THN ARCHIVE: Doug Weight's Blues revival

Doug Weight's first season with the St. Louis Blues didn't go as advertised.

When the Blues acquired the center from the Edmonton Oilers, along with Michel Riesen, for forwards Marty Reasoner, Jochen Hecht and Jan Horacek, it was expected to be a big upgrade and form a 1-2 punch with Pierre Turgeon at the top of the center iceman charts.

Weight had an injury-filled regular-season and playoffs for the Blues, playing in 61 of 82 games then injuring his right knee in the postseason, a second-round defeat in five games against the Detroit Red Wings.

But Weight returned to form again, and so did his point total in 2002-03.

In this cover story from THN’s Nov. 22, 2002 edition – Vol. 56, Issue 12 – then-contributing editor Mark Brender examined Weight's rise again, bringing the Blues .

(To read more great stories like this one, you can gain access to THN’s 76-year archive by subscribing to the magazine.)

STAR SHINING AGAIN

By Mark Brender

Vol. 56, Issue 12, Nov. 22, 2002  

His teammates know it by watching him dominate games. The rest of the league knows it by checking the stats and seeing those seven consecutive multipoint games, an eight-game point streak, an improbable nine-game St. Louis winning streak powered by the most high-profile Blue left standing in an injury-plagued lineup.

Now everyone knows it: Doug Weight is back.

The return to form of one of the NHL’s elite and most dynamic playmakers won’t surprise anyone who saw Weight play in Edmonton, where he led the Oilers in scoring in seven of his eight seasons there, the last two while serving as captain, before his trade to St. Louis in the summer of 2001.

What may surprise is that the the resurrection of Weight’s formerly battle-scarred body is only part of this comeback story. At least as significant a factor is the soothing of his soul.

Weight’s right knee is great and feels no ill effects from the torn ligament that made him a bit player in St. Louis’s feeble playoff loss to Detroit last spring. His abdominal muscles, cut open in surgery last May, the site of internal bleeding last season, are fully recovered. In terms of fitness and physical strength, he has never been in better shape.

But where would he be without that sense of internal peace that now carries him floating onto the ice, where he darts and dashes like a visionary artist? Probably back where he was last season, when he didn’t look or feel anything like the player who found stardom north of the border.

There’s a simple reason for that: Weight didn’t feel like he did in Edmonton because he wasn’t in Edmonton. He wasn’t home.

They might say it shouldn’t matter with the kind of money he’s making, $40 million over five years, but it does.

When Weight landed with the Oilers back in 1993, a 22-year-old traded from the Rangers for Esa Tikkanen, it took him four or five years to get his bearings. Based on his torrid start this year-five goals and 18 points in 12 games, a plus or even player in every one of them-it’s safe to say it only took him one year in St. Louis. In a less demanding setting, this would be called progress.

Familiarity matters more than anyone knew a year ago at this time, Weight included. When it comes to feeling comfortable, even cash has limited currency. Last summer it bought him a house down the ‘street from buddy Keith Tkachuk. This past summer it paid for a personal trainer that he will no more feel in his pocketbook than he would if he bought a bag of milk. It could never buy him peace of mind.

“He thinks way too much,” said Tkachuk, his closest friend on the Blues. “Everyone puts high expectations on themselves, everyone wants to perform up to their abilities, but he takes it to a new level.”

Said Dallas’s Bill Guerin, a former teammate in Edmonton. “Doug’s the kind of guy, he puts so much on his shoulders. I always told him, ‘You’re an unbelievable player, you’re a great guy, don’t take a backseat to anybody.’ “

Last season, that was advice Weight had a hard time living up to as he tried to prove himself all over again. He doesn’t believe the 15-goal, 49-point year (in 61 games) while playing through injuries was nearly as bad as people make it out to be, even if he was as disappointed as everyone else. It’s just that in Edmonton, those acclimatization problems were ancient history.

“I could have a bad game and they knew how good I was, so I didn’t have to prove it every game and lose my confidence,” he said. “I never thought I’d have to go through it again, but I did.

