Fans get only glimpses of Canadian Grand Prix
To an auto-racing zealot, the plan seemed worthwhile. With Formula 1 racing making its long-overdue return to the United States next year for a September date at the revised road course inside the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, what better time to cover the Canadian Grand Prix to get a first-hand handle on what is in store for U.S. motorsports fans?
My older son, Jack, and I planned to do a marathon drive to Montreal for the 31st running of Canada’s Grand Prix, the only one in North America. We got lucky and found the last room at an obscure but very nice little hotel a block from the old Forum, where I used to stay during some Stanley Cup final trips. It was expensive, because hotels go for the maximum on big weekends.
Only one problem. Formula 1 racing is conducted by Bernie Ecclestone, almost as a private and very exclusive club. Credentials are given out as though race officials were giving up their firstborn. I have covered two such events in past years — the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, and the last Canadian Grand Prix in which the late Ayrton Senna competed. This time, the three-page stipulations state requests must be submitted at least three weeks prior to an event, and must be mailed to Geneva, Switzerland.
We did that. And it took just long enough for the mail to go from Duluth to Geneva that the request apparently arrived a day late. Even though postmarked before the three-week stipulation, the request was denied. We learned of that 10 days before the race, and since the hotel had a two-week nonrefundable deal, we decided to go for it, anyway. Always one to look for the upside in such situations, I figured what could be better than to observe the race amid grassroots fans?
I hadn’t worried about the constant busy signals at the Montreal office’s ticket center. Every seat at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, on the Isle Notre Dame in midstream of the St. Lawrence River, had been sold out for six weeks, but on my previous trip, I learned that one of the best vantage points was a general admission section just outside the eastern tip of the 13-turn, 2.7-mile track. After approximately 100 calls with busy signals, two days before departure, I got through.
Two general admission tickets? The friendly woman said “No problem.” Only $79 apiece, for the three days.
Welcome to the world of Formula 1.
There can be no question that these cars and these drivers are the ultimate. The best in the world, and the most expensive. The Canadian Grand Prix used to be sponsored by Player’s, a tobacco company. But the Canadian government is in the process of invoking rules preventing tobacco sponsorship from marketing events except at the event itself, so Player’s dropped out and Air Canada jumped at the chance to spend $25 million for a five-year sponsorship deal.
The ongoing feud between CART and the Indy Racing League is partly based on the IRL’s contention that CART cars are too expensive. CART cars are definitely more costly than the IRL’s spec-racing cars, but nothing even close to the outrageous expense of Formula 1 cars. The race teams either have their own chassis builders and buy engines, such as the Williams or McLaren teams, or they have full factory missions, such as Ferrari, and build everything themselves including the secret engines. If the amount could be broken down into what a competitive team spends to prepare one car for one Formula 1 race, it probably would easily pay for a full season’s competition in the IRL. That’s the best reason for the IRL to exist, but there also is an unmistakable mystique about the no-limit expense of the ultimate racing.
As it turned out, the Canadian Grand Prix — in 90-degree heat for the third straight day — was by far the most competitive event of the season. For the first 29 laps, Michael Schumacher in a Ferrari led, in order, Mika Hakkinen in a McLaren-Mercedes, then Eddie Irvine in a matching Team Ferrari, and David Coulthard, Hakkinen’s teammate, in a tidy 1-2-3-4 chain. But several others stayed close, and when Schumacher crashed into a wall at Turn 13 on the 30th lap, Hakkinen had the lead. Former World Champions Damon Hill and hometown hero Jacques Villeneuve extended their luckless seasons by eliminating themselves against the same barrier.
Hakkinen, from Finland, won the race, with Italian Giancarlo Fisichella a surprising second in a Benetton, Ireland’s Eddie Irvine third, Germany’s Ralf Schumacher fourth in a Williams, England’s Johnny Herbert fifth in a Stewart-Ford, Brazilian Pedro Diniz sixth in a Sauber, and Scotland’s Coulthard seventh in the McLaren. The closest thing to a U.S. driver, other than former Indy 500 winner Villeneuve, was Italian Alex Zanardi, who dominated the CART series for two years but also banged a wall in his Williams and has yet to finish a Grand Prix race in a season of learning how to deal with an uncompetitive car.
