Gritty Laperriere Is Face of the Flyers
(from the Vancouver Sun)
By Cam Cole
Canwest News Service
May 29, 2010 - CHICAGO — There are plenty of reasons, in deconstructing this Stanley Cup final matchup, to discount a Philadelphia Flyers team that wouldn't have made the playoffs in the Western Conference.
But the most compelling reason to resist the urge is written all over Ian Laperriere's face.
The one-inch gap in his right eyebrow, for example, where the 70 stitches went after he took New Jersey defenceman Paul Martin's slapshot in the face five weeks ago, fracturing his orbital bone and confusing his brain. The nose, all pushed over to one side, where it sits flat against his cheek. The missing teeth, seven of them lost on another mis-timed shot block, earlier this season.
"I'm not that great at it," he says, grinning. "Twice in six months. But in my defence, it took me 15 years to take that first one."
You ask him when he's going to get the nose fixed, and he says, "What do you mean?" Looking wounded.
"Seriously. I'm tired of the nose jokes," he says. "Holy cow. My nose?"
"I meant your eyebrow," joshes the reporter.
He starts laughing, a 36-year-old warrior every team in hockey would love to have.
"Hey, you guys know. My modelling career is always going to be there for me. I'll get it fixed when I'm done," he says.
That eternally broken nose, that oft-renovated face, that contagious refusal to give less than everything he's got, is why the Flyers have a slugger's chance against a Chicago Blackhawks team that, on paper, really shouldn't be extended all that seriously en route to its first Cup in 49 years.
It's because there might be more of those uncompromising SOBs on the Flyers' roster — think captain Mike Richards, Kimmo Timonen, Blair Betts, Scott Hartnell, even Chris Pronger — than on Chicago's. We will see, but the high-flying Blackhawks haven't come up against anything as tough as Philly yet in these playoffs, and the Flyers haven't seen anything as fast and skilled as the Blackhawks, and in this final, you have to figure Philly will throw down the gauntlet.
Reminded, on the morning of Game 1, that the Flyers finished 18th overall in the National Hockey League's regular-season standings, Laperriere says: "Really? It's funny, because there's two teams left, and we're one of them.
"Hey, we're underdogs. We welcome that. They should be favoured, the way they played all year, the way they've played in the playoffs. Good for them . . . but who cares? There's two teams left, it's 50/50, let's go play the games and may the best team win."
It took so long for the 2009-10 Flyers to learn to get out of their own way — even after replacing coach John Stevens with Peter Laviolette in December — that statistically, they just don't match up with the Blackhawks, who were smooth and steady all season, with very few extended hiccups.
"It was a tough year, tough emotionally, I won't lie to you," says Laperriere. "We've been through everything from top to bottom.
"Sometimes you looked around and thought: 'Holy cow, we're a talented team and we're 12th (in the Eastern Conference).' But at the end of the year, we'd played brutal in New York, but we won that last game (in a shootout to make the playoffs) and it was more like a relief — all right, we're in, let's make the best of it.
"Mentally and as a team, I really think it made us stronger than if you're just right on top the whole year. And I really think it's a benefit for us now."
There is a lot of history in Philadelphia of rugged, wilful, physically intimidating lineups and this one fits right into the mould. As much as he can, Laperriere — who wears two knee braces, each adorned with the sticker "Lappdance" — has tried to convey to his younger teammates how rare an opportunity they have here, over the next two weeks or less.
"It's funny, because I'm in the meeting before Game 5, and (Laviolette) says, 'You guys have been working nine months for this,' and I saw him in the hallway after the meeting and I said like, 'Peter, nine months? I've been waiting 15 years for this," Laperriere says.
"Doesn't matter if you're 36 or 21, like JVR here," he said, with a nod to the kid in the next locker, winger James van Riemsdyk. "You've been watching this all your life, and wanting to be part of it. If you don't wish like that, you can never be in the NHL.
"I've been around. You got to care about the game. I'm 100 per cent sure that if you dream about making money, you'll never make it. If you dream about winning, about playing for the Stanley Cup, if you care about the game, the money will take care of itself."
Laperriere's motives, though, are not entirely without self-interest.
"My thinking is if I stopped (blocking shots) and get out of the way of pucks, I might as well retire because nobody is going to want me," he says. "The day I start thinking like that, I'm done because they'll take a younger guy that will do my job for half the price."
His teammates love him for it, but more than that, opponents recognize in him the kind of player they'd love to have on their side in a must-win game.
That's why — that and his age — several Montreal Canadiens paused just a little longer, said just a little more, when they shook Laperriere's hand after the Flyers' Game 5 elimination of the Habs.
"They know I'm getting older, and my time is running out," he says.
"You don't have too many chances to win a Cup."