The Defining Player
October 24, 2008, by Homme De Sept-Iles
There are about three game nights per week during an NHL regular season. At least for those that follow one team and one team only.
That leaves four evenings (and three agonized day-times) when all we have are still images, video highlights, articles, opinions and, really, not much that fires the imagination as the story of a game might.
Nothing so weighty as the urgent now of a power-play goal missed, a melee, the muted white glare of the ice, the spaces contracting between players (bubbles of human shape), the wait for a face-off, a smile between foes, the interminable commercials or the halting, accented blare of “Acceuillons – Nos – Canadiens!”
There is now. And, on four other nights, there is when.
When is the next game?
And with that, all the questions of the given week (day, moment) … who has been assigned to the AHL affiliate? … who is in a scoring slump that must end? … who are we playing? is it a four-pointer? … who has underrated us in the press this week? … whose day-to-day injury should be ending soon? … why are we on the road (at home) again? … why isn’t this the national (CBC) game? … what do we need to climb into first (out of the cellar)? … and so on.
The questions multiply and find some answers but sprout more questions themselves. The answers satisfy but only for a few minutes (or hours if we are distracted by weightier notions – like getting to work on time or taking that afternoon nap).
In those spaces when there is no game and I’m away from the television, internet and newspapers, I see images. Images of players in my mind. Our players. But if I leave the images alone (don’t project goals totals or superimpose exhortations or criticisms), my imagination moves closer to the ice, shows me in the swirl of helmet and stick, one player. One player’s face. One player’s particular movement.
His style.
I never know who this player is going to be. It depends on variables beyond my left brain’s limited time constraints to parse out. No, my right brain, far faster and infinitely more enigmatic than its counterpart has taken the time to show me what I’ve seen but have missed.
It shows me a different player some of the time. Some days it will show the same player several times. In 2004-05, I saw images of Sheldon Souray often. In 06-07, Steve Begin seemed to get the Molson of the Mind Award.
These days it is Mathieu Dandenault.
At one time (and perhaps still) considered the fastest Hab, Dandenault has several qualities that make him, at once, invisible and invaluable. Seemingly rest-free, he hits like the defenseman he once was, chases the puck with purpose and poise and makes decisions with blue-line efficiency.
He’s been on three Cup winners (with Detroit Red Wings) and he is in his 13th NHL season, a fourth-line grinder on a team that has its share. Some say it may be his last significant season with the club, that he is a spare part, replaceable.
That may be. And I am an outsider looking in.
To Dandenault’s advantage, however, are the guys behind the Montreal bench. All grinders, (Muller could score, yes), they have each won Cups on teams that were defined by their role players. They understand the value of experience and the courage of a player convinced of the importance of his role and who fulfills its tedious, less visible but no less important demands.
Come spring, Dandenault will be there and my mind’s eye won’t have to look behind to savour the urgent now of this converted power-forward’s skating stride.
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