What's the Story Behind This Incident?

[SDavis35 140]

Anyways, the whole CuJo thing is the only black eye on the Wings org. in the past 20 year IMO. He was brought in with high hopes, and he never played GREAT, but he did play well enough to win. People blamed the 4 game sweep to Anaheim on him, as well as the 2nd round loss to the Flamers in '05. I always felt he didn't get a fair shot with Hasek coming back and stirring things up.

*Loss to the Flames was 04; Lockout was 05

Cujo was my favourite goalie, especially at the time and I've never been a big fan of Hasek either, but he won games. Joseph deserved a better shot for sure, just too much controversy out there. After he left the Wings, he was never anywhere near as good.

[VM1138 1,921]

Thanks for the heads up about that book and it's frivolous reporting... now I know not to waste my hard earned money to buy this garbage of a book. Ted Kulfan is a money grubbing ***** that will obvioulsy make up horrible lies to sell a book. Hope nobody else wastes their money on it.

I think some of you are getting way too upset about this. The book is solid all around. I've read many books and there's nothing else in this book that's controversial or questionable or twisted to dramatize anything more than any sports book does. And this incident is merely a throwaway mention, a brief sentence or two in a section about the whole goalie situation. I think I gave you guys the impression this was an entire section devoted to this incident. It just caught my eye, hardly anything to attack the author on for trying to sell books. I'm pretty sure no one else has really noticed it.

There is nothing frivolous about the book, it's just a good collection of vignettes from all the Wings history. I would seriously recommend it for a fun trip down memory lane.

It could be a mistake or misunderstanding, or he could be right on. Maybe Hasek told them to shoot at his head at the norm, but one practice they were pissed off and took some liberties with it and Hasek or someone else overly sensitive complained to the media or even to Kulfan when he was writing his book. The Wings are generally on top of keeping a lid on drama in the organization, so that only rumors slip out, and with the drama surrounding that season, who knows? I, too, remember several media reports about the team being unhappy about Hasek's return.

Edited October 23, 2009 by VM1138

[P. Marlowe 748]

Most be horrible for players and fans to have a team that has three goalies capable of being a number one.

[Stiffy 0]

The "other" story that played out that year that seems to be omitted from this book is the part about Hasek walking into Ken Hollands office and returning the rest of the six million dollar contract he had just signed with the Red Wings. It was an unprecedented move and the first time in pro-sports history that an athlete volunteered to return guaranteed money. Ken Holland later said it was a very classy move and a lot of the reason the Red Wings decided to give it another go with Dom in 2006.

As far as who was in the wrong that year, no one really. I am sure Cujo and Dom were both frustrated with the situation. The Red Wings took a gamble bringing Dom in with Cujo under contract and it didn't pay off they weren't able to move his top heavy contract after his mediocore performance the previous year. I think both Dom and Cujo and Manny for that matter are stand up guys for different reasons, but Dom and Cujo espically handled the situation as best as could be expected.

Hats off to both of them!

Good point about the money - that was huge. He had every contractual right to keep it. Not many people would do that.

That was a horrible time. It was just awful. It is hard to feel sorry for millionaire goalies, but that must have been an absurd situation for both Cujo and Dom.