NEWEST MEMBER OF NHL'S 1,000-GAME CLUB
Milan Lucic served notice with `The Shift' that he was ready to leap to the big time
In Memorial Cup lore, it's known simply as `The Shift.'
And among the hundreds of thousands of Youtube views of this smash sequence, the man who played the jaw-rattling lead role is admittedly responsible for at least a few of them.
Before he ascended to the highest level, and long before he skated Tuesday into the NHL'S silver-stick club, Milan Lucic left a mark as a wrecking-ball winger for the Vancouver Giants of the Western Hockey League.
During a board-shaking, crowd-quaking spin in the early stages of the 2007 Memorial Cup final, the hometown hombre hammered three opponents and then dropped his mitts for a heavyweight bout.
A couple of hours after `The Shift,' Lucic was both a tournament champion and tournament MVP.
“I'll still go and watch it on Youtube sometimes if I ever need to get pumped up before a game or whatnot,” Lucic said. “You know, I think that was a defining moment for me to be able to make the jump into the next level. And it was just funny how it all happened. It's not like I was going out there trying to kill everyone, but I was just in the right position a bunch of times to hit a bunch of guys, big hits, and then I ended up fighting. Obviously, when it's in a championship game like that, it gets magnified.
“I think that's a defining moment for me in my hockey life, and I'm glad it happened the way that it did.”
Now a third-line left-winger and locker-room favourite with the Calgary Flames, the 32-yearold Lucic hit a major milestone in Tuesday's matchup with the Toronto Maple Leafs, suiting up for his 1,000th game on the biggest stage in the sport. In NHL history, there are only 354 other gents who have ever reached quadruple digits in regular-season appearances.
His wife Brittany designed customized jackets — complete with the logo of each of the four teams her hubby has played for — to mark the occasion, and Lucic shared a heartwarming photo of his three kids, two in those bedazzled bombers. The Flames also created special fashion statements, with the players and coaches wearing 1000CH hats and shirts while prepping for Tuesday's clash at Scotiabank Arena. (Those are available to purchase through the team store.)
“One thousand games in the NHL … That is quite a milestone when there were a lot of doubters that didn't believe he could play in the Western Hockey League,” said Don Hay, the legendary junior coach who guided the Giants to a Memorial Cup crown in 2007. “He just kept proving people wrong and I think he continues to do that, every game he plays. I think it's a great strength of his character.”
Indeed, a thousand games is a remarkable feat, especially for a guy who plays such a hard-nosed style.
Since sticking with the Boston Bruins in 2007-08, announcing his arrival with a Gordie Howe Hattrick in his fourth career contest, Lucic has racked up nearly 2,900 hits. Across the NHL, only a hattrick of fellow thumpers have been credited with more collisions over that span.
Remember, too, there are 124 playoff outings on his resume. He had his name engraved on the Stanley Cup with the Bruins in 2011, this time silencing the crowd in his home city.
In the lead-up to Tuesday's milestone logging, Lucic repeatedly credited his longtime trainer Ian Gallagher for his role in his durability. He's talked often, too, about the importance of embracing the daily grind.
“One of the things you try not to lose perspective of is how lucky we are and how fortunate we are to live our dreams and play in the NHL,” said Lucic, who arrived in Toronto with a career count of 213 goals, 537 points and 1,161 penalty minutes. “You don't want to lose that little kid inside of you that was playing road hockey in the back alley.”
Even as that little kid turned into a broad-shouldered teen, the scouts weren't immediately convinced of his power-forward potential.
After Lucic was overlooked in the annual bantam draft, it was Scott Bonner who first figured this intimidating forward from East Vancouver might have a future in the WHL.
This is a find that Bonner, the longtime general manger for the Giants and now in the player agent biz, chalks up to plain ol' good luck.
Lucic, at 16, started the season with the Junior-b Delta Ice Hawks. Bonner just happened to catch a game, his interest piqued when “Milan pounded some poor guy.”
Coveting his toughness, the Giants soon added Lucic to their protected list. That same trait caught the attention of the British Columbia Hockey League's Coquitlam Express, who called him up from Junior-b and wound up keeping him on the roster.
