In this desert place, hockey is about as traditional as. In this place, it's as easy to gamble or to whore as it is to pick up a carton of milk from the comer 7-Eleven. In this place, the bars shut down for maybe 15 seconds every day. "You know what? I like it there, too," Malarchuk said. "Where do you think I should play?" said Malarchuk on the last leg of the trip. It happened in the summer of '93 on a drive that took her and her father to San Diego to pick up the shreds of Malarchuk's one-year stop with the International Hockey League's Gulls, then to Las Vegas for a few days of talks with one of the IHL's new teams, the Thunder, then back to Alberta. When it's all said and done, the final say probably came from Kelli, Malarchuk's 9-year-old daughter. Still, somebody, somewhere, chose it as the venue for one of life's little miracles: a good man, found. Malarchuk calls them his future.Īnd for the first time in his life, Malarchuk's future is a shiny thing.Įven God might not conjure up a slice of heaven that looks like Malarchuk's two-acre emu and horse ranch on the outskirts of Vegas, the sinningest city in the States. Webster's calls them large, fast-running, flightless Australian birds related to the ostrich. But he isn't quick enough to stop one of his emus from stealing an electronic flash that belongs to Steve Levin, a photographer for THE SPORTING NEWS whose own reaction time in this case is pathetically slow. At 34, with 10 years of NHL games behind him, Malarchuk is still quick enough to stop a 10O-mph slapshot. There are 16 emus in Malarchuk's pens, and even Malarchuk, whose livelihood depends on reaction and split-second reflex, isn't quick enough to parry their bob-and-weave pecks. They like shiny things enough to take them and if it isn't connected to you and you aren't ready for their sneak attacks, Clint Malarchuk's emus will take your shiny thing from you. They like shiny things - a snap button, a belt buckle, maybe a camera if it's gleaming in the Las Vegas sun. This story, by senior writer Michael Knisley, first appeared in the March 6, 1995, issue of The Sporting News, almost six years after goalie Clint Malarchuk of the Buffalo Sabres suffered a near-fatal injury when his jugular vein was slashed by an opposing player’s skate.
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