Brendan Shanahan Q and A

Playing in all 34 Red Wing games this season, Brendan has tallied 19 goals and 17 assists for 36 points, second on the Red Wings and tied for 16th in overall National Hockey League scoring. He has three game?winning goals and is tied for second in the league with ten power play goals and has scored at least one point in 25 of the Red Wings 34 games. Earlier this month, Brendan passed Mike Bossy on the all?time goals scored list and is currently 15th with a total of 577 with Jari Kurri next at 601. Detroit hosts the Columbus Blue Jackets tomorrow night at the Joe Louis, and travel to Chicago Friday where they will meet the Blackhawks in their last game before the Christmas break.

Q. I have two questions for you. Some players had a little bit of a slow start coming back off the lockout, and some, like yourself, did not. My first question is: How do you attribute your strong play post?lockout?
BRENDAN SHANAHAN: Well, I can't speak for the other players, but I just know that, , I spent most of the lockout, or actually all of the lockout, working out and being ready for when we do come back.
I think that going into the lockout, being 35 years old, I knew that it was really a key and important to stay very active; and that a year away from the game ?? we were having a baby, so I knew I wasn't going to go to Europe. I knew a year away from the game, if I just basically sat around, would have been lethal. So I just stayed very, very active with my training and just always stayed ready.

Q. And my other question, out here in Vancouver, the support for the game coming back has been huge, but my listeners tell me for the most part th ey do not like the scheduling, the way it's set up. They want to see the Eastern teams more often. From a player's standpoint, what do you think about that?
BRENDAN SHANAHAN: I think that's something has to be evaluated at the end of the season. I know that my players, my teammates feel the same way. I think that our fans are also upset they are not going to see Toronto or Montreal or Ottawa or Boston or Buffalo this year.
We had Sydney Crosby in the other day for the first time, and I'd say that's pretty consistent throughout the league. Most fans know that the talent has been spread throughout the league. So to miss some teams, you're missing out on some ?? usually each team now has some showcase players, and so fans don't want to miss out on any teams.

Q. Your name has not popped up too often for the Canadian Olympic team and you're having an awfully good year, did they just forget about you with all of the young players? And the other question, you're on the competition committee and I just want to know what you see so far and what things probably still need some tweaking. A lot of players say that it should be a little harder to score a goal from the hash marks to the net and you should still have to battle to score a goal.
BRENDAN SHANAHAN: Yeah, it didn't take us too long to be upset now that there's too much goal?scoring. We're never happy. (Laughing).
Yeah, I agree that the battle ?? I agree with you; that we have to preserve the battles down low. And I think that it's been definitely something that Stephen Walkom addresses with the referees. Overall, I do think everyone, I think 99% of the players feel that the game has improved. It's turned in the right direction for the game itself and for the fans. But I'd say those same 99% would say it still needs tweaking, and I think that that comes from, we like the physical play down low, we like you know, that's not an invitation for holding and hooking, because that's not physical play. But I think as referees get more accustomed to it, and also as players get ?? I found like in the first week of the season, defensemen really didn't know what they could do or what they couldn't do, so they just didn't touch you. And now, I'm finding more are actually being very physical within the parameters of the new rules. Players will get better with it and referees will get better with it, but I agree with you.

Q. The second question is the Olympic team, they seem to have forgotten about you. All you hear about is Crosby and Staal and Spezza and Dats (Datsyuk); you're getting a lot of points, but have they forgotten about you?
BRENDAN SHANAHAN: I don't know. I don't know if they have forgotten about me or not.& ;nbs p; ; I'm really just focused on going out and playing well every night and just the same approach I've had throughout my career.
You know, the last two Olympics were great experiences for me, and I thought that it was a great experience winning in the last Olympics. But I also thought it was a valuable experience being in that situation in Nagano where we didn't have success and that was such a learning experience going into 2002, as well. I had great experiences there. Obviously if I got selected, I would be thrilled and honored to go. But Canada has such a wealth of players that if I didn't get picked, I would still be very supportive and cheer for the team.

