless drunks snap the elastic waistband on your undergarments. it is THAT shameful. in truth, the penguins without lemieux and marc-andre are no more than a mediocre ECHL team. i look forward to the 2005 draft when we can claim sidney crosby.

At least my wish/prediction on Crosby came true sixteen months later.  The Penguins finished 2003-04 with a stellar 23-47-8-4 record, dead last in the standings and even lost the subsequent draft lottery (aka the Ovechkin sweepstakes) to Washington.  In that draft’s first round, they had to settle for Evgeni Malkin.

2005: July 23. The Penguins win the draft lottery after a complicated formula was used to determine the teams eligible for the first overall pick following the cancelled 2004-05 season.  Despite the new salary cap rules, the franchise still faced an uncertain future due to years of haggling with the city of Pittsburgh and the state of Pennsylvania over a new arena deal.  However, the Penguins’ on-ice rebuliding project would take a great leap forward at the draft one week later when they claimed the once-in-a-generation seventeen-year old phenom from tiny Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia – Sidney Crosby.

2006: September 4. “Mr. Malkin”, the mysterious man from Magnitogorsk finally arrives. More than two years after drafting him and following all kinds of international intrigue, wrangling and drama worthy of a spy movie related to interpretation of his contractual obligations to his former Russian league team, Evgeni Malkin joined the Penguins.  He had fled from his Russian league club in Finland, went into hiding in Los Angeles, before emerging to stay in Pittsburgh.  He scored a goal in his first six NHL games, the first player in eighty-nine years to do so.  Suddenly, by mid-season, the Pens were legitimate playoff contenders and the seeds of rebuilding planted in the dark years earlier in the decade were suddenly yielding a huge bumper crop of talent and results.

2007: March 13.  “Tonight, I am proud to announce that your Pittsburgh Penguins will remain right here in Pittsburgh … where they belong.”  With those few words, Mario Lemieux ended years of uncertainty on the future of the franchise.  That day, city, state and business officials agreed to a new arena deal that would keep the Penguins in Pittsburgh for at least thirty years.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Seriously, this was one of the happiest days of my life – and I don’t even live in Pittsburgh.  As thepensblog.com wrote today: “That youtube plays at our funeral.”

2008: January 1. Buffalo.  There are some moments in life where even the most hardened-of-heart individuals witness something so remarkable and captivating that the ice around their stone-heart melts – if just for a temporary moment.  Skeptics wondered about the safety and logistics of holding an outdoor game at Rich Stadium, home of football’s Buffalo Bills.  Yet, in the first ever Winter Classic, Sidney Crosby hopped over the boards excitedly to take the deciding shootout shot against Ryan Miller of the Sabres.  Skating against the first blizzard of the new year, Crosby drove the puck slowly through clumps of snow then fired a short wrist shot five-hole for the game-winning goal.  A storybook moment in postcard scenery.

Every Penguins’ fan likely roared at the top of his or her lungs with delight just as Crosby did as he excitedly jumped and skated towards his teammates.

2009: Friday, June 12. 10.37pm EDT. Joe Louis Arena, Detroit. If you just returned from a year-long exile to Pluto, the following should illustrate what you missed:

What a decade!  The worst of times … the best of times…

Additional statistical sources: hockeydb.com, ESPN.com Penguins’ page, nhl.com

Photo: Flickr Creative Commons

1. 2001-2002: 116 points, 1^st place in Central Division, 1^st place in the Western Conference, Stanley Cup Champions

-This team was full of Hall of Famers and was perhaps the best NHL team ever assembled.  With addition of the Salary Cap it is likely that we will not see a team this good again.

2. 2008-2009: 112 points, 1^st place in the Central Division, 2^nd place in the Western Conference, lost to Pittsburgh in the Stanley Cup final

-This team came within one game of back to back Stanley Cups and was better than the Cup winning team from the year before with the addition of Hossa.

3. 2007-2008: 115 points, 1^st place in the Central Division, 1^st place in the Western Conference, Stanley Cup Champions

- The Red Wings proved that they could win a Cup in the salary cap era and answered any questions concerning the age of the Wings.  Also, Lidstrom became the first European captain to win the Stanley Cup.

4. 2004-2005: 114 points, 1^st place in the Central Division, 3^rd place in the Western Conference, lost to  Toronto in the Stanley Cup final.

-The Wings fell just short to the Leafs, who won their first Cup since 1967 by beating the Wings in the forth overtime of game seven of the Stanley Cup finals in the game of the decade.

4. 2006-2007: 113 points, 1^st place in the Central Division, 1^st place in the Western Conference, lost to Anaheim in the Western Conference final

-It looked like the Wings would win their first cup in 5 years, but they would have to wait one more year after losing to the Ducks for the second time in three seasons.

5. 2005-2006: 124 points, 1^st place in the Central Division, 1^st place in the Western Conference, lost to Edmonton in the first round

-The Wings showed that they were still contenders even with a salary cap, but were upset by the Oilers who would go on to have one magical spring.

6. 2002-2003: 110 points, 1^st place in the Central Division, 2^nd place in the Western Conference, lost to Anaheim in the first round

-A shocking playoff result for a team that one year earlier had won the Stanley Cup.

7. 2003-2004: 109 points, 1^st place in the Central Division, 1^st place in the Western Conference, lost to Calgary in the second round

-For the second straight year a hot goalie knocks the Red Wings out of the playoffs.

8. 2000-2001: 111 points, 1^st place in the Central Division, 2^nd place in the Western Conference, lost to LA in the first round

-This embarrassing loss to the Kings lead to Red Wings management assembling one of the best teams ever for the next season.

9. 1999-2000: 108 points, 2^nd place in the Central Division, 4^th place in the Western Conference, lost to Colorado in the second round

-Yes, there was one year that the Red Wings did not win the Central.

To come up with this list I took into consideration the amount of time the player spent with the Red Wings, their significance within the organization, and what they did on the ice as a Wing. I only looked at a player’s time with the Red Wings and only at their stats from 1999-2000 to 2008-2009.

GM: Ken Holland; A great GM but also the only one that the Red Wings had during this decade so he wins this honor by default.

Head Coach: Mike Babcock; Four Central Division titles, two Western Conference Championships, one Stanley Cup in four seasons.

Center

1. Pavel Datsyuk

2. Steve Yzerman, Captain

3. Kris Draper, Assistant Captain

4. Sergei Fedorov

-Three Hall of Fame centers, plus Draper who spent the entire decade in Detroit.

Right Wing

1. Dan Cleary

2. Brett Hull

3. Darren McCarty

4. Kirk Maltby

- Two grinders, a Hall of Famer, and a Newfoundlander.

Left Wing

1. Henrik Zetterberg

2. Tomas Holmstrom

3. Brendan Shanahan

4. Luc Robitaille

-Hank could end up as one of the top three Red Wings ever and Homer has been a staple on this team for more than a decade.

Defense

1. Nicklas Lidstrom, Assistant Captain

2. Chris Chelios

3. Brian Rafalski

4. Niklas Kronwall

5. Mathieu Dandenault

6. Jiri Fischer

- A great defensive core. Fischer makes this list not only because he was a good defenseman but because his story will always be one of the things that I will remember from this decade of Red Wings hockey.

Goalies

1. Dominik Hasek

2. Chris Osgood

-Both won Stanley Cups this decade, but at his best Hasek could out play any goalie.

Ok, now let the debate begin! Any one I missed? Someone you want to take off the list? Sound off and let me know.

Note: Before Christmas I will have a blog ranking the ten nine Red Wings teams form the last decade. Also, I have two other special Red Wings blogs that I am working on so stay tuned.