Devils duo Czechmate Penguins pair
Elias, Sykora a force on ice, but not in sync away from the game

By ROY MACGREGOR
National Post

Somewhere over the last decade or more, hockey began to think in pairs rather than threesomes, two-thirds of a line rather than all three, with the third member often interchangeable.

There is a sense here today that perhaps the game's most famous pairing -- Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr -- has come to an end, regardless of what happens tonight in Game 5 of this Eastern Conference final between the duo's wilting Pittsburgh Penguins and the Stanley Cup defending champions, the New Jersey Devils.

Lemieux seems spent and Jagr disinterested, with predictions running wild that the powerful Devils will decide the timing of the separation of the two who were once so close. Hard to believe they once bragged in Pittsburgh that Jaromir was merely an anagram for "Mario Jr." Anathema might be a better fit today.

As one pair fades, another has emerged in the two young Czechs -- 25-year-old Patrik Elias and 24-year-old Petr Sykora of the Devils -- who have done much to destroy what was once seen as the Czech stronghold in North American hockey, the Penguins of Jagr, Martin Straka, Robert Lang and coach Ivan Hlinka.

The two youngsters, along with yet another young Czech -- Milan Hejduk of the Colorado Avalanche -- are running off with the playoff scoring race, Hejduk with 19 points while Elias and Sykora have 17 each. Elias started slow this spring, but has points in his last nine games and is, at the moment, the player from the East they are most watching.

Slow starts are a bit of a habit with Elias, who roared out of nowhere in the second half of this season to finish third in the NHL scoring race with 96 points, behind only Jagr and Colorado's Joe Sakic. But to truly appreciate Elias' feat, it is necessary to know that, in the entire history of the defence-obsessed Devils, the highest any previous Devil came in the scoring race was 14th, Kirk Muller in 1987-88.

Suddenly, Elias is under the spotlight, his words finally recorded as well as his points, and he has already indicated that he has no intention of being linked to Sykora for as long and as permanently in fans' minds as Lemieux and Jagr have been over the past decade.

Elias and Sykora have known each other since they met at 15 at the Czech national junior camp, but they have never become close friends.

"We're still not," says Elias. "Just co-workers."

The fans and media, however, keep linking them, even confusing them at times, though there is very little to match the two apart from exceptional skill. Sykora keeps more to himself but is a heavy-metal music fan, keeps a pet chinchilla and has posed for Gear magazine. Elias gives the impression that if he weren't in hockey he would do what his father and two older brothers do back in the small city of Trebic in the Czech Republic -- drive a truck.

"We're very different," says Elias. "We're different persons off the ice, on the ice we're different as well. I think we're a lot different. Fans might not see it, but I believe we're a lot different."

On the ice, the differences are subtle: Elias has the quicker release, Sykora the harder shot; Elias is much more physical, Sykora more a hockey stylist; Elias seems to wear passion while Sykora conceals it.

Elias, in fact, is, in a curious way, more Canadian than even many Canadian players of the day. He is somewhat of an old Canadian hockey throwback both in the way he combines skill and strength and in how he has risen out of a poor background to appreciate the opportunities that hockey has given him.

His father, Zdenek, drove a truck and built the house that the family moved into after the third child, Patrik, came along. His mother, Zdena, cleaned the local rink and suffered a horrific accident nine years ago when sheets of rink glass that had been stacked along a wall shifted and fell into her, crushing one hip and doing serious injury to her spine, which has required surgery. "On a good day" she can get around on her own, but mostly she still requires crutches.

Like any Canadian who ever made it to the NHL, Elias has brought his parents to see what has become of him. He took his father to Central Park last week and the two of them just stood and stared at the skyline of this new world.

He is at a time in his life when so much seems possible. They have started mentioning the name of Patrik Elias as an early contender for the Conn Smythe Trophy. They are saying he might well be the best left-winger in hockey today.

They don't have to say, because it's so obvious, that his next contract will be so far beyond the US$675,000 that he currently makes -- 11th on the Devils' salary list -- that he will soon be a multi-millionaire.

It is something to think about standing there with a father who comes from the city with the highest unemployment in the Czech Republic. His brothers struggle to make ends meet. His mother can no longer work even if she wants to. He appreciates his good luck.

Money, he says, means "safety," but he really means "security."

"There are no guarantees," he keeps saying.

There are, of course, a few. Most here today would guarantee that the Devils will go on to the Stanley Cup final, perhaps even defend it and that, finally, the hockey world will wake up to see that the Devils can claim more than just a dull, neutral-zone trap.

"People still don't know much about us," Elias says. "We don't have a reputation."

He confesses, after considerable evasiveness, to some frustration in trying to establish his own reputation as a player. The media forever twins him with Sykora.

Back home in the Czech Republic, where Elias and Sykora are seen as separate entities, the people are far more interested in the Penguins, with so many Czechs, or in the Buffalo Sabres, where goaltender and 1998 Olympic hero Dominik Hasek plies his trade.

When New Jersey gets mentioned, it is usually to describe either boring hockey or a boring place to be.

"If it wouldn't bother you," Elias says, "you would be stupid."

But all that might now be changing.

People have noticed his scoring ability this year.

He has a new promotional deal with Hugo Boss -- certainly the only person in all of Trebic with such an arrangement -- and the time may soon be coming when his New Jersey teammates no longer kid him about his mismatched clothes.

"I'm proud of myself," he says, "what I've done the last couple of years."

But, he says, he can still get better -- and will.

"It's the way you grow up," Elias says. "I always pushed myself."