[News] 25 years later - "Chopper" & "Killer" talk about the 1989 Stanley Cup win

[Dion]

Oh yeah,” laughs Al MacInnis. “They were on the ice with a camera. It was set up before the game — if this and this happens, we’ll be there and this is what you say. And so I said ‘I’m going to Disneyland!’

“Hey, I got paid to do it. And I got a free trip to Disneyland."

“When Doug Gilmour scored in the empty net to give us the two-goal lead,” recalls MacInnis, now the VP of hockey ops for the Cup-contending St. Louis Blues, of ’89’s Game 6 Stanley Cup-clinching victory at the ol’ Montreal Forum, “I was in the penalty box with, I think, Claude Lemieux. Coincidental penalties, if I’m not mistaken.

“So I’m sitting there, afraid to breathe, but when that puck went in it was like somebody took my head out of a vice. Honest to gawd. The only way to describe it. It was an absolute . . . relief. It was like ‘No way . . . we finally won.’ Just a total relief came over my whole body. Especially my head.

“As if I had this crushing headache and suddenly it was . . . gone.”

“He stood up on the bus (Cliff Fletcher) after Game 4, I’ll never forget it, and he said ‘Guys, we are the better team. The only thing we have to do, which we’re very capable of doing, is win one road game. Because that team will NOT beat us at home again.’ No yelling. No hysterics. Just: These are the facts. He simplified things, broke it down to a smaller focus.

“And in this case here, Al MacInnis just about terrorized Patrick Roy.

‘Distracted’ is a kind word to use. He had him worried, bad, because of the howitzer. No doubt about it. That was an edge we had. In my mind, Saint Patrick Roy lost some of his mystique in that series.

“When you’ve got a guy that can really fire the bombs, it gives you such an advantage. A guy like Weber is a scary dude. A guy like Souray is a scary guy. Al was a scary guy.”

“Go back as recently as last year. Look at Game 7 Toronto-Boston, first round, eight minutes to go in the game, Toronto ahead 4-1 and the Bruins could’ve said ‘This isn’t our year.’ Instead they scored four goals to win it and wound up going to the finals. Chicago was down 3 games to 1 to Detroit. They could’ve said ‘This isn’t our year’, too. They went on to win the Stanley Cup.

“It’s a demanding two months. Our test in ’89 was Game 7 in OT against Vancouver. After we got through that, and it was tough, believe me, it just felt like ‘OK, this is our year.’ ”

“For me, the thing is the closeness of those guys is what sticks out, what stays with you. How lucky we were to have the group of guys that Cliff and Al put together. The leadership group led by Lanny (McDonald), how he taught a lot of us young guys how to be a professional, on and off the ice. That was the culture they built there.

“When you look back, that was a helluva group.

“Whatever way you wanted to play us, we could play it. We had skill, we had speed, we had size, we had toughness. Whatever questions opposing teams decided to ask us on a given night, we had the answer.”

http://www.calgaryherald.com/sports/...726/story.html

“I remember we were down 2-1 in the series,” Gilmour is saying from his office in Kingston, Ont., where he manages his hometown junior club, the Frontenacs, “and there was a banquet. Mully (Joe Mullen) was getting the award for best plus-minus. We were all there, the Canadiens were, too, and there was almost a cockiness over on their side.

“Like the rest of the series was just a formality or something.

“Right then and there, I knew that was one to put back in the saddlebag. That was a moment to hang onto. They thought they were going to win it. No doubt. And obviously a lot of other people did, too.

“But the way they were acting, as if it was already over . . . I don’t think I’m the only one on our team that felt way. I’ll never forget it.

“And the next night we won.”

“Killer,” explains his old St. Louis sidekick, goalie Rick Wamsley, “made us a good enough team to win. Look, we don’t win if we don’t have Nieuwy. We don’t win if we don’t have Hakan Loob. We don’t win if we don’t have the defence we had. And we don’t win if we don’t have Vernie.

“But Gilmour was such a great GAME player. A big-moment guy. I don’t care who you are, what your lineup looks like, you need that guy. He was the final ingredient of, I dunno, a pretty good pot of stew. You sprinkle him in there and he just made it a great pot of stew.

“No question getting him was one of the components we needed,” says the left winger on Gilmour’s line, Colin Patterson. “Centre is such an important position. There’s not a team that doesn’t have good to great centres. History doesn’t lie. We had great centres — Dougie, Joe Nieuwendyk, Joel Otto, Theo Fleury. Dougie added that extra bit of intensity. Great in his own end, great passer, unselfish. All for the team. Not for the glorification of Dougie Gilmour.

“I got a picture that night of me kissing the Cup with my dad beside me. You talk about it being 25 years ago. Life changes and he passed away a year and a half ago. That one’s on my phone and I look at it. Often.

“Pretty special moment. Pretty special year.”

http://www.calgaryherald.com/sports/...672/story.html

[getbak]

But Gilmour was such a great GAME player. A big-moment guy. I don’t care who you are, what your lineup looks like, you need that guy. He was the final ingredient of, I dunno, a pretty good pot of stew. You sprinkle him in there and he just made it a great pot of stew.