Don Beaupre: in a 1981 Stanley Cup final elimination game, a 19-year-old rookie goaltender shines on home ice

I WAS A ROOKIE WITH THE Minnesota North Stars and it was late in Game 4 of the 1981 Stanley Cup final. We were beating the New York Islanders and as the final seconds began to wind down and we knew we had the game won, I looked up into the crowd at the Met Center, up to where my parents were fitting. It was a good feeling to have them there when we finally won a game--we had lost the first three of that series. It was a proud moment for my parents and me.

I was just a rookie that season, and really had spent several years living apart from them. You go away to play junior hockey and you don't get to see your family much. Then I got drafted by the North Stars and made the team right out of training camp. So here I was, just 19 at the time, living away from my family again. I'm not embarrassed to say I missed them. There were very few things you can share together when you're so far away, but they were there for that one and it was special.

That season was a real wild ride for me. I came in underage and I made the team. I was too naive to realize I shouldn't have been making the team that year, and then I ended up playing a lot and playing well. I made the All-Star and everything fell into place.

I roomed with Gilles Melloche. He was just great to me. He really was a great influence on me. Gary Edwards was his playing partner and best friend for a couple of years before that. I more or less took Gary's spot on the team. I roomed with Gilles and everything. He had no resentment. He did nothing but helped me. I made the team because I played well, but I stayed there and played well--and a lot of the credit goes to him.

I was living oat my childhood dreams. This is what I always dreamed of doing. As a kid, I got a chance to play a lot of hockey, thanks to my parents, Ken and Terri. I just loved to play and they made sure I got the chance. They were always driving me to practice at 6 a.m. and making sure I always had clean clothes to wear and something to eat and a little money in my pocket and stuff like that. They made a lot of sacrifices for me. And the dream didn't end when the regular season wrapped up.

We were a pretty good team. We didn't have the best regular season, not by far. I think we finished a handful of games over .500. We were by no means the favorites to go to the Stanley Cup final. The year before, when Neal Broten and Steve Christoff had joined the team late, coming straight from the Olympics, we had made some noise by eliminating the Montreal Canadiens, but no one was expecting us to do much. However, some of our best players, such as Bobby Smith and Dino Ciccerelli and Broten, just kicked it into another gear. We all looked up and all of a sudden we were in the Stanley Cup final.

The Islanders had won the Stanley Cup the year before and they were on their way to forming a dynasty. They just had great talent and great chemistry and great drive. When you think of the Islanders, you think of Bossy and Trottier and Gillies and Potvin. All those Hall of Famers. We lost the first three games right out of the gate. They were just a better team than us and they kept coming at us in waves. They created chances, played tight defense and got some great goaltending from Billy Smith when he was called on to make a big save Eventually these guys would win four consecutive Stanley Cups, so you know this was a fantastic team.

I never made it back to the final after that. I played 17 years and I didn't get a sniff after that. But I didn't really take it for granted that first time. I've told this story lots of times: We had a meeting, I don't remember exactly when, but sometime before we started the final We were all in the dressing room and the coaches were all saying stuff. Al MacAdam, who was kind of the wise, old veteran we had on the team, said. "This is probably my last chance at a Stanley Cup." And then he looked around and he said, "Hey, it could be everybody's last chance." So I didn't take it for granted mainly because of what he said

Down, 3-0, in a series, there's a natural tendency for teams to have negative thoughts. The road back into the series seems so long that sometimes teams will psychologically let down and not play quite as hard as they could. That's why, most of the time, those teams that are down 3-0 will go out without much of a fight.

But we somehow ended up winning Game 4--the game I'll never forget. Actually, I don't remember much about the game. I think we won, 4-1. Years later, in my last year of hockey, I was coached by Butch Goring in Utah. I asked him if they threw that game so they could go back to New York. He said, "No way. We wanted to win it."

I don't remember how I played that night. I don't know if I stood on my head or had an easy game or somewhere in between. I remember standing there at the end and getting on a plane to go back to Long Island the next day. And of course the biggest thing that I remember was looking up to where my parents were sitting late in the third period and feeling proud, feeling happy that I could share the moment with them. This was as much their moment as it was mine. I'll never forget it.