'Coaching' takes place of playing

4/27/99

By Guy Carbonneau
for The Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Well, that's hockey. You go from hero one day to just another fan the next. OK, maybe I'm not just another fan, but it kind of feels that way sitting on the couch. It's like I'm trying to coach the team and get them to do the things I want them to do, but they can't hear me.

As you probably know by now, I hurt my knee in Game 2 of our first-round playoff series with Edmonton. It was a freak injury, really. I just sort of twisted it when I got caught up along the boards in a scrum at the end of the game. Anytime something like this happens, you live it over and over in your mind. I was in on an empty net 30 seconds earlier and passed the puck. If only I would have shot and scored on the empty net, I keep thinking, I wouldn't have even been on the ice at the end of the game. If only I would have shot, I wouldn't have been hurt.

But, in retrospect, Mike Modano was open, and I had a player between me and the net. It was the right play; the puck just didn't do what it was supposed to do. It hit some snow on the ice and jumped over Mike's stick. I know it was the right play.

That's what you're left with when you're injured. You think over and over everything that could have or should have happened. You think over and over about every play on the ice and how you could have changed it. I've called four guys a day at the hotel and told them what I saw in Game 3 and what I thought they could have done. It's kind of like being a coach, but not really.

I think the feeling is I really want to help the team in any way I can. I want to be a part of the game. I want to be a part of the team.

But injuries have a strange way of taking you away from everything. I could have gone on the trip, but I'm wearing a knee brace, and I didn't want to be in the way. I didn't want to do anything to take away from the players. So I stayed home.

It was hard, but it's something I have to get used to. I'm not really sure how the knee will respond. I'm not 22 anymore. I just have a feeling I'll be out for a while, maybe the entire second round. I don't know right now; I'm just taking it day to day, as they say.

The doctors said there was no need for arthroscopic surgery, so that's a good sign. But it's still the type of thing where you want it to be better tomorrow and you know it won't be.

At my age (39), you may never get another chance like this in your life. We really feel this team is a place where we can do something special, something memorable, and we all want that.

That's what's keeping me going right now. I want to be back on the ice to live through that. Games like 1 and 2 were great to be a part of. Games like Game 3 were hard to watch.

As a player, the difference between being in and out of those games draws a pretty clear picture of just how important this game is to us.

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