Joe Sakic: the Man, the Myth, the quiet Legend

With two weeks remaining until the Arizona Cardinals and the Pittsburgh Steelers battle it out with Bruce Springsteen in Super Bowl XLIII, I wanted to pay tribute to one of the classiest athletes in all of professional sports. 

That’s right, you guessed it:  Joe Sakic.

I know that hockey is not the first thing on the minds of most sports fans these days, particularly a player that is not even in his team’s lineup, but I feel with all the bad press circulating around professional athletes lately, it’s high time to highlight one of the good ones. 

Sakic did make news on December 10, 2008 for a rare off-the-ice altercation.  He broke three fingers and damaged tendons in his hand after fighting with…a snowblower.  Already out of the lineup with a herniated disc in his back, the 39-year-old Sakic is now out of the lineup until the end of February at the earliest.

As one with a herniated disc in his back, I can empathize with the poor man.  It hurts for me to walk most days, and I’ve absorbed far less punishment in my 29 years of lazy haze than he has in his 39 years of hockey supremacy.  The last place I’d want to be on a freezing Denver morning is pushing around a snowblower.  And let’s be serious folks, most of us have inflicted worse injuries using our coffeemakers than we have using such a menacing piece of machinery.

Avalanche fans will certainly miss having #19 on the ice.  Already compounded with the injuries to Paul Stastny, Ian Laperriere and Adam Foote, the Avalanche will be hard-pressed to climb out of the Northwest Division cellar.  His scoring will be missed, after all he did have 12 points in 15 games before the injuries, but his personality and leadership may be missed more.

The NHL is in dire need of guys like Joe Sakic.  I hate the fact that the last major story outside of the success of the Winter Classic was Sean Avery and his off-color comments about his ex-girlfriend, actress Elisha Cuthbert and Calgary D-man Dion Phaneuf.  Did last week’s awesome meeting between Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin generate any buzz?  Hardly.     

So here it is.  Here is my civic duty as a fan of the NHL and the Colorado Avalanche to thank Joe Sakic for a decade-plus of good times. 

Thanks Joe for bringing the Avalanche two Stanley Cups.  The first against the Florida Panthers during the ill-fated “glow puck” era on Fox, and the second that brought a championship to perhaps the most deserving man in hockey, Ray Bourque.  I shed a few tears at the end of that one, I must admit.  Maybe it’s the way he quietly led his team, minus Avalanche legend Peter Forsberg, to victory in seven games over the New Jersey Devils.  Or maybe it’s because he handed the Cup straight to Bourque, and wasn’t the first to hoist the chalice over his head and skate it as the Captain of the team is supposed to be.     

Thanks Joe for helping feed the less fortunate in the Denver area each year through your charity golf tournament and other charity work.

Thanks Joe for not shooting yourself in the leg while hanging out in seedy nightclubs.

Thanks Joe for not being involved in any murder-for-hire plots after “making it rain” with about $81,000 in one dollar bills.

Thanks Joe for never, ever, ever dating Madonna.

Thanks Joe for never betting on hockey, or baseball, or basketball or fights involving Patrick Roy or any of his family members.

OK, you get the point by now.  Burnaby Joe, here’s to a speedy recovery and perhaps just one more injury-free year before you skate off into the sunset.