NHL WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: AVALANCHE v RED WINGS

May 17, 2002

Jiri Fischer

JIRI FISCHER: Well, I think first of all he gave me a lot of confidence just playing with him every night there. He helps me out every night out there, every practice he talks to me, gives me a lot of little pointers, how to handle myself on the ice, and maybe how to be a little bit more aggressive in the playoffs. And he always gives me a lot of inside stuff on the opposition, because he's been around for a while. So he knows the players way more than I do.

JIRI FISCHER: Well, when I was a little kid, he was -- I don't even know if I was playing hockey already, but he was already the best goalie in the Czech Republic when I was growing up. He was 17 years old, and he was number one there. He was wearing number nine on his jersey, and then he was a rookie in the National Team from then, and he was already number one goalie there and dominated on world championships . I don't know exactly which year it was, but certainly he's got a great nickname that he's been dominating his whole career. No doubt about that. After Nagano in '98, everybody knows that Czech Republic won the gold medal, and he was watching at 3:00 in the morning rooting for the Czech Republic. When the guys did it, then they came home and there were big parades waiting for everybody as soon as they got off the plane. The whole country is impressed the way Dominik's been handling himself the past ten, fifteen years and he's definitely the number one goalie there ever was back home. It's a great privilege to be on his team right now.

JIRI FISCHER: I would say Michael Jordan, pretty much. Or Mohammed Ali, someone that I don't think anybody in any other sport accomplished more than he has. Even though people can't see him every night because of the connection. Obviously, we can't see National Hockey League game back home even through the satellite. So I think he brought so much to the Czech Republic, not only playing hockey, but I think not too many people know that -- that Czech doesn't exist anymore that it's two separate countries. Right now he's putting our little country on the map more and more.

JIRI FISCHER: I wasn't surprised at all personally. I totally understood, because he plays -- he's a goalie, and I'm sure he watches pretty much the scorers on the team. So I don't think he had nothing to worry about from my side. And being in the Eastern Conference, I'm sure he knows more the players in the Eastern Conference, because they played them a lot more than they did against us. And I think we played against each other only once or twice before. And my name doesn't really sound Czech at all, it comes from German, so that's why he didn't assume I would be from Czech Republic. It wasn't disappointing at all.

JIRI FISCHER: Right. That was something else, I thought you asked before that because he didn't know I was from Czech Republic so never mind. It's hard to say, back then I didn't really pay as close attention as I am right now, and obviously for a lot of people it was disappointing that he had to go to the minors, he was benched for so many games. Eddie Belfour for was playing in Chicago, and he didn't get the opportunity. It's a little bit different hockey. Everyone knows that North American goalies can handle the puck pretty well behind the net, all around the ice, and it's something that Europeans may have to improve or are working right now since they discovered the little gap. He was just different. I think I didn't change at all. He just didn't get the opportunity to show what he can do.

JIRI FISCHER: I'm not nervous at all, not right now anyway, and maybe it comes. Maybe I'll get some butterflies tomorrow but hopefully that's not going to happen. And it's true, I didn't go through what the guys did in '95, '96, '97 playoffs. I just saw everything on TV. What happened, I felt sorry for what happened back then especially to Kris Draper, but I wasn't even part of this organization when all that happened, so really it was kind of going behind me. It wasn't really anything personal. I think it became personal when I was drafted in '98 and kind of started thinking about maybe how I would handle myself on the ice against the same players, against the same situation, how if it would happen eventually, and it's just something that I think every rivalry is good. I think it just brings the best out of everybody and sometimes unfortunately the worst, but I'm expecting this to be a great series, and everybody going 100 percent, everybody skating hard, everybody finishing their checks, goalies hopefully are going to be hot, and fortunately Dominik is going to keep them off the score board.