Hockey's Flopper Stopper

By Joel Stein

The Buffalo Sabres' Dominik Hasek, the best goalie in the NHL, doesn't play right. He flops down on the ice as if his skates had just become untied, exposing 90% of the net to shooters. He sprawls, scampers, leaps, wanders away and bats the puck with his stick. He is, unarguably, a big spaz.

He is also, unarguably, not only the best goalie but the best player in hockey. Says New Jersey Devils goalie Martin Brodeur: "He was so awkward; I had never seen that from another goalie before. I couldn't believe it at first. I thought, 'That's lucky. He's a lucky goalie.'" That was five years ago, Brodeur points out. "I don't care how lucky you are, you have to do something good."

Last year Hasek, 34, did real good, leading the tiny Czech Republic to a gold medal over the All-Star-studded American, Canadian and Russian teams. He has won the Hart Trophy--hockey's MVP award, which is usually reserved for scoring studs--two years running. He's a finalist again this year. Opposing teams scored an average of 1.87 goals per game against him in the regular season, vs. the league average of 2.63. He's known as the "Dominator," which he demonstrated in shutting down the younger, faster and just plain better Ottawa Senators to win the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, 4-0. After beating him, 4-2, in the opener of the second round, which continues this week, Boston Bruin players emphasized that Hasek is human. Keep saying that, guys.

Hasek is unusual in real life too. He has both the sketchy temperament and the Czech wackiness that has caused several teammates to refer to him as Kramer, but he can also be eerily emotionless. Fellow Czech and NHL superstar Jaromir Jagr wears sweater No. 68 in memory of the year the Russians occupied his country. Hasek says beating the Russians in the Olympic finals was no big deal. "The older people in Czech could feel this way, but I did not feel like I was playing against a country that occupied us for many, many years. These last eight years I spent here in U.S., I played with many Russians; Alexei Zhitnik, he's my teammate, he's Russian, so I don't feel any bad things. For me it was just a big game for the gold medal." This from a man with a degree in history who taught Czech history for a year.

Hasek is also stubborn. In 1989, playing for Czech's army team, he refused to skate during a key game against his hometown's team. In Buffalo he's already legend enough that the Marine Midland Arena, where the Sabres skate, is flanked by two gargoyle goalies splayed apart in a way that only the double-jointed Hasek can manage. Still, he was booed at the beginning of last year because he schemed to dump the team's popular coach. Last May he sat in his Jeep making calls as 1,500 fans--many of them children let out of school early--gathered a block away for a Sabres pep rally. Yet Hasek has been generous to Buffalo charities, and he took a lower salary than he could have earned in the free-agent market to stay with a middling team.

Although not well known in the U.S. outside of hockey, he's a hero at home in the Czech Republic, where he sells his own Dominator line of sports clothing. Hasek is mentioned for President. And this isn't a country with Bill Clinton at the helm; they have Vaclav Havel.

Hasek will be even bigger if the Sabres win the Stanley Cup, one trophy that has eluded him. In the playoffs, a hot goalie can carry a not-so-hot team, but it will be difficult for him to lift the Sabres, who finished the regular season with a 37-28-17 record. "I'm not a big believer that one guy can win a championship," says Wayne Gretzky, who would know, "but there's no question in my mind that he single-handedly won the gold medal for one country." Broadcaster John Davidson, a former All-Star goalie, says Hasek's style isn't as spastic as it looks. "I think he flops with something in mind. Every one of them is a calculated move." Sure, if you believe bass calculate that dance they do to persuade you to toss them back in.

So while everyone looks to find the next Gretzky, the closest they are coming in this defense-plagued era of NHL hockey is Hasek. In fact, Gretzky's six-year-old son, who wants to be a goalie, imitates Hasek on the ice, flopping to his stomach and poking the puck away with his stick. But Hasek doesn't want his own son to play goal. "It's too much pressure," he says. "It's more fun to score the goals."