Heinz-Harald Frantzen was running an impressive second until three laps remained, then his right
front brake seized and he crashed, meaning the last couple of laps were run single-file behind the pace car, securing what was already going to be a clearcut victory for series points leader and defending World Champion Hakkinen.
We had no idea of those happenings until long after the race, by watching highlights back at the hotel on television, and by reading the Montreal Gazette’s coverage, which included a front-page story, some sports section notes, and three full special sections of coverage.
Downtown Montreal was abuzz for three days. Auto traffic was foot by foot, and bumper to bumper, and parking was nonexistent, so we walked all over town to observe the beautiful people visiting barricaded, block-long displays and hitting the numerous restaurants and nightclubs. We found a parking spot one driveway past our hotel, where the sign allowed parking on weekends, and never moved the car from 6 p.m. on Friday until 8 a.m. Monday. We either walked or took the Metro — Montreal’s magically effective subway system.
On race morning, we took the Metro to the island plenty early, arriving in the midst of a record 104,069 fans. I would estimate 100,000 of us were on the same elbow-to-elbow logjam on the Metro, and the vast majority had paid a lot more than $79 for one of those advance seats. But we had scouted out the track during qualifying on Saturday, located my favorite spot outside the west tip of the track, where a couple of little grassy knolls and fence-lining vantage points were located, and so we walked briskly, about two miles, to get there. At the end of the paved walkway, however, a barrier was set up. “Sorry, you need a special pass to go there,” the pleasant security guard said. Sure enough, on race day only, the only good vantage point for general admission types was excluded from access. And the only indication of the blockade came at the end of the long walkway.
We walked all the way back, then to the Casino hairpin at the extreme east end of the track, and found a spot by a guardrail. It was only about 10 feet from the track itself, and even though you could only see about 50 yards of the track between the back of a grandstand and a giant Air Canada sign, we figured the cars would be visible, close-up, as they braked hard for the hairpin.
We were wrong. The cars sped past at about 150 miles per hour, braking much later than I anticipated, and all we saw were flashes of color. Part of the high-budget sellout to sponsors, Formula 1 cars carry only tiny numbers, sometimes not noticeable unless parked. Certainly not at 150, from 10 feet away.
We watched about five laps from there, then set out to tour the infield. We found four or five other vantage points along walkways, but they were crammed with people like ourselves, straining to get a glimpse of these colorful racers as they screamed past, their high-revving engines exceeding the threshold of pain unless you were wearing earplugs, which I was.
We wound up outside the back side of the course, amid a group of amiable but equally helpless fans, for the last 20 laps. When Coulthard pitted, and came back on course almost a lap behind his teammate, Hakkinen, many fans thought he had somehow taken the lead, rather than resumed racing almost a full lap down. On an impromptu survey, nobody in that vicinity, in either English or French, could guess at how many of the following string of racers were on the same lap as Hakkinen.
As Hakkinen went by, waving to the crowd after the victory, we were already in full flight for the mile-long walk back to the Metro. I have never witnessed so many people funneling into such a tight passageway and only the fact that all were amiable made the whole trek amazingly efficient.
Afterward, a restaurant in the old part of Montreal, more walking and more Metro riding, and we were ready for the 25-hour, straight-through, morning-after drive home.
Was it worth it? Race fans used to sitting in the stands and seeing the whole event at Proctor, or Superior, would probably disagree, but the whole scene is what matters at a Formula 1 race. Watching stunningly fashionable people in one of the world’s greatest cities, was spectacular. The sounds and flashes of color were breathtaking, whether in practice, qualifying, warm-ups, or during the race. As for the race-watching itself, it was torturous, and it became evident that in the big-time, corporate world of Formula 1, the actual race fans have been greatly overlooked. But if we could afford it, we’d go back in a minute — or, at least, in 25 hours.
Archer duplicates 2nd-place finish at LeMans
Ho-hum. Another trip to France, another second-place finish for Tommy Archer.
