Joe Sakic: Osjecam Se Vrlo Hrvatski
bmarja...@iprimus.ca
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Barry Moronovich
Ili je to pisac clanka sam iskonstruirao.
Uzgred, zna li tko je li Joe rodijak nasemu Dinku?
bmarja...@iprimus.ca wrote in message news:<asas6s$fe6$1...@news.netmar.com>...
Barry Marjanovich
The Denver Post
'Sac-kich' by any other name
By Woody Paige
Denver Post Sports Columnist
Thursday, April 19, 2001 - WHITE ROCK, British Columbia - As a rare
afternoon sun idles over Semiahmoo Bay nigh to this
prim-and-proper-and-prosaic border hamlet - "for newlyweds and
nearly-deads" - a tugboat seems to be signaling Marijan Sakic with a toot of
its horn. "It is time," Marijan says, "to go watch Joey play." Slavica Sakic
agrees with, but corrects, her husband: "Yes, we go see Joseph play."
Joey, Joseph, SuperJoe - by any version of Joe, the best hockey name in the
world this year - is playing tonight.
At 15, Joe Sakic's only goal was to reach the National Hockey League. At the
same age, Marijan Sakic's only goal was to reach the border of Croatia.
Both made it - and then some.
Marijan and Slavica saw Joe and the Avalanche close out the Canucks on
Wednesday night in Vancouver. Joe had a goal and an assist.
Son of a stonemason, Marijan Sakic was born during World War II in Studenci,
Croatia - near the Adriatic Sea.
Sakic's mother died, and his father tried to care for six sons and two
daughters. When he was a boy Marijan learned his father's craft - "we worked
from 8 o'clock in the morning to 10 at night every day lifting and moving
stones" - Marijan didn't understand political oppression or economic
depression, but he did know he wanted freedom. "There was no hope there."
He borrowed money from a cousin and left in the night - without telling his
father - to escape into Austria. "I just went around the guards and jumped
across the border. I was not scared. I didn't believe they would kill a
boy."
The adventurous teenager decided to emigrate to North America and find a new
life, as so many others had before him. He chose Canada over the United
States because "they wanted new people." Marijan traveled in steerage by
ship to Quebec City, then took a four-day train trip across the country to
settle in Vancouver "because I was told it was warm here."
Marijan reminisces on the deck of the Sakic's large, well-appointed home
overlooking the bay in White Rock, about an hour south of Vancouver and a
couple of miles north of the United States. He didn't always sit so relaxed.
Marijan arrived in Vancouver with no money or understanding of English. He
worked as a fireman, a laborer, a bus driver and a longshoreman before
finally securing a job at which he was accomplished - carpentry in building
construction. "I was a stonemaker like my father."
His mates watched this strange and foreign game on the TV on Wednesday
nights. Hockey. "I only know football (soccer), but I look because there was
one Croatian player in the NHL, and I follow him," although Marijan didn't
grasp the game.
He was welcomed into Vancouver's sizable Croatian community and in 1967, at
a dance, met a young Croatian-Canadian, Slavica, who had been brought to his
country five years earlier by her father. They dated for six months, then
married. They had a daughter (Rosemarie), then a son (Joseph) and another
boy (Brian).
Joe Sakic is referred to here as "Burnaby Joe" because, the media claims, he
was born in the Vancouver suburb in 1969 and began playing hockey there. But
Marijan says those reports are false. "He was born in a Vancouver hospital,
and this is where we lived when he was a boy." Years after the Sakics did
move to Burnaby so the three children could be close to a recreation hockey
rink.
One winter day in 1973, Marijan was sent home from a construction site
because it was too cold to pour cement. "The lakes were frozen, and the kids
could see other kids skating on them on TV. They asked me if I would take
them. We rented skates and a (hockey) stick for Joey (who was 41/2). In no
time he was out there playing with the older boys. He didn't want to play
with boys his own age. He was pretty good right away, except he fall down
all the time. That is when he started to skate and play hockey."
