Keating's Corner: Ozzie the Shirtless

What you might not know is that the goalie was also a sniper. For as long as he played, in an otherwise quiet dressing room, Chris Osgood would take his verbal shots on teammates or unsuspecting media members and give you a What the heck just happened? look that was priceless and innocent. And only after an appropriate period of time would he fully enjoy the prank pulled, the shot inflicted, the delight taken. Post-practice, it became standard procedure. If you were to interview Ozzie, you had to get past the What do you want to ask me? Who cares about that? Didnt we just do that? line of defense. And hed wander away and come back -- shirtless. Almost. Every. Time. The joke being that, as physiques go, hes not exactly pirate ship material -- the sunken chest -- but hes not Mr. Universe either, although he always believed that was the case. If youre going to stop pucks for a living, and few did it as well as he did, you have to believe youre better than some people might think. Showing off the goods inside and outside the dressing room. Every once in awhile in this life, you run into a character. There arent enough of them in the world any more. Someone unlike most, almost proudly so. A person who is a little... over... there, somewhere. Goalies, of course, are different than most humans. Who wants to stand in front of screaming pieces of hardened vulcanized rubber? For a living? And even most goalies have looked at Osgood and say, See that guy? Umm, he is different. Hes different for his success rate, obviously. Three Stanley Cups and 401 victories, the 10th most in history. Three-hundred seventeen Red Wings victories. Only the legendary Terry Sawchuk has more. But Osgoods different than most because of his makeup. Hes 38 now and has held onto his boyish looks forever. We hate him for that. For his first decade in the league, he looked to be the antithesis of a professional athlete. Yet beneath the cherubic exterior was a lions heart, a motor that didnt quit and a will to win, right out of Rocky. A huge Tigers fan, hes talked for years about becoming their bullpen catcher when he retired. Theres probably not a place for him at Comerica Park quite yet. After all, the Tigers, like the rest of us, didnt see this coming. But hell begin this process of helping younger goalies in the Red Wings chain and then start re-thinking his baseball career sometime next spring. And hell stick his chest out, almost assuredly bare, and say, Why not me? Its what we all should do more often. That mindset is why Chris Osgood will be in hockeys Hall of Fame.