Except that racing successfully at 200 miles per hour — even though second place in the legendary 24 Hours of LeMans was a duplication of Archer’s race a year ago — can never be routine.
“It was very similar to last year,” said Archer, who arrived back home understandably exhausted after Sunday’s 1-2 finish for Chrysler’s Team Oreca Vipers. “We knew we had good cars, and we had a good tactical plan for the race. We were second to our teammates’ car in qualifying, and for a while, our team cars were running 1-2-3.”
The overall winner in the 24-hour endurance race was a BMW V12 driven by Yannick Dalmas of France, Joachim Winkelhock of Germany and Pierluigi Martini of Italy. They co-drove the winning car to 365 laps around the 8.456-mile road-racing course through the roadways of rural France, at a continuous average speed of 207.000 miles per hour. That average speed includes all pit stops for fuel and repairs, and for driver changes, which occur every two or three hours.
Second place, one lap behind, was a Toyota GT1 driven by Japanese drivers Ukyo Katayama, Keiichi Tsuchiya and Toshio Suzuki, and placing third and fourth were a pair of Audi R8R prototypes.
By comparison, the first Team Oreca Viper GTS-R, competing in the smaller-engine GT class, finished 10th overall and first in the GT class for existing sports cars rather than unlimited prototypes, finished 325 laps and was co-driven by Olivier Beretta of France, Karl Wendlinger of Germany and Dominique Dupuy of France.
That car finished ahead of a Panoz prototype, which was 11th overall, and the second Team Oreca Viper, driven in shifts by Marc Duez of Belgium, Archer, and Justin Bell of Britain, was 12th overall and second in class with 318 laps completed.
“Our car would have been right with our first team car, but they had absolutely no problems,” said Archer. “We had one mechanical problem and I had a couple of flat tires.”
Flat tires, of course, are a bit more serious when they occur on a high-speed race course.
“The track was dirtier than normal, from cars going off and back on the track, and I had a left front blow at about 190 miles per hour going down into the Indianapolis turn,” said Archer. “I was about six feet from the guardrail when it happened. Next, the left rear went.
“We also had a part break in the transmission, about 14 hours into the race. The crew got it fixed, but we fell to fourth in our class and had to work back to second.”
Televised reports from the race showed a Mercedes prototype flipping up in an incredible end-over-end crash. Archer said there were about three such incidents, and he was directly behind one of them when it occured. The exotic cars, designed to create downforce that practically sucks the car bodies to the track surface, have amazing stability — unless something disrupts that downforce.
“I was probably two blocks back when one Mercedes came over the crest of a little hill and flipped, right about the same place as I had had a flat,” Archer said. “I think it got caught up in some turbulence from a Toyota racing ahead of it.”
Archer said that as difficult as it is to race for 24 hours without suffering some serious mechanical problems, he felt satisfied with the team’s performance, and yet was disappointed a breakdown prevented the third team car from a chance at a 1-2-3 class finish.
The result may lead to some further racing for Archer, as Chrysler is planning to enter two Team Oreca cars in the American LeMans series, which is already two races into an eight-race schedule. The next race in that series will be June 27 at Mosport Park in Toronto, and Archer has been hired to drive one of the cars.
Former Duluthian Peter Kitchak, who now lives in the Twin Cities, drove a Porsche 911 to 18th place overall, teaming with Franz Konrad of Germany and Charles Slater of the U.S.
Tommy Archer among favorites at LeMans
The Archer Brothers — Tommy and Bobby — native sons who brought road-racing fame to Duluth as part of the city’s most famous motorsports family, are both racing Dodge Vipers. But no, not as teammates.
Tommy Archer, who still minds the Archer Brothers high-performance race and street shop up by the Duluth Airport, is off to LeMans, where this weekend he will once again help Team Oreca try to dominate the GTS class. Bobby Archer, who moved to Texas to continue racing, is racing a Viper in the Speedvision World Challenge GT series.