Rosemarie wanted to take figure skating lessons, so Slavica borrowed $300
from her father and joined the North Shore Club. It didn't cost any more, so
Joe and younger brother Brian were dragged along to be taught skating. When
Joe was 6, a coach at the club asked Marijan if the youngster was interested
in joining the hockey team, "but Joey needed another year of training to
power skate."
A year later Joey Sakic was the No. 1 player on the youth team.
Some say that Marijan shoved young Joey into hockey and pushed him to become
a top player, but both father and son deny that Marijan was a stage father
or a taskmaster. "My dad taught us that talking meant nothing, that working
hard is the only way you'll get where you want to go."
Marijan doesn't accept "laziness. I work hard. My kids work hard. I just
want them to have it better than I did and enjoy themselves."
Marijan Sakic, the carpenter, built a miniature hockey rink - 5 by 50 - out
of plywood in the backyard and installed two nets. There Joe and Brian
practiced thousands of shots and played hundreds of imaginary games.
Still, though, Rosemarie was the most proficient skater of the Sakics. In
1984 she was selected the Canadian girls junior figure skating champion. Now
she is a nationally recognized figure skating teacher.
Joey was a player. "He could score as many goals as he wanted to in a game,"
Marijan said. "But he liked to pass more and make his teammates score. He
always was a team player. Then, though, if his team got behind two or three
goals, he would score three or four goals easy."
Marijan realized early his son was special on the ice, but "Joey kept saying
he was going to play in the National Hockey League, and I didn't know. He
could get hurt or lose interest. But I knew he was serious. Most boys, like
Brian, come home and throw their dirty, wet skates in the closet. Joe would
clean his skates, dry them out, sharpen the blades and put them up. He
always respect the game and study the game."
Sakic would come to idolize a national hero, Wayne Gretzky.
Oddly enough, when a photographer asked Marijan and Slavica to pose for a
picture at their house two days ago, Slavica tried to beg off. "Nobody ever
took a picture of Wayne Gretzky's mother," she said before finally
relenting.
Slavica had much to do with the development and attitude of Joseph. "Joseph
was his grandfather's name, and it is a proud name. He is Joseph to me."
When Joe fought in a game as a youngster, Slavica called him aside
afterward. "I told him he should never start a fight. Never. But he should
always protect himself. He still is that way."
She also used to console Joe. "When the hockey season would end and
everybody else would put away the sticks to play something else, Joseph
would cry. He wanted to keep playing all summer. I would tell him winter
would be back soon." As it usually is in Canada.
Joe Sakic scored 83 goals and had 73 assists for the Burnaby midget team in
1985. He was only a year older than his dad's age when Marijan sneaked
across the border.
Two years later he was playing juniors in Swift Current and attending
Comprehensive High School. There the shy young man who'd never gone out on a
date met a sophomore named Debbie. She is now Mrs. Sakic. "I told Joey to
stay away from the girls, that they could mess him up. Whenever he saw me at
a game, he told Debbie to stay away. He was afraid I would get upset,"
Marijan said.
Debbie Sakic - who, with son Mitchell and twin babies - is staying with the
elder Sakics this week - remembers the situation differently. "Don't believe
everything Marijan says. Joe was afraid his dad might frighten me off."
Sakic was drafted in the first round - and 15th overall - by the Quebec
Nordiques in 1987 and was invited to the team's training camp. Sakic was
impressive enough that the Nordiques were going to keep him on the roster,
but he chose to return for another season with the Swift Current Broncos.
Sakic said at the time he needed another year to hone his game and wanted to
finish high school. Dad says Sakic wanted to play with his brother Brian,
who also was with the Broncos. (Brian later was drafted by Washington and
had an undistinguished minor-league career before retiring a year ago after
suffering a serious knee injury.) It could be believed that Joe wanted to go
back to Swift Current because of a girl, who eventually would become his
wife. And, despite Marijan's fears, Joe didn't become messed up by a girl.
En route to a game in Regina on Dec. 30, 1987, the bus carrying the Swift
Current players slid off the highway, crashed and turned over. Four players
died. Miraculously, Joe and the others were not seriously hurt.
