Rozner: Hossa's Blackhawks journey truly remarkable

There was weeping in the streets Wednesday as news spread Marian Hossa might be done as an NHL player.

And this would not make the old fella happy.

"I don't think it will be a sad day," Hossa said after a game last season, when discussing how his legendary career might end. "I think it just happens.

"I don't think too many players get to decide for themselves when to stop."

He said he had every intention of finishing his contract, which runs through 2021, but admitted that even for a workout fiend like himself the laws of nature win out.

"Some days you wake up and you wonder how the body goes again," Hossa said with a typically big smile. "As the day goes (on), you feel better, and by the time the game starts you're excited to play.

"Then, you start all over again the next day."

Hossa sounded tired and beat up. He wasn't playing well. You had to figure injuries and age were a big part of it.

But the assumption was always that he would play to the end of the deal with the Blackhawks, that they would have to rip the jersey off him.

He had worked so hard in the summers and on off days to earn that right. There seemed nothing he couldn't handle physically, and even last season he managed 26 goals and 45 points, good for fifth on the team in scoring.

In hindsight, it now feels like the hints were there - it's always that way in hindsight - that he might have been closer to the end than we knew, and now the revelation that a medical condition has been affecting Hossa makes his exhaustion even more logical.

As so many try to sum up a Hall of Fame career, much will be made of his 500-plus goals, his 19 years in the NHL and the three Stanley Cups he helped the Hawks capture in Chicago.

While it seems like a long time ago now, perhaps nothing stands out like the tears in his eyes as we stood on the ice in Philadelphia in 2010.

Hossa had been on the wrong end of a Stanley Cup Final decision in 2008 with Pittsburgh and again in 2009 with Detroit. Now in 2010, he finally held his Stanley Cup aloft and kissed it repeatedly after captain Jonathan Toews handed the silver trophy directly to Hossa.

"It's such a long way from how you started this game as a child," Hossa said. "This is the dream for everyone who plays. Now, it's here. What words do you say?"

Hossa was a powerful forward, but did not play the role of power forward. He rarely hit anyone. He was clean. He was as honest as they come.

But he was a brute on the puck, swiping it from defenders and then hanging onto it, using those giant legs and big backside to protect it from all comers. He had the hands and skill of a player half his size.

His effort was so consistent, so professional, that when he didn't play well, you knew something was amiss. His was willing, always, to do anything to help the team, still killing penalties at age 38.

But it was the journey from Czechoslovakia - yes, it was a single country when he was born in 1979 - that was so remarkable, as it is has been for hundreds of European hockey players.

I asked Hossa once if he knew of a rink in Nove Zamky, where I had played a game in 1991, not far from Bratislava. Hossa knew the building and the area well, from his hockey days as a youngster.

He spoke of how poor the region was just before and after the Iron Curtain fell, how hockey was the bond that kept the people together and got them through the worst times.

Hossa had a faraway look in his eyes, his glance distant as he pondered the trip from a small town in Czechoslovakia, to the Portland Winterhawks, to Ottawa, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Detroit and - finally - Chicago.

"It's a long way," Hossa said. "Quite a journey."

One can only imagine what he was really thinking about but did not verbalize. His parents, his wife and kids, his coaches, learning a new language, traveling so far from home and climbing to the top of the hockey mountain.

It's unimaginable, really, for mere mortals.

Exactly 20 years ago Wednesday - to the very day - Marian Hossa was the 12th pick in the NHL Draft.

If he is indeed finished, his next stop is the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Quite a journey, indeed.

brozner@dailyherald.com

• Listen to Barry Rozner from 9 a.m. to noon Sundays on the Score's "Hit and Run" show at WSCR 670-AM and follow him @BarryRozner on Twitter.