Team Oreca has three Vipers racing this time in the 24 Hours of LeMans. Olivier Beretta and Karl Wendlinger, unbeaten in this year’s manufacturers championship series, will be joined by Dominique Dupuy in the No. 51 Viper. Tommy Archer, who codrove to second place in a 1-2 team finish in class last year at LeMans, shares the No. 52 second team car with Justin Bell and Marc Duez. David Donohue and Jean-Philippe Belloc, who have codriven to second place behind the Beretta-Wendlinger car at both Monza and Silverstone this season, are joined by Soheil Ayari in the No. 53 Team Oreca third car.
Donohue and Bell were codrivers of last year’s GT-winning car. The class, known as GT2 last year, is now categorized as GTS, and the Vipers will face a strong challenge from the aging but always-threatening Porsche team. Chevrolet, which entered its new Corvettes in a highly-publicized, factory-backed program at Daytona, realized it requires more development time but pulled off a guaranteed move to “lead” the LeMans classic — by supplying the pace car.
Coverage of the LeMans race, with the super-fast factory prototypes zooming along at over 200 miles per hour ahead of the GTS cars around the 8.451-mile course, partly on actual highways, will be tricky to locate, partly because it will run from 8:30 a.m. (Central time) Saturday and conclude Sunday morning, and partly because it will be covered live, in segments including the start, dawn at LeMans (10 p.m. Central) and the finish (5 a.m. Central), but only on Speedvision cable. Highlights are sure to be shown on motorsports shows on ESPN, ESPN 2 and TNN cable.
Meanwhile, Bobby Archer is running a similar but much more modest and private Viper in the Speedvision World Challenge, and after winning at Mosport and Lime Rock, he placed second to former Duluthian Peter Kitchak’s Porsche last weekend at Mid-Ohio.
While it is little more than coincidence that the now-split-up Archer Brothers are both racing Vipers, don’t be surprised if Tommy’s strong and repeated showings in factory cars doesn’t lead to some sort of arrangement where he will prepare Viper race cars to compete in various U.S. series, and it’s virtual certain Tommy will be driving more for Team Oreca, which has expansive plans for the future.
SUPERIOR WEATHER
Up North race tracks may have been lulled into warm, fuzzy feelings of success last season, but this season has been a nightmare of rain, cold and foul weather. Except, that is, for Superior Speedway, which has run off four full programs, much to the envy of race fans elsewhere in the area.
Last weekend was a good example, with Superior drawing 29 Sprint cars for a full showing of International Racing Association (IRA) Outlaw Sprints on Friday, and Brady Smith from Solon Springs casually winning the Super Stock feature. Again. No, there is nothing casual about the way Smith flies around a dirt oval, but Superior has held four programs this season and Smith has won all four Super Stock features.
Meanwhile, Ashland and Hibbing got rained out, as did Rice Lake, Wis., last Saturday night. Proctor has only gotten two shows in, and lost out to foul weather four other times, including Memorial Day’s Monday night special. Last season, Proctor ran 16 shows and only had one rainout all season, which makes this season’s weather luck seem doubly unfair.
Last Sunday looked hopeful, because it was beautiful on the Iron Range and in Ashland all day, and not bad in Proctor. Even when the fog from Duluth moved up over the hill and delayed the start at Proctor, Sunday night looked promising when track officials hustled to get in all the heats. But when they broke for intermission, the monsoon swept in and the features were eliminated.
“It was tough for us, because we had 115 cars Sunday,” said Proctor spokesman Chris Sailstad. “When the guys don’t get to race other places, they all get extra-anxious to run here on Sunday night. Now we run into the problem of how to reschedule. It’s not fair to make up the special shows with double features and cut out some of our regular events, and now we run into some other tracks running special events in midweek, too.”
CANADIAN GRAND PRIX
It’s a huge weekend, worldwide, with the only Formula 1 race in North America running in Montreal Sunday. The Canadian Grand Prix is of far more than merely cult interest this year, with Formula 1 returning to the U.S. next year at the new road course inside the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
The big rivalry this weekend is whether the McLaren-Mercedes team of Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard can withstand Ferrari’s duo of Michael Schumacher and Eddie Irvine. Hakkinen and Schumacher have each won twice and Irvine once so far in Formula 1 this season, but this race takes on extra meaning with Jacques Villeneuve returning home to race on the course named after his late father, Gilles Villeneuve.