Q. A lot much the veteran players have told me that the year off did them well physically; that their body healed. I'm wondering if that's the case for you, given that you probably played through a lot nicks and bruises over the years because you're a power forward. Did the year off help you out?
BRENDAN SHANAHAN: Yeah, I think physically it helped me out, definitely. I also think mentally it helped you out. Just starting at the age of 16 when you go out to your junior team, you're on the ice every day with the exception of a couple days at Christmas and things like that. I've been lucky enough to stay healthy throughout most of my career, but that's also meant a lot of games played.
And so, you know, I tried to take advantage of the training on the year off, but at the same time, no matter how much you train, it's not as taxing or as grueling on your body as an NHL season, so I think it did help.

Q. Going back to the Olympics, I've asked this of a couple of players, have you sat down on a plane ride or in a cab and sort of write down who you would take as the 13 forwards and where you think you fit in there, sort of put Wayne's hat on for a second?
BRENDAN SHANAHAN: I don't think it's a job that people, anybody, could just kind of do on the spot. So I think these guys ?? these guys have been thinking about this for years. And they are still, I'm sure, banging their heads with the decision to have to bring all of these players down into one team. So I haven't really done that. Again, like I just said, they have got so many players to choose from, it's definitely a lot of pressure on that job.

Q. Do you notice any backsliding on the part of officials calling things or have you noticed any period that it comes back up again, have you seen that in terms of stuff?
BRENDAN SHANAHAN: I wouldn't go so far as to say backsliding. I think that Stephen Walkom I've just been curious, how does this work, and I've been informed that Stephen Walkom critiques these guys on every game they play or every game they ref, on every call they make during those games, whether it's a call that they made or a call that they missed. I'm really confident in Steve that, you know, they recognize when there's been some phantom calls or some missed calls. I think that they definitely feel it's going in the right direction. It's not where we want it to be yet, but it's definitely going in the right direction.

Q. Do you ever get frustrated with what's happening out there and at the end of the night think: No, that's what it's got to be, even though I don't particularly like it when it gets called on me?
BRENDAN SHANAHAN: You never like getting a penalty called on you. I've yet to get a penalty this year where I've been pleased with it.
You know, the reason why, there's some difficult calls that have to be made and some difficult standards that have to be set. And players will test those standards. I certainly would. I mean, we're competitive; you always push the standard if you can. But there have been so many attempts in previous years to eliminate the obstruction, and the reason why it has not been successful is because it's very hard to do. And so I think after two or three months, we have to recognize that we've made the greatest improvement in all of these attempts, we've finally made the improvement. But some nights, it's really hard. You see things you don't like to see. All I can say is that if it was easy, we would have done it; we would have succeeded the first year we tried to do it. But we have to stick with it.

Q. A couple of questions on the rules again. In other sports, there have been changes, when you think of the DH in baseball many years ago or the three point shot in basketball, but the changes in hockey, and you've obviously been part of the whole process, are much more sweeping. Were there concerns among the players, and from yourself that, this would be very difficult to implement, and have you been surprised at all that, in fact, at least by my reading, things have evolved fairly smoothly?
BRENDAN SHANAH AN: ; Wel l, yeah, there was a lot of opposition, and some people felt, you know, that different ideas were not going to work; taking out the red line was actually going to slow the game down and not speed it up. There were comparisons to other leagues around the world or other leagues in North America where certain rules didn't work. And we just really felt that until we tried it in the NHL with the best players in the world, and they are in the NHL, and in the most competitive of circumstances, we wouldn't know. We kind of the reason why we put the rules together as a package and not individually to the board of governors was because we felt one rule kind of depended on another in order to be successful, and so it was kind of a difficult puzzle to piece together. So we are pretty pleased with the direction we're going, but I still think we're going to get better. And players will get better. I think the referees have been given a very difficult task. They basically were informed of this, what, maybe two months before the season started. And it's a difficult thing to referee any sport. I got kind of a kick out of watching football this weekend because I heard a lot of people, criticizing the referees in football saying how they ruin the game. So I thought, well, that's good it's not just our sport. So the referees, you know, will get better at it and the players will get better at it. Because as players are coming up through the system now, we are going to have players that are doing this, playing with these rules now from the time they were 16 years old, as opposed to what we had happen to us this year: You take a 36?year?old guy and you give him a whole set of new rules and say: We are dropping the puck in three weeks.

