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Monday, March 1, 1999
Little big man
His NHL birth certificate listed him at 150 lbs.
"Yeah," cracked coach Terry Crisp, "150 pounds with rocks in his pockets."
Most people thought the Flames had rocks in their heads when they made the call, summoning pipsqueak Theoren Fleury from the minors. Even the little guy himself was taken aback when Salt Lake coach Paul Baxter extended his hand following a 5-4 Golden Eagles' win over Denver (in which Fleury had scored twice and added three assists).
"Be on the plane tomorrow by 11," Baxter commanded.
Fleury seemed puzzled. "Uh, OK, the plane for where."
"Calgary," was the reply.
He played two nights later, at home to his old buddy Joe Sakic and the Quebec Nordiques, and never looked back.
"It seemed," Fleury recalled not so very long ago, "that everyone on the team was against me back then. Here I was, this little kid, encroaching on their territory. It took a while for me to fit in. I was taking someone's place in the lineup, someone who'd been there a while, and there was resentment. I could definitely feel it. But I didn't care. I was in the NHL, where I'd dreamed my whole life of being.
"All you can do in a situation like that is go out, play, and hope that what you do on the ice wins everyone else over."
In time, he not only won over his teammates, but the entire hockey world. He proved to be far more than just a curiosity piece; a carnival freak-show exhibit; a pet rock. He went from little schmuck to big star, to Canada Cupper, to Olympian.
"How," Wayne Gretzky once wondered aloud, "can a team like Calgary draft a player as good as Fleury in the seventh round?!"
In the early days, he was fuelled by the doubters, the skeptics. He played to prove them wrong, to stick it where the sun didn't shine. The 'little-guy syndrome' drove him relentlessly on. In the old days, he'd say just about anything. To shock. To please. To entertain. To get something off his chest.
Once, disgusted by what he perceived to be preferential treatment toward Gretzky by officials, Fleury hit back, saying: "Gary (Bettman) comes over and cuts Wayne's lawn when he's in town; looks after the kids if Gretz and Janet want to go out to a movie." That little dig got him a personal phone call from the commish.
Another time, after L.A. had ousted Calgary in the playoffs, he was asked which team would win the next round, the Kings or Oilers. "Oh, Edmonton," he replied sarcastically. "The Kings are too busy going over to Jack Nicholson's house for barbecues."
Initially, friends and foes figured his mouth was bigger than his talent. But he proved just the opposite to be the case.
"I've always had to accept that I was small," he said in the fall of '88. "There was no changing it. I had to dig down deep, real deep, and say 'screw the world! There isn't anybody or anything that's going to keep me from reaching my goal.'
"I've never doubted myself. Sure I'm a cocky little b------. That's what got me here."
True enough, but skill kept him here.
In time, of course, Fleury mellowed, became wealthier and more mainstream; the same way hungry, idealistic young Democratic go-getters gradually, almost imperceptibly, become successful and mutate into rich old Republicans. At the beginning of his NHL career, he still thought he was in Moose Jaw, a player-PR man trying to fill the Agridome in Regina.
Eventually, someone read the riot act and he wised up, switched on the mental tape recorder and spewed cliches. But Fleury was infinitely more fun when he'd chosen to adopt the guise of the snot-nosed street urchin, the overwhelming underdog with his nose pressed up against the glass of the NHL toy shop, the outsider, wondering what it would be like to be inside, playing with all the hoighty-toighty kids.
He was easier to embrace, saying things like "As a kid, I never had anything. Now, geez, it seems I have everything. I remember growing up collecting hockey cards, reading hockey magazines. Now I'm in them" than prattling on about "fair market value" and what other players are earning.
In 1992, after starring in the Canada Cup, Fleury was earning $290,000 and wondered aloud how much more he could want.
"I'm lucky," he said at the time. "I remember where I came from and what it was like for me growing up. We didn't have a lot of money, so I think -- I hope -- I'm able to keep a lot of things in perspective.
"Some people are losing perspective. Money -- that's all anybody talks about. You've got to ask yourself: Did I have a great year? Did the team have a great year? If you can't answer yes to those two questions, maybe you don't deserve the money. I've got a nice house and three cars. What else do I need? Two houses and nine cars? And if I think I do, where does it all stop?"
Where it all stops is Denver. Fleury has now left, telling us all how much he'll miss us and our town. Those old quotes sound shallow, hypocritical at the moment, but probably he did believe them six years ago. You'd prefer to think so. Because they seem, after all, closer to the real Theo, to his roots, than the millionaire star he became.
"On the surface, when we drafted him, you're saying to yourself, 'Why the hell waste a pick on this guy?!' " Al MacNeil admitted a decade ago. "Then you see him play and your head does a 360 on a swivel. He's like Henri Richard. They only brought him into Montreal for a cup of coffee to please his big brother and he stayed 16 years. You couldn't get the damn puck off him.
"All Fleury's life people have been telling him to get into another line of work, shoot pool or maybe bag groceries. None of the other hotshot little guys give me the jump this kid does. He's special."
Quite a prophetic statement. He was indeed special, different from every other star that passed through this town.
Fleury images are among our cameo keepsakes of the past decade: Being tenderly led back to the bench by a concerned Wayne Gretzky, after Ken Baumgartner had beaten him into a bloody pulp; stealing the puck from Messier in overtime of Game 6 in 1991 to score and then the wild, impromptu celebration, jitter-bugging all over the ice on his knees at Northlands Coliseum; his relinquishing of the captaincy; the night he was selected to the '98 Olympic team, tearfully hugging wife Veronica, sons Josh and Beaux; that trademark gap-toothed grin.
My own favourite Fleury moment occurred following Game 4 of the San Jose playoff series four years ago, in the Silicon Valley. The Flames had won and Fleury -- the most reviled person in San Jose then, and since -- was just exiting after taking his turn as the game's first star. The jeering in the Shark Tank was deep and hollow and reverberating, and he was showered with beer cups and debris as he headed off the ice down the tunnel towards us.
Tromping underneath the awning which leads to the dressing room, he stopped abruptly, grinned at the media mischieviously, spun around and marched back into the teeth of the abuse. Coming out in plain sight of the mob, he sneered upwards, waved his stick contemptuously at them and shouted:
"I stuck this so far up your --- that you'll never get it out!"
Intensified jeers. Additional refuse.
He absolutely loved it. That one act of defiance summed Theoren Fleury up. Irreverent. Irresistible. Indomitable.
We loved him because he was small, because he was talented, because he spit contemptuously in the face of the status quo and bucked the odds. We loved him because he could score, make plays and talk trash.
We loved him because in the big games, he was the big man. Most guys, they're content to play the tank towns, milking the easy applause. Fleury always wanted his name up in lights at Carnegie Hall.
In the end, far removed from the 150-lb. dynamo that arrived here on New Year's Day, 1989, he was seduced by a bigger stage.
In the end, the little guy just got too big; too successful; too sought-after for us to hold onto him.
In the end, as the NHL dream becomes more and more expensive and the Flames must fight to survive, not thrive, it's all too clear:
A guy 5-ft. 6-in. outgrew us.