NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS: CAPITALS v RED WINGS

June 16, 1998

Doug Brown

Sergei Fedorov

DOUG BROWN: Well, I think we have a good camaraderie and we've been -- we grew as a team in the last few years and I think the important thing is that Scotty demands a lot of us to produce offensively and everybody to come back and help out defensively. So I think it takes away from some of our big guns getting as many points as some of the players on other teams, but their efforts in our own end helps our team be more successful.

DOUG BROWN: It was pretty special to win tonight, but it was pretty special to win last year, too. It didn't matter who gets points as long as we win. That's what's special about there team.

SERGEI FEDOROV: How about we start from the beginning? Just my thoughts while I was outside and going through a time like -- I don't know, summertime and five months -- that was about seven months -- I've been out of action and to be honest with you, try and take one week, one day at a time, try and figure out what's going on. In the beginning, the negotiations it was pretty deep and pretty honest and everybody pretty much said what they wanted to do and we just tried and set up some kind of a way to reach the final agreement. But as we all know, it took a little longer and different type of action to get it done. But my thoughts was just get back this season and -- to come get to hockey and play competitive hockey, basically. Thanks for the Olympics, the Russian coaches choose me to play there and I sort of got three weeks work out with Junior Whalers and in a way it's kind of helped me out to get back on track mentally being a hockey player. Because as we all know, in the summertime we don't skate much and when you know nothing's going to happen in the next few weeks or months, you can't really accelerate your ability to practice or work out or stay in shape. It would be very, very tough mentally, so I was very pleased that I got selected from the Olympic games for the Russian team. After that, things changed dramatically because it seems to me the other teams were involved and would like to have me and finally one came from North Carolina, and the Red Wings had seven days to match, and I was thinking at that time that it would be fine, very, very nice if Red Wings could come up with something like that to stay in Detroit. But as far as our team, my agent and myself knows that it would be very, very tough because of the financial investment had been provided in that agreement. And we just sit tight for another seven days and hope for the best, and to be honest with you, Detroit has been always my second home town because that's how I got to this League. I defected from Russia to play for the Detroit Red Wings. And in the best scenario, I would like to stay -- I wish deep down in my mind I would like to stay in Detroit and play. Because the team has been great, I know guys, I work with them throughout many, many years and I was very, very -- you know, pleased that maybe I still have a chance to stay back. And finally Detroit matched and that happened very, very quickly. I was sitting in my agent's house and we're like jumping out of our seats because it was a pretty natural reaction to what we, I guess, want and we go by that and we went by that and we were so excited that it happened. Finally, I get the chance to get back. Then, next step was to meet my teammates face-to-face and look in their eyes and next challenge after that was to win some fans back, because it's been written a lot about what's going to happen with Sergei Fedorov. And obviously some of the information we had to correct. And I didn't really have a chance to speak on part of the contracts, but I did have a chance to speak on my behalf. As far as how I think, how I feel, how I'm preparing myself for whatever life's going to give me. And eventually everything works out as far as the Detroit match and I went back and it was Friday night and I said, I'm ready to play. And coach gave me opportunity to play that game and it was very -- I was very, very tired from the morning because so many things happened and I was just exhausted as far as mentally because everything happened so quick and came back from Japan, 14 hours difference -- so it was pretty much roller-coaster for 3, 4 days for me. I know one thing I'll never forget I'm a hockey player and I have to produce and play well. So I said I was ready to play on Friday night and they gave me a chance to come back and it seems to me since that first game, first day, first night back with my teammates, I realized how important it was to stay in Detroit. And thank God and thank everybody else who was involved in the negotiations that it's handled. Like, obviously, journalists ask me that, did you ever think it's going to be like that. And I said, no, because basically I was trying to get back to my routine, play hockey. That's what I do for a living and obviously it was most important thought to me.

DOUG BROWN: Doug, it was a powerplay situation and I was changing on the fly. Larry Murphy giving it to Sergei and came to the bench and Sergei was setting it up on the far side and he saw me coming from miles and I just kept flying down the off wing and Sergei made a beautiful pass across and I just tried to get it back on the net as quick as I could.

DOUG BROWN: Steve Yzerman as a player and a captain he's a terrific leader and he leads by example out there, how he's blocking shots and taking the hits and doing whatever it takes to win, and when the chips are down, he's always out there taking the big faceoffs and making plays and so you -- he demands from himself and you demand it from yourself if you're going to play on his team. You don't want to let him down because you know how much heart he's given to the team and you just want to help out as much as you can.

SERGEI FEDOROV: We saw Vladi out there in the stands. We knew in a couple of days advance that he might make it. I'm glad that Scotty Bowman brought it up before game number three that he would trade everything for those guys to stay as normal as we are and it was such an inspirational speech for us and we kept that in our minds. When we saw Vladi on the ice, I couldn't belief my eyes. We have the Stanley Cup in one mind and Vladi on the other, and we're so used to kind of seeing Vladi like very calm and relaxed and but -- but then we try and press him as far as screaming and yelling like Vladi, we won the Cup and this and this and seems to me, he reacted very well and we were very happy with that reaction because he was a happy kid out there. How are you feeling? Are you tired a little bit or what? He goes, are you? So I speak to him in Russian and I tried to make him feel comfortable out there because it was such a kind of large destruction as far as his ability to understand what's going on and I was spending five, ten minutes with him when he just came on the ice and I was very, very happy and excited to see his smile. And he showed a couple of signals that it's number two, it's great and everything and he kind of got into it and started posing. I'm like look okay Vladi you're all settled, see you later. That's the time when I left him. It was very inspirational to see him in the building and we knew that, all our minds and our thoughts are with him and we're glad we did it tonight.