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Lightning

Deserved goodbye cut cruelly short

The end of Dave Andreychuk's Lightning tenure doesn't feel right.

By GARY SHELTON
Published January 11, 2006

TAMPA - There should have been banners. There should have been bells.

On the day the captain left the ship, there should have been videos dancing on the scoreboard, a greatest hits compilation of the greatest leader in franchise history. The crowd should have made a little noise on its way to saying goodbye.

There should have been tributes. There should have been tears.

Old teammates should have been there, telling all the old stories, reliving all the old scars. Someone should have presented him with a golden hockey stick. Then the team should have retired his jersey, attached cables to it and hauled it toward the ceiling to hang alongside the Stanley Cup banner.

There should have been applause. There should have been appreciation.

Then someone should have brought out the Stanley Cup from behind a curtain, all over again, and Dave Andreychuk should have lifted it toward the heavens, repeating that image burned into your memory bank. Andreychuk should have turned and skated around the ice, one more time, as his emotions washed across him.

There should have been gratitude. There should have been goodbyes.

Instead, there was a bare room and the single voice of general manager Jay Feaster trying to explain why a franchise tapped Andreychuk on the shoulder and told him it was quitting time. Feaster kept talking about a game that moves too fast, and a calendar that has moved too far, and nothing sounded right, because at a time such as this, nothing does.

To sum it up, the Lightning has decided it is better off without Captain Andy, the player most responsible for making it better off than any of us ever imagined.

This stinks. You can argue the right of it or the wrong, or the head against the heart, or tomorrow against yesterday. You can debate why vs. why now, or merit vs. memories, or what the team loses vs. what it gains.

Eventually, you get to the same conclusion. When a player is home cleaning his garage and his team is practicing on one side of town and his general manager is delivering his eulogy on the other, it's a lousy final chapter.

The Lightning placed Andreychuk on waivers Wednesday, a jolting development for a franchise that seems in particular need of leadership. Heck, most of us don't know what the Stanley Cup looks like without Andreychuk's reflection in it.

Good move? It's hard to say that, because it isn't as if Andreychuk was slowing down everyone else's charge toward the playoffs. The players waiting to divide up his ice time aren't exactly stars about to bloom.

Bad move? It's hard to say that, too. If the Lightning had the conviction that Andreychuk could not keep up with the new NHL, it had to make a change. If anything, you can argue the Lightning's error was giving Andreychuk a two-year contract in the offseason.

Difficult move? No doubt about that.

It's sad when a team decides a veteran is holding back the development of other players. It's hard when a team decides it is time to hear other voices that have remained silent out of deference to the captain.

For years, Andreychuk was an example of professionalism for this team. Now, he is an example again; in sports, your place on a team is defined by what you can do, not by what you have done. For the rest of the Lightning, this is a statement it is time to move on from the confetti of a Stanley Cup.

What now? Andreychuk could be picked up by another team, but he probably won't. He will probably be assigned to the minor-league affiliate in Springfield, but he won't report. He is simply gone. Scratched forever.

As wrong as it felt, and Feaster agrees with that description, it was bound to end this way for Andreychuk. His final moments were always going to be spent with someone peeling his fingers off of his stick, trying to convince him that it wasn't rust that was limiting his play, that his time was up. Andreychuk was always going to be the last guy to notice the Grim Reaper in the corner, reading Andreychuk's statistics and checking his watch.

For the rest of us, of course, this would have been easier if Andreychuk had said his goodbyes back in June of '04 in the afterglow of a championship. Andreychuk had finally lifted his trophy, and his team, and it felt like the final scene of a movie. We were prepared to watch him skate into the distance as the credits rolled.

That was not Andreychuk's way. More than a player, more than a leader, he was a hockey player.

In the end, you can say this about him: He squeezed every bit of juice out of his body that was there. He played in every game that ability allowed, scored every goal, laughed at every joke by a teammate. Sports is filled with players who cut short their memories; Andreychuk lived every one.

Remember that about Andreychuk. Remember how tough he was in front of the net. Remember how demanding he was in the locker room. Remember how he stood up in the difficult times, talking as other players retreated from the microphones.

Without Andreychuk, we will never know if Vinny Lecavalier would have matured the way he has. Without Andreychuk, we will never know what Brad Richards would have grown into. He changed careers. He changed a franchise.

Eventually, of course, the Lightning will find the proper ways to say farewell. Eventually, there will be a celebration and memories.

For now, there is goodbye.

Great player.

Great leader.

Great memory.

[Last modified January 11, 2006, 00:42:11]