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Tuesday, February 12, 2002

By Dave Molinari, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

Defenseman Darius Kasparaitis is a pretty competitive guy, so his win-at-all-costs reputation isn't entirely undeserved.

It isn't entirely accurate, either, because there are some things Kasparaitis simply wouldn't do for the sake of a victory.

He wouldn't commit a crime. Not a felony, anyway.

He wouldn't deliberately injure a child. At least not unless the kid looked like he was in line for a good scoring chance.

And he never would think of punching a teammate.

Well, not very often.

But after an exasperating 5-1 loss to the Czech Republic in the 1992 world junior championships, Kasparaitis -- inspired by the knowledge that, "at the time, [the Czechs] didn't have a good team" -- did just that, driving his fist into the head of Russian goalie Ildar Muhametov.

"We lost the game and he kind of let in a couple of soft ones," Kasparaitis said. "I was so mad. I just hit him in the head with my glove. I just kind of punched him. Not hard."

Perhaps, but the punch landed with enough force -- and conviction -- to persuade the coaching staff to pull Muhametov in favor of his backup, a relative unknown named Nikolai Khabibulin, whose outstanding play the rest of the way earned his team a championship.

Kasparaitis, like his teammates, got a medal for his performance. Unfortunately for him, it didn't come with recipes.

It seems the coaching staff, seeking to avoid having Kasparaitis' precedent of pounding an underachieving teammate become a trend, fined him two days' worth of meal money.

"I was starving for two days," said Kasparaitis, who acknowledged that punching Muhametov was "bad behavior by me."

Perhaps, but at least his thirst for victory had been quenched. Just as it was a few months later when Kasparaitis was a member of the Unified Team that won a gold medal at the Albertville Olympics.

"It was an amazing feeling," Kasparaitis said. "I remember, I was on the ice with 10 seconds left in the game. I can't express what it was like. Hopefully, one day I'm going to feel like that one day again."

That day could arrive before the end of this month, because Kasparaitis will play for Russia at the Games in Salt Lake City, and his team is among the pretournament favorites.

Kasparaitis does not belong to the exclusive club of men who have won a Stanley Cup and Olympic gold, and neither do most of the other Penguins -- Mario Lemieux (Canada), Robert Lang and Jan Hrdina (Czech Republic) and Johan Hedberg (Sweden) -- who will compete in Utah.

The lone exception among the Penguins is right winger Alexei Kovalev, who earned gold in 1992 and a Stanley Cup ring with the New York Rangers in 1994.

He is the only one of the group truly qualified to assess how winning the Olympics compares to earning a Cup, although Lemieux's contention that they would be roughly equal seems to be a minority perspective. The NHL title tends to get the edge because the playoffs go on for a couple of months instead of a week and a half.

"The feeling you get in the [NHL] playoffs is huge," Hedberg said. "Everybody is fighting hard, and you're really growing together as a team.

"The Olympics is kind of the same, but ... you've seen these guys a lot of times before and you've played against them, then you get together a team and have a short time to get together. I still can't say it could beat the NHL playoffs."

Lang, who won a gold medal at the 1998 Games, offers a more diplomatic perspective -- "Anytime you win, it's special and unique" -- and Lemieux has an obvious soft spot for international hockey, even though he hasn't appeared in such a tournament in 14 1/2 years.

Nonetheless, he cites the 1987 Canada Cup tournament, in which he scored the winning goal, as "certainly something special," and speaks fondly of the 1985 world championships in Prague, even though Canada lost in the final.

Hedberg earned a gold medal at the 1998 world championships in Zurich but said he saw most tournaments like that as an audition for prospective employers in North America.

"For me, it's always been a showcase for getting here," he said. "Now, it's a little different story. Now, it's more pride, to know this is the Olympics. It's big. Up until now, it's just been to showcase myself, see if someone would give me a chance over here."

If Hedberg supplants Tommy Salo as Sweden's No. 1 goalie, he'll get to perform on the largest stage in the sporting world. And have an opportunity to experience a thrill precious few athletes ever will know.

"Every time you win, it's a great feeling," Lang said. "No matter where it is, or how it is. It stays in your memory forever."

Trivia question

What was the franchise fee in 1967, when the Penguins entered the NHL along with teams from Philadelphia, St. Louis, Minnesota, Oakland and Los Angeles? Answer at end.

1980 singularly special

General Manager Craig Patrick and Herb Brooks, the Penguins' Minnesota scout, were part of one of the biggest upsets in sports history 22 years ago, when the U.S. Olympic team -- with Brooks as head coach and Patrick as his assistant -- won a gold medal at Lake Placid.

Brooks and Patrick are going back to the Games in Salt Lake City -- Patrick as general manager of Team USA, Brooks as coach -- but there is no way they hope to match the magic of 1980. Even though the United States is far from a consensus choice to win the tournament, earning a gold with a roster of NHL talent can't compare to doing it with a team of collegians.

Nonetheless, Patrick contends that he and Brooks aren't thinking about how another championship would compare to their first.

"Our objective isn't to top what we did in 1980," he said. "Our objective is to win a gold medal."

In the air

Hockey has had its share of fearful flyers over the years -- Wayne Gretzky might have been the most celebrated -- and just about every team has at least a few guys whose knuckles are white from the moment they take their seat on a plane until sometime after touchdown.

Left winger Dan LaCouture is one of those who insists that flying doesn't really bother him that much, even though he finds being so far, well, up to be a little unsettling.

"I don't mind it," he said. "It's just that being 35,000 feet above [the ground] doesn't sit too well with anybody."

Trivia answer

The Penguins paid $2 million to enter the NHL as part of the league's expansion from six to 12 teams in 1967.