Q. In your role as a member of the competition committee has there been any unintended consequence or something that was unexpected that you've seen as a group and thought: Well, we didn't think that would happen and maybe we'd better tweak it again, anything that comes to mind there?
BRENDAN SHANAHAN: Well, just some of the things that occurred on the penalty shot, in the shootouts, the double?hit and the ability to review penalty shots quickly. That so far has popped up. But, you know, things will pop up. I don't think that we've kind of put in a whole bunch of rule changes and that's it, we're going to sit down now and not doing anything for the next 25 years. I think that when things pop up, like, for instance the goaltenders were getting hurt, maybe interfered with a little too much, I think it was addressed with the referees to just strictly ?? we don't have a new rule in there for the goaltenders, but we felt that the old rulebook contained very good protection for the goalies if the referees just really called it in a disciplined way, in a very strict way, because, you know, we definitely don't want our goalies be hurt. Marty Brodeur has been added to the competition committee, and he spoke very passionately about that in our last conference call.

Q. Before the competition committee was formed, you had made some comments, nicely phrased but fairly sharp, in the idea that NHL referees were mindful of scores and made their calls with the scorer of the game in mind. You said baseball umpires don't call a guy safe at first because his team is losing 5-1, but sometimes you see those kind of calls in hockey. Has that been eliminated?
BRENDAN SHANAHAN: It's been much improved. I think that ?? I do think that there are certain codes and certain times that we knew we could get away with things a little bit more: When you were killing a penalty; when it was the last minute of a game, and maybe your team was down by a goal there were things you could do, and that's been a big focus for the referees. I think it's improved quite a bit.

Q. The other thing I wanted to ask you, you mentioned earlier in this call that there's been some calls against you this year that you were not happy with. And there was one about a month ago, Detroit against Columbus, you were on a face?off to the left of the goalie, you were on the right wing, the puck was dropped, you moved towards the center of ice and you bumped into Jody Shelley, who was going out to block the point and you got called for interference. Now, it did not look like you had Jody Shelley in mind at all but that you two guys bumped, but he was going to a place and you bumped him. There's no benefit of the doubt this year, I think is one of the big differences, there's no mind?reading being asked of the referees; is that something that you're seeing?
BRENDAN SHANAHAN: Well, I do think we've given a huge task to these referees. So I don't want to say that the referee can no longer use his instincts in a game. We still need the referees to use their instincts and knowledge of the game and what's happening.
I remember the play you're talking about, and I didn't intend to interfere with him. I was actually trying to get open. My feeling, and although I wasn't happy with the call, was that's a small price to pay for a much?improved game. Again, I think that when you're in the offensive zone, I could have very easily, innocently, accidentally tried to bump into a guy who is trying to get out to cover his point. You do your best, and there are going to be bad calls sometimes. And you know what, there were bad calls three years ago, five years ago, ten years ago. When the games ended five years ago, we all got in a bus and complained about the referees. So it's kind of a thankless job and will always be a thankless job. You just hope that they do their best. And if there's the odd bad call, it's a small price to play for a game that by most accounts, according to the fans, is much better to watch.

Q. Do you feel that the new NHL rules are being adapted to very well by the Red Wing players, and do you foresee more changes to come in the NHL rules of the game?
BRENDAN SHANAHAN: I don't see a lot of new changes coming in the foreseeable future. Obviously there are not going to be any changes this year. And I don't know that there will be as sweeping ?? we had a great opportunity with the year away from hockey to make some sweeping changes. I don't know if we are going to ever experience that again. There will be subtle changes and tweaks, definitely.
And the Red Wings have adapted pretty well. Because I do think going into training camp, our coaches and our general manager approached me and said, you know, do you really think this is going to stick? We have tried to get rid of obstruction many times, many seasons. They call it tight for the first month and then it goes back to the way it was. I just tried to convince them of how serious the NHL and how committed they were to doing it this time, especially with Stephen Walkom leaving the ice and becoming the head of the officials. They knew right away to start coaching that style. I look also at coaches like Marc Crawford, and from day one of training camp I heard they were also very strictly calling those penalties in training camp. So I think it helped us get off to the start that we got off to; was that we realized this is here to stay.
DAVID KEON: Thanks very much, Brendan, for your time today.