Cup experience keeps Lukowich motivated

Lightning defenseman wants to spend another day with the Stanley Cup.

By TOM JONES, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published April 12, 2003

TAMPA -- It's triple overtime in the Stanley Cup playoffs. Players are tired, bruised and battered. Legs feel like rubber. Dizziness from dehydration and four hours of skating sets in. Every ounce of energy from a player's tank, and his reserve tank, and his emergency tank, is gone. Yet the game drags on, searching for a winner.

These are the times when players have to dig deep to find something -- anything -- that can push them just one more shift, just another 20 seconds. In such moments, Lightning defenseman Brad Lukowich will think back to that summer day in 1999, when he went back home to Cranbrook, British Columbia with his date -- the Stanley Cup.

As a member of the 1998-99 champion Dallas Stars, Lukowich got his day with the Cup and it turned into something of a town fair, with Lukowich's house serving as Main Street. Four hundred people showed up, some of whom Lukowich had not seen in years.

"It was the most awesome day ever," Lukowich said. "The best thing was seeing my dad (Bernie) with the Cup. I think I was more happy for him than I was for myself. You know, it's something like that that gives you the extra firepower, the little extra when you feel you can't go anymore. When you're playing for someone else, you always seem to come up with a little extra."

Lukowich is playing for someone else these days -- his Lightning teammates. But he also is playing for himself.

Though he played in 18 playoff games in Dallas, he did not play in 40 regular-season games or appear in the final. That means he did not meet the criteria to have his name engraved on the Cup. That's something he wants to change.

"It's another motivational thing," Lukowich said. "When you're at the bottom of the barrel in motivation and you're dying out there and you think 'Can I do any more?' something like that pops in your head, and you suck it up."

He already has gritted his teeth to play. He returned for Game 1 on Thursday, 17 days after his right orbital bone was broken. His return could not have come at a better time.

After struggling the first half of the season, Lukowich turned up his game the past two months to become a valuable member of the defense, Lightning coach John Tortorella said. Now, it's his leadership and experience in the playoffs that the Lightning needs.

He knows what it's like to be on a team that loses the first game of a series, like Tampa Bay did Thursday. In fact, the Stars lost the first game of the Western Conference finals in 1999 and the first game of the Cup final, yet rallied to win.

"You've got to win four, not just one," Lukowich said. "You just can't go off after one game. It would be nice to just play 16 games and walk away with the Cup. You'd feel a lot better, but that's not going to happen."

Lukowich's plan is for the Lightning to turn the series around and, maybe, take the Stanley Cup back to Cranbrook for another day.

"I'll never forget the day I brought the Cup back," Lukowich said. "We just about destroyed my house."

Lukowich smiled and said, "I'd love to do that again."