Meanwhile, Alex Zanardi, runaway CART champion the last two seasons, will try to prove he and teammate Ralf Schumacher can make the struggling Williams team cars competitive.
NASCAR is in action this weekend, with the northernmost run of Winston Cup stars at Michigan International Speedway, and the Indy Racing League will try to come up with a valid follow-up to the Indy 500 with a race at Fort Worth, Texas.
All that, of course, is just in case weird weather causes you to bypass Up North races and spend the weekend hunting for motorsports with your TV remote.
Excitement of sports could be easily improved
Pick your favorite sports scene:
* The New York Knicks, trailing by three points with 12 seconds to go in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference NBA playoffs, get the ball to big (they’re all big) LarryJohnson, while Indiana’s Antonio Davis tried to prevent him from moving in. Johnson made a little feint one way, then the other, and Davis took a swipe at the ball. Maybe — just maybe — there was a bit of contact, but nothing major. Then, as the whistle blew, Johnson pulled clear of Davis, went up for a jump shot, and swished it, from 3-point range. The referee declared the shot good, tying the game at 91-all, and gave Johnson a free throw, which he also made, for a 92-91 Knicks victory. The Pacers raced to the other end of the floor in the final five seconds, and, after what appeared to be at least as much meaningful contact, Mark Johnson’s final shot fell short.
* Tune in a major league baseball game — any game, any day. The pitcher throws a fastball, curve or slider, and it comes in right over the plate, maybe an inch above the belt buckle. “Ball,” the umpire calls. A minute or so, after several steps out of the box to clean the spikes or look for a signal, the count is 3-and-2, and the same pitcher throws a darting slider at the knees that breaks four inches outside the plate. “Strike three,” screams the ump. The same ump, the same pitcher and the same hitter. No wonder the pitcher has a problem, having to throw his pitches into a strike zone that measures a mere two feet high and an irregular 16-18 inches wide, and no wonder we see a whole squadron of hitters leaning back and lunging at 60-75 home run seasons.
* Watch the NHL playoffs and marvel at the intensity, the pace and the stout team defenses, but also count the number of open-ice finesse plays because of the constant physical coverage, much of it interference, and the precious lack of room as a whole league-ful of 6-foor-3 guys fill the 200-by-85 ice surface and clog each zone.
* Now go out to a local softball field and watch the slow-pitch guys play. Big guys, wearing batting gloves and waving $300 bats made of the latest, high-tech aircraft aluminum with compressed-air chambers and special thin-wall construction guaranteed to give a springy, catapault-like thrust to send the soft-arcing pitch an extra 20 yards. And then these guys take a strike, or maybe two, in order to get the perfect pitch.
What’s wrong with those pictures? This is sports at the end of the millenium. There is no longer any doubt that sports has moved squarely into the entertainment biz. In this era of superlatives, it seems that well-executed subtleties have all been brushed aside so that ESPN’s nightly highlights can all be game-breaking spectacles. Does anyone else get bored by seeing 11 consecutive home runs, from different games, all passing as highlights? Or slam-dunk after slam-dunk, mostly after the player takes three steps before liftoff?
So here are a few modest suggestions, aimed at helping the games people play become more satisfying as the games people watch.
BASKETBALL: This goes for the college game as well as the NBA style. In the final two minutes of every game, both sides get one, and only one, 30-second time out. More importantly, every foul is a two-shot foul, and the team that is fouled also gets possession of the ball. Outrageous, you say? Right on. What would happen is that teams would have to stop intentionally fouling whomever is perceived to be the other team’s worst free-throw shooter as a tactical move. It simply would be too costly to foul, intentionally or otherwise. As it is, basketball has eroded into a game where committing an intentional infraction is now an acceptable and applauded strategical tactic of the game.
Make the change, and instead of the last two minutes of the game lasting 10 minutes for endless timeouts and trips to the free-throw line, the last two minutes would simply be racehorse, high-intensity basketball, played to a frantic finish.
