As told to: Stephen Smith
Dominik Hasek was the goalie in the ’98 Olympics when the Czechs won. He got a shutout in the final and gave up nothing in the semi-final. It had been almost a week and 200-and-some minutes since he’d given up a goal. He’d flown from the Olympics to Buffalo and to Toronto. I think (our game) was a 2-2 tie, and I had the first goal. It was the first goal I’d scored on Dominik Hasek. I remember Mats Sundin passed it from behind the net while I was getting cross-checked and I just kind of bunted it and it went in. It went up in the net — I don’t know how I got it up — as I was falling. And that was the first goal he’d given up in three-and-a-half games or something.He said: I remember you got two against L.A. — he remembered everything. It was incredible.
A few years later, I got traded from Phoenix to Vancouver in 2000. Brian Burke sent me to the minors — he said, I want you to go down and play in Winnipeg. So I’m in Winnipeg, we play in Chicago, then we go into Hamilton - we’re going to play Hamilton - and I’m walking from the hotel to Copps Coliseum. Underground, there’s a little mall. I stop to get a haircut. I sit down in the chair, there’s this young Italian guy, he says, “You’re Todd Warriner.” I say, “Yeah, thanks,” because that doesn’t happen everywhere. And he’s like, “I remember you got the first goal in the Air Canada Centre.” And then he starts to go, he’s got a photographic memory. He’s talking about that first game: “I remember Stumpy (Steve Thomas) had a chance, just before you won in overtime.” I was like, “Who’s this guy?” Some hockey savant. He reminded me of 20 goals I’d forgotten about. It was exactly the thing I needed the morning of a game, to rehash all these great moments. He kept going through them: “I remember you got two against L.A. …” He remembered everything. It was incredible.
