Kris Draper: Calling It a Career

Retirement.

Surely this is a daunting prospect for any professional athlete. But for Kris Draper, this prospect is now a reality. He is face-to-face with life after 20 years spent playing in the National Hockey League.

Being a professional in any sport means being completely committed to your craft. An entire lifetime is spent perfecting your skills and fine tuning the most effective weapon in your arsenal: your body.

Unfortunately for many NHL players, this level of commitment does not necessarily produce the levels of success that Draper has seen during his career.

For example, players such as Marcel Dionne, Gilbert Perrault, Jean Ratelle and Darryl Sittler, who all have well over 1,000 career points each, have never sipped champagne from the Stanley Cup.

I have a feeling that if you asked these players if they would trade their places in the record books, the trophies they won, the All-Star appearances and the glory of being among the most popular players of their times for just ONE chance to hoist the most famous trophy in sports history, the answer would be a resounding “yes.”

Then there is Kris Draper.

This is a player possessing nowhere near the caliber of pure offensive talent that the aforementioned All-Stars were blessed with. Yet, he is a shining example that winning a championship in any team sport is a result of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.

After all, winning four Stanley Cups with the same organization does not happen by chance.

He may not have boasted the raw talent that some of his fellow Detroit Red Wings teammates were blessed with, but what he lacked in skill, he more than made up for in heart, determination, character and work ethic. He was a player known most for his tenacity on the forecheck, backcheck and work as a defensive specialist.

After being drafted in 1989 by the Winnipeg Jets, Draper experienced a very unique journey to the NHL. In the 1990-91 season, Kris spent time in the AHL, then the NHL, but was eventually sent back to play junior hockey in the Ontario Hockey League. This sequence of events is very rare for NHL players.

Failing to crack the Winnipeg Jets’ roster as a regular in the first four years after being drafted, Draper was eventually traded to the Detroit Red Wings for the exorbitant price of $1. Yes. $1.

At least it was an American dollar.

In Detroit, Draper split his first season between the big club and their AHL affiliate, but was put into full-time duty from the 1994-95 season on. From that point, Draper became an integral part of arguably the best-run franchise in all of professional sports over the last 20 years.

In fact, the only other people to have played more games in a Detroit Red Wings uniform than Draper are Nicklas Lidstrom, Steve Yzerman, Alex Delvecchio and Gordie Howe. These five are the only players to play over 1,000 games with the Red Wings. Pretty decent company, I’d say.

Four Stanley Cups, one Selke Trophy, 354 points, 781 penalty minutes and 1,157 career games later, “The One Dollar Man” has more than made the most of his opportunity to play amongst some of the best players to ever lace up the skates.

On behalf of hockey fans around the world, I say: Congratulations, Kris.

This article was originally written for www.sports-at-work.com.