Oh, and call traveling when it happens, instead of allowing everybody to take two or three running steps, like a halfback going off-tackle, before shooting or passing.
BASEBALL: Call the strike-zone the way Abner Doubleday intended it to be called — anything from the letters (armpits?) to the knees is a strike, so long as it is over the plate. Simple. Pitchers are better than ever these days, but hitters have almost all the advantages of the slackened rules. OK, so once in a while the pitcher gets that liberal-outside-corner strike, but that’s small consolation when the rest of the pitches have to be in a zone barely taller than the barrel of a bat is wide.
As for college and high school ball, where more accurate strike zones and aluminum bats have given just as unfair an edge to the hitters, we could make a small adjustment, too. There is no question that aluminum bats — similar to those high-tech softball beauties — have gotten out of control. But there’s no need to eliminate them or go back to all wood. Simply go back to the older, first style aluminum bats, that were actually designed to simulate wood bats for impact and velocity of the hit. They provide the advantage of being cost-effective, not breaking, and not changing the game.
HOCKEY: Two things could allow hockey — even high-intensity playoff hockey — to again allow the artful style to play a role. First, go to Olympic size rinks. The extra 15-feet of width would allow all those 6-3 guys to play with some room, and they’d have to skate instead of merely knowing that they’re always within stick’s reach of each other (literally). Second, the NHL should go to the college and high school red-line rule. Take away the center red line except for icing, which would allow teams to pass across their own blue line and the red line. That would allow a defenseman to come around his net and throw a 120-foot pass to a winger who could be flying all the way to the far blue line, instead of having to find anybody open in the congested space short of the red line.
The NHL won’t change to Olympic size, because they’d be sacrificing high-buck seats to make the game better, and we know which is more important to the powers that be.
SOFTBALL: Big guys, wearing uniforms from their favorite bars, and batting gloves, taking strikes to wait for the perfect pitch. The best pro softball teams in the best tournaments routinely hit 35 or more home runs in a game. It’s a joke. So, two rules to improve slow-pitch softball. One, eliminate the fences. Yup, make teams decide whether they want to play ‘way back in the outfield, or move in and take away the singles, and make the hitting team decide whether to try to go for singles or try to hit one over the outfield. Better game, already. The second thing is to change the rules — four balls for a walk, but one strike and you’re out. Then let’s see the big guys take a pitch. The game of slow-pitch was designed for players who weren’t up to the difficulties of baseball or fast-pitch, a recreational sport where every pitch should be hittable, and hit. So let’s get back to that intention. Unless a pitch is unreasonably awful, swing at it, or risk being called out by the ump.
It’s time to reel in pro sports, and even amateur sports, so we can get back to what we used to admire about the “spirit” of the game. In the long run, it will make games even more enjoyable, to watch and to play.
Stanley Cup finals sure to have Up North touch
If you are among those watching the Stanley Cup Playoffs on television, you are aware that the climactic finals are just about to start. And Up North hockey fans can take special interest this year, regardless of what happens.
First, the favored Western teams lived up to all expectations, with evidence that Dallas, Detroit and Colorado were arguably the best three teams in the whole NHL. I thought Detroit was primed for a third Cup run in a row, but Colorado clipped the Red Wings. I thought Dallas had ‘way too much for St. Louis, but it took a determined effort by the Stars to subdue the Blues.
The conference final in the East was a rough and rowdy affair, with Buffalo beating Toronto for the Eastern berth in the Cup finals, although everyone West of Lake Erie will consider the Sabres a decisive underdog in the finals.
That is, if Dallas and Colorado have anything left after their Friday night seventh game.
Naturally, the Stars have a lot of allure Up North, because they used to shine in Minnesota, and still have remnants of those days. Mike Modano was a young box-office idol in Minnesota, and he’s a still-young-looking but more mature box-office idol in Dallas. The Stars also have Brett Hull and Joe Niewendyk as stars, but all of them must bow to Cloquet’s own Jamie Langenbrunner this time around.
