Cloutier's goal is to live down playoffs
Gary Mason, Vancouver Sun
CANADA.COM
You couldn't have blamed him if he had decided to spend the summer somewhere else. Like, I don't know, Greenland or the Sudan or maybe on a beach in New Guinea. In other words, anywhere where the populace weren't likely to have seen the Stanley Cup playoffs on television last spring and witnessed the Vancouver Canucks' stunning meltdown against the Minnesota Wild.
I mean, the last thing Dan Cloutier wanted, needed, heck, deserved, was to have to run a gauntlet of irate fans every time he went to the corner store to buy bread. Or to have to listen to bozos yelling out car windows as they passed Cloutier on the street that the Canuck goalie sucked.
After all, Cloutier knew how tough this city could be on goalies. He had already endured a summer answering questions about the goal by Detroit's Nicklas Lidstrom that turned the tide of the Canucks first-round matchup against the Wings a year earlier. It stood to reason then that after posting the worst goals-against average in the playoffs among starting goalies (3.24) and playing a central role in the collapse against Minnesota after being up three games to one that the scrutiny this post-season might be even worse.
So what did Cloutier do?
He stood his ground.
And he stayed right here.
"I went to Hawaii for a couple of weeks right after the season was over just to get away," Cloutier said this week over a coffee in Yaletown.
"I went back east to see my folks and watched my brother play in the AHL final back in Hamilton. And then I went back later for a wedding but most of the summer has been spent right here.
"I love it here in Vancouver. I love the weather. I love the people. And the people that I meet on the street, I don't know if it's because they're face to face with me, but they've been great.
A couple of them have said, 'I hope you're not listening to the radio Dan because it's pretty bad. They're saying the Canucks need a new goalie and they're just ripping you.' I just laugh and tell them that's why I don't listen to the radio or read the newspapers. I'd go crazy if I did."
Besides relaxing and enjoying one of the more spectacular West Coast summers in recent memory, Cloutier has also been working out hard with best friend Trevor Linden. It is a friendship that began to form soon after Linden returned to the Canucks. While Cloutier is an easy person to like, it's most likely that Linden gravitated to the Canucks' young goalie because he saw someone sitting in the corner of the dressing room, playing the most demanding position in sports, who could probably use a little veteran advice and wisdom and, most importantly, support now and then.
Because that's just the way Trevor Linden is.
"Trevor has been more than a mentor," Cloutier said, sipping on a coffee while Linden, his wife and mother-in-law sat having lunch three tables away. "I can ask him anything whether it's on-ice or off-ice, he's been there to give me advice. Almost right from the time he came back here if I got pulled from a game he'd be the first guy to come over and tap me on the pads and tell me not to worry about it. You remember those things."
Throughout the summer, Linden and Cloutier have worked out under the guidance of Peter Twist at Burnaby 8-Rinks. They team up for all the drills. Linden's off-ice passion for golf has even inspired Cloutier to begin taking lessons so the two might enjoy 18 holes together one day.
"Oh," Cloutier said. "I'm bad right now."
"Did you play in Trevor's golf tournament last week?" he is asked.
"Are you kidding?" he said. "He'd kick me off the course."
There is little doubt that Linden, as savvy a professional athlete as they come, has offered Cloutier advice on how to handle the waves of criticism that are inevitable throughout the course of a season. Especially for a goaltender. And as Cloutier prepares for the start of training camp, many of the media types who were calling for his head at the conclusion of last season will be standing in front of him again, demanding to know how he plans to respond to his erratic playoff performance of last spring.
"First off," Cloutier said,"some people are going to like you and some people aren't. That's part of life and there's nothing I can do about it. It's particularly a factor with the sport I play. So I can't worry about what people think or what they're saying about me or I'd go nuts, as I was saying earlier.
"All I can do is try and get better at what I do. And over the last few seasons I can say that I've gotten better every year. I feel the best I've ever felt going into a season. I really feel like I can win games on my own now and I didn't feel that way before. It takes me a little longer to feel completely comfortable in my surroundings but now I do."
Athletes are encouraged to forget bad outings as quickly as they can. It's a survival technique. Those who can do it usually last the longest in professional sports, those who can't usually are the first to bid farewell to their pro dreams. Other than a big league pitcher, there is no one who needs the ability to put subpar performances behind him more than a goalie.
Cloutier did that this summer. But he knows his poor playoff record will be brought up the first day of camp and the same question will be asked a thousand different times in a thousand different ways.
"And that's the hardest part," he said. "Just answering the same questions over and over and over again. But don't get me wrong. I know the media has a job to do and it's not an easy job with all the competition out there. Still, it's hard sometimes to answer the same question all the time, especially when it's about something that happened a long time ago now. I prefer to look ahead, not back, and that's what my focus is going to be."
So be warned media colleagues. Cloutier is not likely to be as tolerant about questions concerning events four months ago as he was about questions concerning the Lidstrom goal. He was still answering those two months into last season and then all over again when the playoffs rolled around. This fall he'll indulge us the first couple of days of camp and then he plans to move on.
Fair enough. But Cloutier also is no dummy. He knows this may be his most scrutinized season ever. He has a legion of doubters out there and no matter how well he plays in the regular season unless he has a strong performance in the playoffs those doubters could include management.
But if that fazes Cloutier you wouldn't know it.
"As I say, all I can do is try my hardest, continue to improve and just do the best I can do," said Cloutier. "That's all I can control. The rest I have no control over so there's no sense worrying about it."
And when you think like that you can spend your summers anywhere.