Featured Hockey Legend: Joe Sakic

 

Joe Sakic was born July 7, 1969, in Burnaby, British Columbia, a suburb of Vancouver. The son of Croatian immigrants, young Joe learned English as his second language (Serbo-Croatian was spoken in his home). As a result, he was a very soft-spoken youth, a trait he carried with him through to his hockey career.

Sakic turned a lot of heads during his junior career, culminating in a 160-point explosion and the Canadian Major Junior Player of the Year award playing for the Swift Current Broncos in 1987-88. He made his NHL debut with the Quebec Nordiques the following season. Quebec traded Dale Hunter, their long time tough guy and heart and soul player, to the Washington Capitals to get Sakic in the 1987 Entry Draft.

Sakic joined a Nordiques team clearly on the decline. By 1988, Quebec had clearly fallen out of the top tier of NHL teams. The new decade saw the team's two franchise players, Peter Stastny and Michel Goulet, playing elsewhere. Young Sakic quickly found himself carrying les Nords all alone.

Full Joe Sakic Biography