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THN Archive: Trophy Hunting
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Trophy Hunting – Sept 1, 2015 - Ken Campbell
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OF THE 61 TIMES the Norris Trophy has been awarded, only once in NHL history has the margin of victory been closer than it was in 2011 and 2012, when Shea Weber finished second in voting to Nicklas Lidstrom and Erik Karlsson. And that was in 1996 when Chris Chelios narrowly beat out Ray Bourque for the trophy that Bourque had already won five times in his career. And that was Chelios' third Norris. Come to think of it, the Norris is one of those baubles that tends to clutter guys' trophy cases. Bobby Orr has eight of them and Doug Harvey and Lidstrom each have seven. In fact, almost two-thirds of the Norris Trophies that have been awarded – 39 of them to be exact – have been won by eight guys.
Shea Weber's name isn't on the Norris, though David Poile, Weber's GM with the Nashville Predators, has a novel idea. "If there was an aggregate of your performance in the past three to five years who was the best defenseman the past three to five years," Poile said, "he would probably win that." But, alas, there is not, and Weber is without a Norris after blowing out 30 candles on his birthday cake this summer. None to worry, though. Al MacInnis didn't win his first and only Norris until he was 35, and he's in the Hall of Fame. Harry Howell didn't win it until he was 34 and Pierre Pilote was 31. Heck, it took Lidstrom until he was 31 to win his first Norris, then he went out and won six more of them.
They do not award the Norris for the guy who shows up to camp in the best shape year after year. Nor do they give it to the best leader, the most selfless team guy or the guy who has a slapshot that instills fear into the hearts of both opponents – and even teammates, sometimes. So how is Weber to compete against the likes of Karlsson, who makes every offensive play a work of art, or P.K. Subban, who plays in Montreal and is just as dynamic off the ice as he is on it? "It sounds like I'm complaining, but it's our reality," Poile said. "We've been on national TV about four times in 15 years. Not this year. In 15 years."
All of this might matter if Weber actually cared about winning the Norris, which he doesn't. He really doesn't. And not in the same way a guy who's in the last year of his deal doesn't care about his contract, which he does. Those who know Weber best insist that individual accolades are the furthest thing from his mind, that he is so concerned about the collective that he even finds talking about himself a little painful. "Nah, that's fine," Weber said about the lack of personal recognition in the form of the Norris. "The big silver trophy that weighs about 32 or 33 pounds would be nice to have."
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Weber has come so close to the Norris Trophy he could taste it, but it's pretty obvious he's been a career wallflower when it comes to dancing with the chance to win the Stanley Cup. We know he hasn't lifted it because he's not aware that it actually weighs 34.5 pounds. We also know he hasn't lifted it because in 10 years in the league, he's won one fewer playoff round (two) than guys like Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook have won Stanley Cups (three). The Predators just can't seem to get it right, but not for a lack of trying. And certainly not because they don't have a defensive backbone. Led by Weber, Nashville had at various times a murderers' row of blueline talent, present company included. The Predators have one of the best goaltenders in the world in Pekka Rinne and a blueline corps that is the envy of, oh, about 90 percent of the league. They have an all-world, Stanley Cup-winning coach now in Peter Laviolette…and they still lost in the first round of the playoffs, in no small part because they lost Weber in Game 2 to a dislocated kneecap that required off-season surgery.
It's impossible to quantify what Weber's loss meant, but when you take a guy who can play 25 minutes of a regulation game, contribute offense and shut down the opponent's top players, it's bound to have a negative effect on your lineup. You get the sense that Nashville will put it together someday. We don't know when. You also get the sense Weber will receive his due. But again, we're still waiting. "What he would really want is to win the Stanley Cup…and in that year win the Norris," Poile said. "In that order."
Perhaps then people will talk about Weber. That's what it's going to have to take because he's not going to do it himself. He'll engage and play along, but if you really want to get him to start talking, you have a better chance getting him to open up about his football fantasy team than anything else. He'll talk incessantly about that. But when it comes to heaping anything amounting to attention on himself, good luck. "I taught team-first, and it was pretty well pounded into their heads," James Weber said of his sons Shea and Brandon. "We didn't pay too much attention to the number of goals he scored or whatever."
James and his wife, Tracy, raised their family in the picturesque town of Sicamous, in the British Columbia interior. It claims to have more than 600 miles of shoreline, seriously, and is billed as the Houseboat Capital of Canada. It looks like a postcard, and it produces two things – lumber and hockey players. Despite having a population of just over 3,000 it is home to NHLers and former NHLers Weber, Cody Franson, Colin Fraser and Kris Beech. Two other players – Andrew Kozek and Adrian Veideman – played U.S. college hockey and had careers in Europe. James was a planer at the Louisiana Pacific Mill for 28 years before losing his job and now works with Franson's father, Cal, at the Sicamous and District Recreation Centre driving the Zamboni. Until her death from a brain tumor in 2010, Tracy operated a hairdressing salon. James claims his son got his unassuming demeanor from him, but his quiet relentlessness and persistence from his mother.
