NINE MENTAL SNAPSHOTS OF #9

1.) Those one handed, uppercut, puck-jack moves he uses with his stick to steal the pill. (I think he calls it “the snake”)

2.) That blistering backhand shot that in its heyday was as lethal as any other player’s best forehand efforts.

3.) The way he sauntered into and out of arenas in those Italian designer suits that always seemed to drape on him as if athletic build cuts were invented just for him.

4.) Those lengthy answers to some of the most mundane and uneducated questions ever uttered. He learned early on, the more you talk the fewer idiot questions you have to answer – and he’s just a good guy.

5.) Those teeth that were put in line as a teenager and somehow kept intact through all of the elbows, sticks and pucks of a 20 year career. Big, bright and visible chompers.

6.) The rapidity with which he did everything on the ice.

7.) Those searing and accurate passes that have been: One part “test” for young teammates. One part “That’s how it’s supposed to be done.”

8.) That cameo in The Mighty Ducks and that emotional, epic starring role against the far less than mighty Ducks in maybe his final home game in Dallas.

9.) Those thousand or two full gallop rushes with the puck, from the Stars zone to the attacking zone, Modano’s jersey wafting like a sheet of fine Egyptian cotton on a clothesline during a breezy May day, opposing forwards left in his wake, opposition defensemen capitulating out of respect - and fear of embarrassment, netminders bracing for the inevitable. Then that celebratory glide through one of the corners, smile on his face, stick in one hand - stabbing the sky.