Words by Tyler Bleszinski
Martin Brodeur: The Greatest You Never Knew
Martin Brodeur, the goalie of the New Jersey Devils, tied Terry Sawchuk’s all-time shutout record tonight with a shutout in Buffalo and much of the sports world will not hear much about it. In large part it’s because the National Hockey League no longer has a deal with ESPN, but it’s also because Brodeur plays in a market that has always played second fiddle to New York.
Brodeur is setting records like Jordan and Gretzky did in their days, yet he’s nowhere in the national consciousness. He should be a household name but he remains largely an anonymous figure except in Canadian households where he led that team to a gold medal and might just do the same in Vancouver in 2010.
In the interest of full disclosure, I’m a huge Devils fan. I’ve followed them for more than 20 years now. And ultimately I don’t care whether or not your average ESPN viewer knows Brodeur. These are largely the same people who think Barry Melrose is a good NHL commentator and Joe Morgan is the class of MLB color commentating. So what do they know? And yet you have to think that as an athlete, you have to hunger for that recognition, especially when you’re closing in on what many thought was a completely untouchable record. Do you think that Cal Ripken tying Lou Gehrig’s all-time consecutive games played record should’ve been met with crickets and silence?
Brodeur is the greatest of athletes. He’s been the one that has changed the game with a hybrid goaltending style that borrows from Jacques Plante, Ron Hextall and Glenn Hall. He stands up when you expect that he should go down. He poke checks like Billy Smith one time and does the two pad stack the next time. He’s always been humble and he’s taken far less than market value to play in the same place for an entire career. He’s been durable beyond any of his peers for a longer time than most, starting an insane number of games each year.
Yet much of the sports world doesn’t know Brodeur or realize what an incredible feat he’s about to accomplish. He’s what sports should be about. Loyalty, durability, greatness and, yes, winning. Did I mention that he’s won three Cups, a gold medal and a World Cup?
So when Brodeur finally breaks Sawchuk’s record, there are a lot of reasons as to why it will go by with a whimper, I’m just not convinced that any of them are good ones.
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