Chris Chelios: Tough Customer and a Joy for a Hockey Writer

Nobody was more dedicated to his sport than Cheli. Or a more candid and fun athlete for scribes.

Chris Chelios' number 7 was retired by the Blackhawks Sunday night. And my brain was flooded with memories.

When Mike Keenan acquired Chelios from the Canadiens for Denis Savard on June 29, 1990, I hopped on a plane to Montreal. My two all-time favorite hockey players I covered for the Chicago Sun-Times were being swapped—and both were going to their hometowns.

We were three Badgers standing around chatting in their kitchen—Cheli, his wife, Tracee, and me. Cheli was holding his infant son, Dean, who stuck his hand out and cold-cocked my notebook and tape recorder. The tape recorder went one way, the batteries and micro-tape went two other ways. Cheli and Tracee gasped. I just chuckled and put everything back together. Talk about a chip off the old block.

Cheli, as you know, was an outstanding player. From south suburban Evergreen Park, of all places. My wife’s hometown. He and Steve Smith were was as good it gets as a defensive pair. Cheli also was a terrific quote. Even when he didn’t want to talk.

One February night in 1992, the Hawks were in the Cow Palace, the barn where the San Jose Sharks played during their first season. The expansion team beat the team that would go to the Stanley Cup finals 5-2. Keenan was furious. When we climbed the rickety stairs to the tiny dressing room, Cheli didn’t wait for questions.

``I don’t want to talk about it,’’ he told me and Tim Sassone and Mike Kiley, the Daily Herald and Trib guys. ``Just make up the quotes, guys. You know what I would say. I won’t deny anything.’’

Earlier that day, at the morning skate, Cheli had been keeping things light. He had acquired an SFPD hat somewhere and was walking up to teammates hunched over stools as they took off their skates. ``Can I see your license and registration?’’ he said. ``Do you know how fast you were going?’’

Nobody loved playing more than Cheli. During a draining late-season stretch, Hawks coach Darryl Sutter ordered his top defenseman to skip practice and take a day off.

The next day, I asked Cheli what he did with his day off.

``I took my kids skating,’’ he said.

Nobody was more dedicated, loved hockey more. While doing a takeout on how Cheli went from a low-level junior team in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, to the Badgers, where he helped Bob Johnson win an NCAA title, Johnson smiled when he told me about his first phone call to Moose Jaw.

''So what are you doing up there when you're not playing hockey?'' Johnson asked. ''Are you going to school?’’

``No.’’

``Do you have a job?''

``No,’’ Cheli said, finally adding, ``I'm working on my stick.''

''Must be a hell of a stick,'' Johnson said.

Cheli chuckled when I reminded him of that story years later, in 2009, when he was 47 but still playing for the Red Wings. He would finish up the following year, the second oldest player (after Gordie Howe) to play in the NHL.

''Back then, I didn't have a family or kids,'' he said. ''All I did was eat, sleep and drink hockey.’'

As good a guy as he was off the ice, Chelios was a fierce competitor, and he had some long-running feuds, including one with Flyers forward Brian Propp. They’d had a big run-in during the playoffs when Cheli was still in Montreal, and it continued one night in Chicago, when Chelios received a penalty for using his stick on Propp, who was finishing his career with Hartford.

After the game, Propp said Chelios ``is a terrible person, the kind of guy that would stick your eye out and not care. He’s just a lousy person.’’

This, of course, infuriated Chelios. He’d received an automatic one-game suspension for the stick foul, so he was sitting with us on the catwalk of a press box in Winnipeg the next night.

``Hey, Herb, could you put something in the paper for me?’’

``Sure, Cheli,’’ I said. ``What have you got?’’

``Put in there that I said Brian Propp is a #@$%.’’

``I can’t really do that. Because it would get cut out. Or I would get fired.’’

``Well, then how about, Brian Propp is a blankety-blank *&^!@$?’’

``Sorry.’’

Cheli went through a few more unacceptable descriptions. I kept telling him they wouldn’t work.

``Never mind, then,’’ he said. ``Propp is a gutless jerk. I’ll meet him on West Madison Street any time. And tell him not to bring his shield.’’

Bingo.

Kudoes to Chicago’s Very Own. . . a great hockey player and terrific guy.