Competitive fire evident long ago at Wisconsin

0 Comments | USA TODAY, May, 2007 | by Kevin Allen

DETROIT -- When Chris Chelios played two seasons of hockey at the University of Wisconsin, no one could have predicted he would still be playing at 45 -- but everyone understood it would be difficult to keep him off the ice.

"He wanted to play the whole game," former Wisconsin coach Jeff Sauer says. "He would take a shift, get off the ice, take a drink of water, and he would stand up and be ready to go again. He had great endurance."

Then 21, Chelios helped the Badgers win a national championship in 1982-83. He went on to the U.S. Olympic team -- he has played in four Olympiads -- and was playing for the Montreal Canadiens by 1983-84.

"He had confidence and still does," Sauer says. "He's the type of person who concerns himself only with the last...