When Dallas got past Edmonton in a tough opening series, Langenbrunner scored two game-winning goals and assisted on another, to take care of three of the four victories in that series. It was interesting to note that after scoring only 12 goals in the regular season, Langenbrunner’s constant hustle and fearless determination to get to the front of the net regardless of the degree of congestion, had earned a regular spot on Niewendyk’s line.
Coincidentally, NHL hockey was in its annual Cup semifinal surge, during which play gets closer, tougher, nastier, and quadruples in intensity from its comparatively casual regular-season pace. Dallas had acquired Derek Plante, another Cloquet native, and has Tony Hrkac, former North Dakota Hobey Baker star. But neither of them seems to get into the games at this point.
That may indicate that NHL hockey has reached a sorry state, when two such skilled, fantastic players can’t get ice time. But we also can marvel at the play of Langenbrunner, who also is very skilled but adds an incredibly large dose of tenacity to his game, which often overshadows his own skill level. As these games get more rugged through the playoffs, Langenbrunner simply takes on the combative circumstances as one more challenge, and churns through them in an unrelenting effort. Then, once he penetrates, he does something.
Colorado had battled to gain the upper hand in the series, with a 3-2 lead in games and home ice for Game 6. The Avalanche led 1-0, but Dallas tied it. It stayed 1-1 well into the third period.
And then the puck came out front for a Dallas shot, which Patrick Roy blocked, going down in a V. Langenbrunner, near the left boards, bolted for the net, fighting a checker all the way, and somehow got to the crease and stabbed the puck with his stick, just enough to send it squirting through Roy’s legs for a 2-1 lead.
Claude Lemieux drew a stupid penalty for flattening Stars goalie Ed Belfour — another former North Dakota star — with an elbow-flipper in the crease, and Langenbrunner smacked in another shot for a 3-1 lead on the power play. He also had a great chance on a one-timer from the slot, and was stopped by Roy’s toe on a breakaway. But Dallas won the game 4-1, to send the series back to Dallas for Friday’s exhausting final.
Langenbrunner, meanwhile, went into that game with eight goals in the playoffs, after his 12-goal regular season. While flashy scoring stars like Modano, Niewendyk and Hull have played well but found themselves restrained and harnessed, and outstanding talents like Derek Plante and Tony Hrkac find themselves out of the lineup to let more muckers and grinders play instead, Jamie Langenbrunner continues to score, and to score pivotal goals that keep the Stars shining.
If Dallas could beat Colorado in Game 7, and go onto to the finals, Jamie Langenbrunner could be the most valuable player of these playoffs. Not bad for the kid from Cloquet.
Meanwhile, if Colorado were to win and advance, Up North fans are not without a favorite. Shjon Podein, who starred at Rochester John Marshall and then for the UMD Bulldogs, struggled and battled his way through the NHL traffic before, and made it big with Philadelphia, but not big enough. Now he’s with the Avalanche, and he, too, has stepped forward in a starring role as the congestion gets tougher and superstars like Peter Forsberg and Joe Sakic get restrained and subdued.
Meanwhile, off in Buffalo, Erik Rasmussen, who left the University of Minnesota after two frustrating seasons, has not only earned a regular spot with the Sabres, but he, also, has risen to stardom when the traffic got heaviest. Rasmussen, a rugged physical specimen, is not only handling the pounding but making key plays on key goals that got the Sabres into the finals.
The focus is always on the goaltenders at this time of year. Dominek Hasek for Buffalo is awesome, and so is Patrick Roy of Colorado, and Belfour is a money goaltender for the Stars. But when the going gets rough, and then much rougher, it’s gratifying to see young men from Up North, such as Langenbrunner and Podein, rise up, grab some spotlight, and give us something extra to cheer about.
About the Author
John Gilbert is a lifetime Minnesotan and career journalist, specializing in cars and sports during and since spending 30 years at the Minneapolis Tribune, now the Star Tribune. More recently, he has continued translating the high-tech world of autos and sharing his passionate insights as a freelance writer/photographer/broadcaster. A member of the prestigious North American Car and Truck of the Year jury since 1993. John can be heard Monday-Friday from 9-11am on 610 KDAL(www.kdal610.com) on the "John Gilbert Show," and writes a column in the Duluth Reader.
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