Photographic Evidence

If you've read this blog long enough, you know that I'm a bit like Captain Ahab in Herman Melville's Moby Dick in that I like to go hunting for white whales. The "white whales" that I seek don't swim in the water, though, as I usually like a bit of a challenge in finding rarely-seen images or photographic evidence that something happened. That occurred today as I was chatting with a co-worker about the IHL and how great it was in its heyday, and he mentioned a number of NHL players who landed there during contract disputes. One of the names he mentioned was Scott Niedermayer, and it turns out that he was correct as Niedermayer spent five games in the IHL in his career!

As you can see above from the snip of his HockeyDB page, Scott Niedermayer spent five games with the Utah Grizzlies in the IHL in 1998-99. Finding information on why he signed in the IHL with the Grizzlies wasn't hard as Alex Yannis' article in The New York Times spells it out clearly:

"Frustrated by the failure to reach a contract agreement with the Devils and eager to play hockey, the talented defenseman Scott Niedermayer signed a 25-game contract yesterday with the Utah Grizzlies of the International Hockey League."

As we know, the Devils had Lou Lamoriello as their general manager at that time, and Lou was always a tough negotiator when it came to contracts. Clearly, this impasse between Niedermayer and the Devils wasn't getting resolved quickly as the NHL season had already started when Yannis filed his article, and Lou made it clear that this could be a longer stand-off than perhaps either side wanted, stating to Yannis, "He's a free agent and he can do what he wants. There's communication, and we'll continue to try and work something out."

In Niedermayer's first IHL game with the Grizzlies against the Milwaukee Admirals, he recorded his first IHL point as he assisted on John Purves' goal midway through the first period in an eventual 4-3 shootout win. The goaltender in the Milwaukee net was none other than Tomas Vokoun who would also go on to have a long NHL career, but Niedermayer's presence on the Utah blue line wasn't lost on Grizzlies head coach Butch Goring.

"I think he showed everybody why he plays at the next level. Niedermayer put on a heckuva show tonight," Goring told Dirk Facer of the Deseret News. "Scott Niedermayer has great credentials and he's here to help us win."

The Grizzlies headed to Chicago for a road game against the Wolves in Niedermayer's second appearance in the IHL, and this one didn't have the same result as the Milwaukee game as the Wolves downed the Grizzlies by a 3-2 score in the shootout. Niedermayer wouldn't factor into the scoring in this one, though, as Wolves netminder Pat Jablonski held the Grizzlies at bay.

The road trip would continue with a stop in Grand Rapids to play the Griffins followed by a rematch with the Admirals in Milwaukee. The Grizzlies would return home to play the Cincinnati Cyclones in what would be Scott Niedermayer's last-ever IHL game in his career as he signed a new, multi-year deal with the Devils on October 30, 1998 to send him back the Garden State. The holdout was over, and Niedermayer never played in the IHL again after recording two assists in his five-game stint in the league.

All of that is a little background to this month of Scott Niedermayer's playing career back in 1998 because I went hunting for photographs. There were a handful of Utah Grizzlies jerseys found online that had been customized with Niedermayer's name and #28 on them, but none with the legendary defender in them. It seemed like a hopeless venture to find Niedermayer in Grizzlies' colours until I was looking back through some old editions of The Hockey News.

Behold the legend in action as a member of the Grizzlies!

How great is that? As you can see, Niedermayer did wear #28, and the player behind him wearing #8 appears to be defensive partner Jeff Sharples. Sharples, for what it's worth, played 105 NHL games with the Detroit Red Wings from 1986-89 before bouncing around the AHL and IHL until he retired with the Grizzlies in 2000.

I always like looking for rare gems like the Niedermayer photo above, and I plan on doing more of that when possible. Diving into forgotten stories and bringing them back to life is a fun adventure for me, and I hope you find some good in it too. Hockey history can be fun when finding cool stories and great old photos like this!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!