A Competitor to the End

Excerpted from "Veteran players never 'too old' for NHL"
By Keith Gave for CBS SportsLine.com, July 20, 2000

Once upon a time, the NHL was a young man's league. Players were considered old at 30. Now they're young at 40.

Why? The obvious answer is two-fold: Money and expansion. An ever-expanding NHL that will begin this season with 30 teams, nine more than just a decade ago, needs players. And a man's body may be his temple, but to a professional athlete these days it's also a vault. So the longer he can play, the more fortune he can amass.

But Ken Hitchcock, who coached the oldest player in the NHL last season in center Guy Carbonneau, says there's more to it than that.

"Money is one thing, but it's not everything," Hitchcock told SportsLine.com in an interview Thursday. "In a lot of cases, it has a lot more to do with guys not wanting to give up that feeling of comradeship. It's something you want to hang on to forever, and they play later because they're unbelievable competitors. They don't want to take the sweater off because they love the competition, and they're very proud."

None competed with more passion and pride than Guy Carbonneau, who turned 40 in March and helped the Stars advance to the Stanley Cup Finals a year after they won the NHL championship -- the third ring of an 18-year career that ended with his retirement last month. But even in the end, the three-time Selke Trophy winner was one of the best defensive forwards in the league, and one of Hitchcock's most trusted players.

Coaches who depend on older players also must learn how to handle them. The successful ones, like Scotty Bowman in Detroit and Hitchcock, know the value of giving older players more time off, demanding less of their presence at morning skates and off-day practices. And they learn from those players.

"I once had Carbo write down the things he did off the ice to stay competitive," Hitchcock said, "and it was amazing. These guys are absolutely relentless in their off-ice pursuit."

One of the most strong-willed players ever, Carbonneau stunned his teammates at the start of training camp last season, when Dallas strength and conditioning coach J.J. McQueen organized what he called the "Eco Challenge." He divided the roster up into several groups for a competition that included an obstacle course that began with a run of more than five miles. Carbonneau, then age 39, blew away the field, Surprenant recalled. "He carried his team, but that's the way he was."