Happy Birthday, Captain.

The Captain, Steve Yzerman, was born on this date in 1965.


From The Hockey News ...

Detroit general manager Ken Holland said he never saw anyone play in more pain than Steve Yzerman when he led the Red Wings to the 2002 Stanley Cup championship. "He got shot up before every game," Holland said. "He could hardly walk. He had a knee that was bone on bone. He was in such incredible pain." After the season, Yzerman had a knee osteotomy, in which the surgeon adds a wedge of bone to the shinbone to take the weight off the damaged area of the knee. "If you watch clips of the 2002 playoffs, Steve would fall down and he would have to use one knee and his stick to pop himself back up," Draper said.

Watch and learn ...



Yzerman is not the youngest, the strongest, nor the fastest, and he was never the biggest. But make no mistake, he is the Maximus of gladiators, the man who fights wounded and bleeding, with a heart as large as any lion they spring on him.

- Mitch Albom