“I didn’t put the numbers up I wanted to. I didn’t turn my teammates’ heads the way I wanted to. I didn’t contribute to wins the way I wanted to…Feeling sorry for yourself and worrying about things, it affects the whole psyche of a team. I had to get confident in myself along with getting in shape.”

So Doug Weight spent his summer as a 31-year-old eating like he’d never eaten before, working out like he’d never worked out before, trying to rebound from injury and inconsistency like he never had to rebound before.

He shunned carbohydrates like the plague, gobbled up lean meat, venison, chicken, turkey, tuna and eggs six times a day It was like all he did was eat and when he wasn’t eating he was sweating. He and his family stayed all summer at their off-season home in ‘Phoenix where he could work out with trainer Charles Poliquin.

But there would be no more long bike rides or runs, no way; now it was all high-intensity, low-duration anaerobic weight work, heavy squats, sprints, anything to teach those fast twitch muscles what it meant to be explosive again.

First, Poliquin had to teach Weight that he didn’t know what was good for his own body nearly as well as he thought. “Doug Weight was so afraid, so paranoid of gaining weight,” Poliquin said, “that he wouldn’t eat enough to recover from training.”

Poliquin won him over in a big way a month before training camp. Weight was worried that he hadn’t done much bench-press work, yet the press was one of the major training camp tests. He wanted to do well, to impress the coaches and he knew time was running out.

Poliquin asked him his personal best. Weight told him.

“And he put 10 more pounds on it and I did it about six times,” Weight said. “And he goes, ‘How’s that?’ And I’m like, ‘OK.’ So I picked up my bag and made my shake and went home.”

At the end of last season, after long periods of little exercise because of his abdominal injury, he was 190 pounds with 14.5 percent body fat. Heading into training camp he was 202 pounds with 6.5 percent body fat. “I went four months without bread, pasta, rice, no pop, no beer, nothing. I mean, it was a tough summer,” he said.

Four months, no beer?

“Absolutely.” Not one beer? “Ah, I mean, not many.”

Whatever beer he had, blame it on Guerin. Knowing they would meet at former teammate Mike Grier’s July wedding, Guerin put in an advance call instructing Weight that a few drinks were part of the program, there was no getting out of it. And then there were the other times when Guerin tested his friend’s resolve.

“Ah, Doug,” he’d tease over the phone, “I’m having a beer with a big piece of bread.”

“Billy knows what I went through,” Weight said. “I call him a lot and talk to him a lot. He knows I tend to obsess a bit.”

□ □ □

All through training camp Weight would come home and tell his wife Allison how great he was feeling. Usually every fourth game or so there was a night when things just didn’t feel right, but that wasn’t happening.

He had his first game of the year like that Nov. 2 against the Islanders. He felt weak; his legs had no jump. Looking back on the game later, he realized he had a couple of assists, was never behind the play and was in control defensively in a 6-1 win. It was another huge confidence boost in a season of many As Tkachuk, out until at least early December with a broken foot, put it: “He’s carrying us.”

In the dressing room, after a season of trying to fit in and prove himself at the same time, Weight is relaxed and himself again.

He would love to be playing on a line with Tkachuk, but his line with rookie Eric Boguniecki and Cory Stillman has clicked nicely Weight has complained about not being given more of a chance with Tkachuk-this year they had a one-game run on opening night before being broken up-but only to his wife. He realizes coach Joel Quenneville wants three lines that can score.

He has also grown used to the Blues’ all-out pressure game in the defensive zone, which required a shift in mindset from the Oilers’ man-on-man approach. Quenneville, in turn, has become more tuned in to Weight’s versatility.

“This year we feel we have to use Doug in different situations,” the coach said. “I think we’re going to use him more because he can help us. Maybe we didn’t use him as much as we should have.”

It stands to reason that more ice time will make Doug Weight feel even more at home. Asked if his play this season has given the Blues the same respect and knowledge of his game that Edmonton had, Weight said: “I think I’m getting close.” □

AMERICAN BLUES ON THE RISE

Doug Weight and Keith Tkachuk are moving up the all-time U.S.-born points list (as of Nov. 7). Asterisk denotes active players.