the first time I heard his name (incorrectly as it turns out) was the day of his trade to Calgary
I was living in Winnipeg, and the 'legendary'
Winnipeg radio sports figure Scott Taylor broke the trade..the Flames have traded Joe Nieuwendyk to Dallas for Corey Millen and Jaromir Iginlia ....who he went on to inform me was a Czech prospect who would likely never play in the NHL
this was pre any sort of useful internet so I more or less had to accept that information until shortly thereafter when he was named to team Canada and proceeded to run the show at that year's World Juniors