DETROIT -- Were this another place, or maybe another team, Darren McCarty would not have the opportunity to hoist the Stanley Cup tonight.
But this isn't just another place or team and, for a hockey player who had hit rock bottom and then some, this night can be monumental.
It is all about the journey, getting to the Stanley Cup, but the journey McCarty has taken is unlike any other Cup story before it.
"It is," Red Wings general manager Ken Holland said, "an impossible story."
McCarty knows what it is to battle: His demons, illnesses and his personal failings have included alcoholism, bankruptcy after $15 million US in career earnings, divorce, drug addiction, gambling troubles, numerous attempts at rehab centres, estrangement from his children.
"I never thought I'd get back here," said McCarty.
Some say he never thought at all.
So, in late November, he sat in the stands at Joe Louis Arena, without a job, a future, watching his former team, the Red Wings, practise. He weighed 245 pounds and thought: "This is the only thing I know."
It was then that he sat down with Holland, the man who drafted him, the man with whom he celebrated three Stanley Cup championships a lifetime and four rehab visits ago. He asked for a chance. He was surprised by the answer.
"There was always something about Darren McCarty that I loved," said Holland, who was chief scout when he drafted McCarty in the second round in 1992. "You go back and we've got three championships and McCarty was a big part of that. The Grind Line was a big part of it. And I believe in loyalty.
"When a person who has helped you have success is down on his luck and comes back and is looking for an opportunity, I believe if they do everything they can to get themselves back, you have to give them that chance."
Few teams would bother with a 36-year-old winger with his kind of resume. But the Red Wings preach family from the ownership of Mike Ilitch on down and Holland placed the onus on McCarty to find his way back to the NHL.
McCarty signed a tryout contract with Flint of the International League on New Year's Eve and did not celebrate with a drink. He played his first IHL game 12 days later. By February, he had graduated to Grand Rapids of the American Hockey League. In his first AHL game in 15 years, McCarty, never known as a professional scorer, scored three times.
"The coaching staff at Grand Rapids raved about him," Holland said. "They said he took the team. He just got better and better."
On March 7, McCarty was recalled to the NHL. Mike Babcock, who never had coached McCarty, was perplexed.
"I understood what he was thinking," Holland said. "In 1996, when Scotty Bowman told me he was going to sign Joey Kocur out of a beer league, I thought he was nuts. And in the end, Kocur helped us win a championship."
But before McCarty would be welcomed back into the Red Wings family, Holland met him again.
"I told him: 'I don't want to see orange hair,' " Holland said. "I've seen him in the past with funny hair. We talked about him looking like he was supposed to look. When I had met with him in November, we talked about getting in shape, being focussed, being committed. And ultimately, when he walked into my office in January, and he was fit, he looked me right in the eye and said he has three priorities in life. One is sobriety. Two is his family. And three is hockey."
McCarty says he has not had a drink since July 20. You want to believe him, but with McCarty there is always some doubt.
And usually another story.
A story in the Detroit Free Press in February detailed how McCarty's life still is rife with difficulty. Not that long ago, he ran up $20,000 in credit card charges on his second wife's account. The charges were advances for the Deerfoot Inn and Casino in Calgary. McCarty no longer is living with his second wife. He is back with his first wife and four children. His second wife, a casino dealer in Calgary, was shocked when she found a note informing her the marriage, was in essence, over.
"When you're desperate, you're looking for any reasons to try to make ends meet," McCarty told the Free Press. '"Sometimes you get a little bit desperate. It wasn't a good situation. I decided to get out of that situation. I still owe. I'm trying to make good on it as quick as I can. She knows that."
McCarty now calls his family life "the best it has ever been."
"Everybody trips, makes mistakes," he said. "I'm just hoping to get this right. I'm grateful for the opportunity and support the Wings have given me. I found out this is my family, this is home."
Tonight, the Wings will play their 21st and possibly last game of the post-season. McCarty, who dressed for just three games in March, has been in the Wings lineup for 17 playoff games. He has done the job that has been asked, usually in a fourth-line capacity. But it's clear he has won over Babcock, who isn't easily swayed.
"I was lost," said McCarty, who was bought out by the Wings after the lockout. "It's like I lost a few years. I got lost in abuse. Didn't think about anything else." He told the Free Press: "I wasn't the father I wanted to be, I wasn't the father, the son, the teammate or the friend I wanted to be ... I didn't like hockey anymore. I didn't like anything."
Tonight, with the Red Wings in position to win the Cup at home, it isn't known if McCarty will be in the lineup. But that doesn't mean he won't get a chance to carry the Cup.
"I think this is an unbelievable story no matter what happens," Holland said. "He's an unbelievable human being. He just got untracked.
"Now, he is back with his family, he is back with his kids and he appears to have his eyes back on the wheel in life."
