All Eyes on Marian Hossa, Win or Lose

PITTSBURGH -- Marian Hossa must know how he'll be perceived. The cameras will zoom in close, searching his face for elation or tears. Outsiders might mock or pity him, possibly both. Hockey insiders will again debate the repercussions of his professional and personal choices. Was he a fool to bolt the Penguins, leaving all those millions on the table? Does he regret signing with Detroit, a team he thought had the best chance of winning it all?

No matter how Hossa's controversial, admirable journey ends Friday night in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals, he deserves a tap of the stick for following his heart rather than the dollar. In Hossa's perfect world, he'll live out every rink rat's childhood fantasy and score the goal that gives the Red Wings their second consecutive Stanley Cup, allowing Detroit to party in front of a home crowd that's grown accustoming to feting Lord Stanley. Hossa's decision to swap Penguin black for Detroit red will be justified, perhaps even lauded as a fine example of the satisfaction that follows when rejoicing collectively trumps profiting individually.

In Hossa's recurring nightmare, he'll be forced to relive those final, excruciating seconds from the decisive game of 2008, when his frantic attempt to force overtime and stave off a Detroit celebration in Pittsburgh's Igloo died on the goal line. What a cruel déjà vu it will be if Hossa's dream is again snatched from him, this time by the team he spurned. What a compelling human drama it will be if Hossa is again forced to skate off home ice as the visitors tote the Cup around the boards.

Hossa must know how his narrative arc hangs over both teams. He refuses to address it in full, because that would be akin to slicing a vein and watching the blood flow. Besides, there are a few more pertinent issues at hand, such as how his scoring touch picked a curious time to disappear. Snipers aren't meant to suffer such droughts, to go seven straight games without a goal. Leaders aren't meant to freeze up during June, especially against the team they know so well.

Hossa managed only one shot Tuesday night in Pittsburgh, and if he isn't pressing, if he isn't listing because of nerves or struggling under the weight of his situation coming full-circle, then what, exactly, is the problem? Hossa leaned against a chalkboard in the visitor's dressing room following the Penguins' giddy 2-1 Game 6 win over Detroit and skillfully navigated around the questions.

"Definitely, when you haven't scored for several games, you try to do maybe too much instead of relax more. And maybe I should do it more, forget about everything and play," said the winger who scored 40 goals during the regular season but could barely sniff the net over 18 minutes of ice time Tuesday.

Someone wanted to know if, in his wildest moments, he ever envisioned the Finals coming down to one game, winner-takes-the-Cup, between the team he rejected and the team he selected. "Who would, right?" Hossa said, smiling wearily. "Would you?"

Only if you can't resist sport's ability to tantalize us with passion plays and moral dilemmas.



Not long after his 2008 season expired at the skilled sticks of the Red Wings, Hossa rebuffed long-term offers approaching $80 million from Pittsburgh and other clubs to sign with Detroit. His reason for taking a one-year, $7.5 million deal with the Red Wings was simple: Detroit, with its four titles in 11 years, presented the best chance of winning a Stanley Cup. What a chump, right? The loser should be mocked and vilified for setting such an awful, team-first precedent. As a sign with Hossa's mug on it outside Mellon Arena noted, "Karma is a B*tch."

Huh? Sure, Hossa willingly skated into this tangled web, and sure, Penguin fans might take some joy from Hossa's inability to find the net, but he is hardly a villain. No matter how many times he's prodded, Hossa refuses to knock his former team or the fans who now treat him like he slashed Mario Lemieux' tires. Boos in Slovak mean 'Go Marian, go,' he joked of the Mellon Arena serenade that follows him on most every shift.

"You can only control what you can control, so why bother worrying about what some people might say?" Hossa said Monday. "You're never going to make everybody happy, so you have to be happy with the decision that you made. Coming here has been a great learning experience for me."

Hossa was one of Detroit's hardest hitters in Game 5 at Joe Louis Arena, physical and all over the puck as the Red Wings routed Pittsburgh, 5-0. He retreated like a turtle into its shell one game later, on a rink so familiar, in front of a crowd not exactly imploring him to go. Hossa's fade is Detroit's biggest concern, but coach Mike Babcock is treating it as if it's a momentary lapse.

"I don't think it's pressing. I think in their building he hasn't been as good. I think he's way better at home than he's been in their building, for whatever reason," Babcock said.

Babcock skillfully flipped the concern over Hossa on its side, bringing the focus back to the magic of Game 7s. Everything could hinge on one bounce, one quirky ricochet, one bad call or non-call. Out of 14 Game 7s in the history of the Finals, the home team is 12-2. Out of six games in these Finals, the home team has won every game.

Joe Louis Arena hasn't been kind to the Penguins, but they did thump Washington in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals, on the road. This Pittsburgh team is more talented and determined than the one Hossa bid adieu. It has superstars Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, born-again goalie Marc-Andre Fleury and, as Rod Scuderi clumsily noted, plenty of extra pieces that complete the broader picture. The team Hossa left proved in desperate, inspiring shifts Tuesday that it, too, has a drive that goes far beyond individual glory.

Sometimes sports stories really do write themselves.

"What an opportunity for him," Babcock said of Hossa. "This is why he came here. Here's an opportunity. You have Game 7. You've got a chance, and that's when you ask the question about fear. I don't understand that thinking at all. To me this is all about [how] you spend your whole life when you're a kid, at least in Canada, when you don't even have a net, you've got little snow piles on the street. You're dreaming of scoring the game-winning goal of Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final. You've been doing that your whole life. Now you've got it. Play and have some fun."

Hossa was the final player to touch the live puck in 2008, firing a last-second shot for the Penguins in Game 6. It would have been a miracle goal, the kind of goal kids from the Alleghenies to the small village of Stara Lubovna see when their heads meet pillow, but the puck danced across the line as time expired on the season. Hossa melted to the ice, ducking so the cameras couldn't catch the pain on his face, then left the rink quickly, refusing to peek at Detroit's mad celebration.

Hossa couldn't have predicted this quirky turn of fate, of course. But here it is, Game 7 and all its spine-tingling glory, sport's ultimate delight. He either embraces it, or succumbs to it.