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It was in Sicamous that Weber's humble roots were planted. Under the watchful eye of his coach and father, Weber's game developed and his team-first attitude germinated on teams where everyone who showed up would make the squad because there were so few kids around. The only truly elite hockey Weber played as a youngster was when his parents would make a weekly trek to Vancouver for a couple months every year for him to play spring hockey on a team with Andrew Ladd. "There was a big difference, a lot of the times, in the skill level between the best players and the worst players on the team," James recalled of his son's Sicamous days. "So you had to be able to not get upset about how bad some of the guys you were playing with were if they can't take a pass or whatever. That probably goes into it a little bit, too."
Weber's a huge Toronto Blue Jays fan, but what really floats his boat is being a fantasy football GM. Last year he was in two leagues, one with other Predators and one with his buddies in Kelowna, B.C. "I won the one league and I missed the playoffs in the other," Weber said. "I've got the same GM for both teams, and I can't fire him."
Probably a good thing, since the euphoria of finishing first among his professional peers in Nashville nicely offsets the humiliation of losing to his real-world buddies. Wouldn't want that ego to get out of control, would we? "I had a later pick (in the Nashville league)," he said, "so I think that's what paid off because I picked back to back in the snake draft. In the other pool I had the second overall pick and I took (LeSean) McCoy and he had good rushing yards, but he didn't get the touchdowns everyone expected. I didn't have a quarterback. I took (Nick) Foles and Foles wasn't very good and everything just kind of came down on me.
THN Archive: The Joy of Bridge
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"(The Nashville league) is a keeper league so I had three keepers and I kept (Matt) Forte, (Rob) Gronkowski and Demaryius Thomas, which is a great start. I want to say I took (C.J.) Spiller, which didn't work out, but I took (Jeremy) Maclin, who really worked out for me, so I had two solid receivers. I traded for Russell Wilson, so that put me over the top. I had Foles in both leagues and when Foles got hurt, I had to make a trade."
Did you get all that? Because that's about as much talking about Weber as you're going to get from him. In the quarterfinal game at the Sochi Olympics in 2014, Canada narrowly defeated Latvia in a game in which it dominated. The Latvians displayed an uncanny (or crazy) penchant for getting in front of Weber's slapshots from the blueline, which is not always a good career or life decision. When it was suggested to Weber that perhaps those Latvian guys didn't have the NHL Center Ice Package, Weber looked at his inquisitor with a completely straight face and said he didn't know whether they watched NHL games. "It's tough because I really don't like talking about myself," Weber said. "It's not something I like doing. I'd rather talk about the success of our group, and that's why I play the game. I love the team aspect, the camaraderie. And that's why I love coming to work every day."
Poile likes to tell the story about how the Predators discovered Weber. First of all, if you're looking for defensemen, Kelowna is a good place to start. In addition to Weber, the Rockets have produced Duncan Keith, Tyler Myers, Luke Schenn, Josh Gorges, Tyson Barrie, Alexander Edler, Scott Hannan and Kyle Cumiskey over the years. As the story goes, the Predators had taken a kid by the name of Tomas Slovak in the second round of 2001 draft. They would go to Kelowna to monitor his progress and the more they went to watch Slovak, the more they couldn't keep their eyes off a tall, skinny kid named Shea Weber. The Predators took him in the second round, 49th overall, in the legendary 2003 draft, which is turning out to be one of the best in history. Weber would undoubtedly be a top-five pick if NHL teams were granted a doover. To be sure, with a cap hit of $7.9 million and a salary of $14 million next season, he is that draft's top wage earner.
THE SILVER TROPHY THAT WEIGHS ABOUT 32 OR 33 POUNDS WOULD BE NICE – SHEA WEBER
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But you don't get offer sheets like the one the Philadelphia Flyers presented him in 2012 without being worth the money. Weber shows up to training camp in the best shape of any player on the roster year after year and while his words are few, each one carries an inordinate amount of weight. Although some will claim Roman Josi actually had a better year than Weber in 2014-15, those close to the team say that emergence comes from the comfort level of playing with Weber. "What you see is what you get," Poile said of Weber. "He was a shy 18-year-old when we drafted him. He's not as shy anymore. He's a terrific person and a really good leader. It's all inhouse with him. He sets it so much by example. How he conducts himself, his professionalism, how he leads his life…the players would give you all A-pluses there, as I would."
That may, or may not, be enough to win Shea Weber a Stanley Cup or a Norris Trophy, in that order. Weber has another whopping 11 years remaining on his pre-lockout front-loaded deal, so he has a lot of time left. If it doesn't happen, though, it won't be for a lack of talent…or humility for that matter