Joe Sakic joined the Quebec Nordiques the following season and was an
immediate impact player. Since then, he has become one of hockey's greatest
players - and was named the most valuable player in the playoffs when the
former Nordiques won the Stanley Cup in their first season in Denver in
1995-96. The memory of Sakic hoisting the Cup on the front steps of city
hall after a parade in the Avalanche's honor downtown remains one of the two
most vivid - the other is John Elway holding high the Vince Lombardi Trophy
after the Denver Broncos won their first Super Bowl - in Denver sports
history.
"That was so great," Marijan said. "Joey has been a champion on every level
he played. He always is a team player first. I felt very good for him. All
his hard work and preparation, and he was the best."
But Marijan never has told Joe Sakic he played a perfect game. "You keep
going for perfection," says Marijan, who watches every Avalanche game on
satellite TV and then gives his son an evaluation the next day. "There was a
game in Quebec when I thought he played perfect. I don't know how many goals
or assists he had, but the puck wasn't taken away from him, and he did
everything correct. I want to tell him it is perfect, but I don't. I want
him to keep trying to do better."
In this playoff series with Vancouver, Joe Sakic has been virtually perfect.
He had five points (three goals, two assists) in the first three games - all
Avalanche victories. And he slammed the posts with the puck three times. "He
tries to be perfect, just inside the post, and that's why he hit the posts,"
says his father, who has become a pure Canadian hockey expert over the
years.
Most aren't aware that Joe Sakic is the greatest Croatian-Canadian hockey
player ever produced.
"Somebody once wrote in Toronto he was Hungarian," Marijan says with
disdain.
Until he entered kindergarten in Vancouver, Joe couldn't speak English. He
barely understands the Croatian his father and mother still use half the
time. "When I curse, he understands," Marijan says.
The younger Sakic sometimes is called "Quoteless Joe" in Denver because he
doesn't say much - particularly about his own performances - and never
utters an ugly word about, or advantageous to, the opposition.
"I was taught you don't talk about yourself," Joe says. "It sounds too much
like bragging."
No brag, just fact. Sakic had a truly remarkable season. "He will improve
more," his father says. But where will he play? Sakic will become an
unrestricted free agent in July. The Vancouver Canucks would like to bring
him home. Several other teams will make a run at the No Ordinary Joe, soon
to win the Hart Trophy - and maybe another Stanley Cup. Sakic isn't
talking - what's new? - about the future. His father, despite living here,
would like to see him play the rest of his career in Colorado. "I hope they
have the money for him. They should sign him and (free agent Rob) Blake."
Marijan is amazed by the money in hockey. "It is so much." Joe's financial
aid allowed Marijan and Slavica, who was an assembly line worker, to retire
in luxury. Marijan spends his mornings down at the coffee shop with 10
friends, discussing, of course, hockey and "everything else in the world."
He tinkers in the yard in the afternoons and watches hockey at night. He and
Slavica had a slight disagreement on this day over whether to order pizza or
Chinese food.
They are a bright, fun-loving, simple, smiling couple. "Nothing has changed
about us," Slavica said. "And nothing has changed about Joseph. He is a good
son and a good man and a good hockey player." In that order.
Oh, and the family name is not pronounced "Sakic," but "Sac-kich."
It is time to watch Joe, Joey, Joseph Sac-kich play.
http://www.angelfire.com/co/burnabyjoe/index.html
http://www.8ung.at/sakic/
http://www.coloradoavalanche.com/team/19.html
http://www.altosport.com/s/joe-sakic/
http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/players/7/7/
http://www.nhlpa.com/Content/THE_PLAYERS/player_bio1.asp?ID=4934
http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/players/profile?statsId=0007
http://old.sportsline.com/u/hockey/nhl/players/19143.htm
http://www.joyofhockey.com/Col1JoeSakic.html
http://espn.go.com/nhl/profiles/stats/career/0007.html
http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/8821/sakic.html
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/hockey/nhl/players/7/
http://www.interlog.com/~ditko37/sakic.html
http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Track/9085/
http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/players/7/7/
http://www3.sympatico.ca/luccharlebois/main.htm
http://images.cnnsi.com/hockey/nhl/players/7/index.html