“I remember one time, he got the puck around our blue-line and had some room, skated with the puck, went around one player in the neutral zone and then proceeded to make this remarkable move that beat the defenceman and he finished it off with a shot to the top, far-side corner of the net,” recalled Rick Lanz, a former NHLER who was the coach that winter in Coquitlam. “I mean, it was incredible to watch. And I think the most surprised guy in the rink was him. He skated back to the bench and he says, `Did I just do that?'
“I think in his own mind, as much as it was a surprise that it happened, it was a confirmation that, `Yeah, I can do this.' And I'm just talking about that part of the game, because his initial calling card was his physicality, but he'd surprise you like that.
“And the character part would be a huge component in the makeup of Milan Lucic,” Lanz continued. “He found a way to improve his game at every level he went to after he left us. You know, the next season, he is with the Giants and he made an impact there immediately, the same way that he did with us. And then obviously, you have his ascent into the National Hockey League, and it was the same situation again. Every time he moved up, he was able to dial his game in to meet those requirements, and that's character. He wasn't going to be outworked. He wasn't going to be somebody who was playing in the background. He knew what he had, and he was willing to put it on the line every night.”
That part hasn't changed. Lucic would spend two seasons with the Giants, winning a WHL title as a rookie and getting a second crack at the Memorial Cup as tournament hosts in 2007.
He and his teammates had just lost a seven-game slugfest to the Medicine Hat Tigers in the league final, with double-overtime required to decide that last showdown. They met again in the national championship game.
Less than four minutes after the anthem, Lucic stepped on the ice for `The Shift.' He delivered an open-ice hit as the Tigers attempted a breakout in their own end.
He soon crunched another opponent into the boards in the neutral zone. After the biggest of three wallops, he accepted a request to dance. The game was still scoreless, but the Giants had all the momentum on their side. After a 3-1 triumph, Lucic was named tournament MVP.
“The city was humming that week, and it's his hometown so a kid, he would have watched Gino Odjick and all those guys play in the same rink,” Bonner said. “There were probably 16,000 people there, and he basically just put us on his back to start the game and got the whole crowd humming. As you can imagine, it's May in Vancouver, good weather, everyone is drinking lots of beer and then he goes out there and takes charge physically. He changed the game. And we sort of needed that, because the two teams were so close.
“For him, he became a legend in the city in that moment. You know, there are sporting moments for every championship team. If anybody thinks back in 2035 and they're talking about the Vancouver Giants winning the Memorial Cup at the Pacific Coliseum, `The Shift' is always going to be one of the things that is a defining moment.”
Added Hay, now an assistant coach for the Portland Winterhawks: “In probably the biggest stage the Vancouver Giants had ever been on, he was our leader.”
That turned out to be his final junior twirl. In just three years, he'd climbed from the Junior B Ice Hawks to the Original Six Bruins.
“Once he got confidence … I haven't seen it since — a player, from 16 to 19, just taking off like that,” Bonner said.
“There goes Looch, right? That was always the comment,” added Lanz, who earned an NHL paycheque for 11 seasons. “Coming into Boston, I thought that was just a great spot for him. I saw a lot of Cam Neely in him. Because I played with Cam in Vancouver and obviously he left to go to Boston, and Cam's game just took off in that atmosphere there. You know, the black and yellow/gold, it kind of brings out this type of game that you're going to engage in. And Looch was just completely suited for that.”
Lucic put on a lot of hard miles as a go-to guy for those Bruins. While he's no longer a top-of-the-lineup sort, he's proved to a valuable piece for the Flames as an emotional tone-setter, a secondary scorer and a respected veteran voice. He's still likely the last dude that a rival defenceman wants to see over his shoulder on the forecheck, especially if he's watched `The Shift' on Youtube as part of his pump-up.
“I think he stayed the same player throughout his junior and his National Hockey League career,” Hay praised. “He's played a big man's game. He hasn't changed the way he plays.”
On Tuesday, taking stock of his road to 1,000 regular-season appearances, he certainly was. Throughout the day, Lucic was retweeting words of congratulations from current and former teammates.
“When you look at how many players have played in this league and how many players have gotten to that mark, it's pretty cool to be able to say you reached this milestone,” he said.
You don't want to lose that little kid inside of you that was playing road hockey in the back alley.