Sunday, February 24, 2002
Brodeurs now have a collection
By CHRIS STEVENSON -- SLAM! Sports
SALT LAKE CITY -- He used to look at if often, not that he had a choice.
The bronze medal won by Denis Brodeur for Canada in the 1956 Olympic Winter
Games hangs in the living room of the Brodeur family home in Montreal.
For the son, Martin, another goaltender, the medal was just part of the
furniture for most of his early life.
"The Olympics were in my family since I was a kid, even before I was there
even," said Martin Brodeur. "A lot of my family was looking forward to this.
We were all happy to have a chance to play for gold."
Now there is a gold medal to become part of the son's decor, the spot already
picked out. It will hang beside the mask Brodeur wore in these Olympic Games,
the one with the maple leaf on the top and the words Salt Lake and Cortina
D'Ampezzo, the places where the father and son chased Olympic gold, on the
bottom.
The mask and the medal are going to go next to the mask Brodeur had in Nagano
four years ago, but never got a chance to use.
"Now I've got something flashy to hang beside it," said Brodeur, looking down
at the gold medal that hung from the blue ribbon around his neck.
Brodeur's progression in this tournament mirrored that of his team. A rough
beginning, a gathering of confidence and then validation.
He had not had that great a season with the New Jersey Devils, but when
Colorado's Patrick Roy, the concensus choice as the man to guard Canada's net
here, pulled himself out of the running, Brodeur became a close second to
Toronto's Curtis Joseph.
Not that it was entirely Joseph's fault, but Canada's one-sided loss to
Sweden in the first game of the preliminary round opened the door for Brodeur.
"Patrick was still the best and he had played that way," said Team Canada
head coach Pat Quinn. "I didn't know which way we were going to go for sure.
The opening game was a hard one for us and I was going to play Martin in the
second game."
Canada pulled out a 3-2 win over Germany that didn't earn any style points
and even though the team and Brodeur were a little unsteady, a win was a win.
"It was part superstition...as we got better, I couldn't make a change," said
Quinn.
That was followed by a tie with the Czechs, then a win over Finland in the
quarterfinal and a one-sided victory over Belarus in the semifinal.
American goaltender Mike Richter was outstanding in the USA's win over Russia
in their semifinal and looked to be on a roll.
There was little upon which to judge the state of Brodeur's game.
The Americans opened the scoring Sunday with a Tony Amonte shot between
Brodeur's pads on a 2-on-1 and it looked like Brodeur could be in for an
ordinary day.
He had no chance on the Americans' second goal, which tied the game 2-2 in
the second period as it deflected off the stick of Canadian defenceman Chris
Pronger and between Brodeur's legs.
Brodeur saved his best for the third.
A turning point in the game came with Canada up 3-2 in the latter half of the
third period and Canada's Steve Yzerman in the box for tripping.
The puck slid over to American sniper Brett Hull in his favourite place, his
off-wing circle.
He snapped it.
Brodeur snapped out his right toe.
"He's always there. That's his good spot. I knew he was there for the
one-timer. I saw him out of the corner of my eye," said Brodeur. "I just
tried to kick out my leg as quick as a I can."
Problem was, Brodeur's foot was behind the goal line as he started his move.
On the bigger international ice, he had been playing deeper in the net.
"I had to change my game a little bit, I had no choice," said Brodeur. "My
pad was inside the goal and I had to kick it out."
He did, of course.
Eighteen seconds after the Yzerman penalty expired, Canada's Jarome Iginla
got his second goal of the game to make it 4-2.
"At 3-2, that save on Brett Hull turned the game around," said Team Canada
executive director Wayne Gretzky. "We went down and scored.
"I'm happy for him and proud."
When Brodeur and Gretzky embraced after the game, Brodeur said he simply
thanked him.
"I just said thank you for giving me the opportunity," he said. "And for
having confidence. That's all I asked at training camp was for a chance to
play. To every guy, the coaches and management, I say thank you very much."
They should say, no, thank you.
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