‘Always good to come home’
By Mike Moore
DEARBORN – He shuffled from the locker room toward the cold winter air outside. A sub sandwich in one hand and a water bottle in the other, he was dressed in jeans and a simple coat. By every appearance, he was nothing more than your average person.
Soon, however, he was stopped, first by a young boy, armed with a hockey helmet, a silver pen and a simple request.
“Can I get an autograph?” the youthful voice hopefully cried out.
“Of course,” was the response.
Soon after, another autograph seeker approached, eyes wide, pen in hand. Then, another and another. Small talk was made with each as he scribbled his name on helmets, jerseys and sticks. Finally, as he graciously signed the last one, an older voice beckoned, “You’re a local boy aren’t you?”
“I sure am,” he said with a smile, “good to be home.”
Technically, home, or where he grew up for that matter, was a few miles to the east, but on this Saturday afternoon from the Dearborn Ice Skating Center, Doug Weight, a center with the Anaheim Ducks, was back in the area his hockey days and dreams began.
“It’s always good to come home,” Weight said following a Feb. 9 practice, one day before the Ducks played the Red Wings at Joe Louis Arena. “This area has always been very special to me.”
Weight, 37, who was born in Warren and grew up in Detroit, began playing hockey at age 2 and was on his first team by age 4. Under the direction of his dad and coach, Doug, he spent his childhood playing at rinks in Grosse Pointe, St. Clair Shores and Detroit among others.
As a youth, he was a Red Wings’ diehard, “even in their bad years,” he chuckled. “But I loved the Wings. You could show me any roster from those teams and I could tell you who each guy was and everything about the team.”
Yet he held no player in higher regard than Steve Yzerman. “He was the guy,” Weight said. “He was so great for hockey.”
But while Yzerman was breaking into the NHL in 1983, Weight’s hockey ambitions simply centered on having fun. While in high school at Harper Woods Notre Dame, Weight played for various travel leagues before signing on with a Junior A team out of Bloomfield Hills. It wasn’t until college that thoughts of playing in the NHL even entered his mind. But in two years at Lake Superior State he scored 50 goals and had 144 points.
“It was then I think I realized I could actually play at that level,” Weight recalled.
In 1990, the New York Rangers made Weight the 34th pick of the draft and in the 1991-92 season he played 53 games with the Rangers, scoring eight goals and 30 points. Now in his 16th season, Weight has played in New York, Edmonton, St. Louis, Carolina and Anaheim. He’s scored 264 goals, has 964 points, is a four-time All-Star, won a Silver medal with the United States in the 2002 Olympics and a Stanley Cup with Carolina in 2006.
Still, coming home to play at Detroit, in an arena he frequented as a child, gets to him every time. “I still get the goose bumps,” said Weight, who has a picture of himself and Yzerman the first time they played against one another. “Every time I’m in town I get 15 or 20 tickets for family and friends. The only bad part is it gets more expensive every year.”
Weight owns a house in Gaylord and visits often in the offseason. But a chance to see family and friends – his father lives in Gaylord, his mother, Mary, lives in Clinton Township and his sister, Sharon Carlisle, lives in Grosse Pointe Woods – during the season is always a time he looks forward to.
In the final season of a two-year, $7 million contract he signed with St. Louis prior to last season, would Weight ever return to Detroit for good, to play for a team he grew up loving?
“Earlier in my career I wanted to be a Red Wing one day,” he said with a smile. “But I’m older now and at a point in my career where I want to move my family (he and his wife Allison have three children) around as little as possible. We enjoy being in Anaheim.”
Although difficult, Weight admitted he’s learned how to hate the Red Wings over his career, “When they beat your team as many times as the Wings have, it’s easy to start hating,” he laughed.
But on this day, to the fans around him and in his own heart, no matter where his career takes him next, no matter what enemy colors he throws on, he’ll always be “a local boy.”
Story was originally published with C & G News February 20.
Send questions or comments to mjm12@albion.edu
