Rucchin Surrounds Himself With Talent

It is, Steve Rucchin admits, a bit like being an umpire. You know what they say about umpires. If you don’t know the umpire’s name, then he’s done a good job.

And as Rucchin describes his job, the one where he’s the center between Paul Kariya and Teemu Selanne, who just happen to be two of the quickest, cleverest, most exciting, most dramatic scoring wings in the NHL, “I just get them the puck and get out of the way,” you realize that Rucchin is the perfect man for his under-noticed role on the Mighty Ducks.

“I just want to keep up,” Rucchin will say about what it’s like to play between Kariya and Selanne. And, “I just don’t want to make them look bad.” Or, “After I get them the puck, my most important job is to get back and play defense.”

You must do some serious note reading to find out that Rucchin has the best plus/minus ratio (+51) in Mighty Duck history. The team is 33-10-3 in games in which Rucchin compiles more than one point. He does all this and yet when Rucchin takes off his helmet, how many people know he has a scraggly beard or a bit of a receding hairline?

No matter how hard you try, it is impossible to get Rucchin to take any credit for anything the Mighty Ducks might be accomplishing.

So far this season the accomplishments, if modest, are still so far intriguing. Going into tonight’s game at the Arrowhead Pond against St. Louis, the Ducks will bring a six-game unbeaten streak and a certain bubbling undercurrent of confidence. After a season as disastrous as last year’s 26-43-13 debacle, confidence is not reacquired in a week or even a month.

This is the sort of big picture look that Rucchin takes easily. He speaks thoughtfully of how he and his first line mates are nowhere near in perfect synchronization. Not after the way Kariya missed so much of last season, first with a contract holdout and then with the terrible concussion.

Rucchin is quick to say that “Teemu and Paul, they’re fine together. It’s me who needs to catch up.”

This is heartfelt modesty from a sincere 27-year-old who didn’t play hockey at all from the time he was 15 until he was 19 and a freshman in college.

Yes, college.

It was a Canadian college, the University of Western Ontario, where Rucchin was not some toothless hockey junkie using a scholarship to polish hockey skills while his books stayed stuck in some closet. Nope, Rucchin paid his own way through school, and for four years academics came first.

Yes, academics. Real academics. Courses as difficult as biochemistry, physiology and cell biology.

“He’s a nerd,” hollered Jason Marshall, whose locker at the Disney ICE practice facility is next to Rucchin’s.

But Rucchin isn’t a nerd. He was just a man in premed who had absolutely no expectations of an NHL career.

“I was a 22-year-old senior watching Selanne on TV and marveling at the things he did, just like a fan,” Rucchin says. “If someone had told me while I was in college that I’d be playing between these two guys, nobody would have laughed harder than me.”

Having been burned out on the game when he turned 15 and having decided that his future was not going to be spent making money playing hockey, Rucchin pretty much quit the sport. “I pretty much thought I had to start preparing myself to make a living.”

When he got to Western Ontario, Rucchin, “kind of on a lark,” he says, tried out for the college team. “I really didn’t expect to even make the team,” Rucchin says. “And then I did and I guess at some point the Ducks must have noticed me.”

Whenever the Ducks did notice Rucchin, they never told him. “They took me in the supplemental draft and I had no clue. I was totally shocked,” he says. By now, in 1993, Rucchin was a senior and nearly finished with his degree work. He came to the Ducks with a certain equanimity. If this hockey thing didn’t work out, then Rucchin would proceed with his plan to be a doctor.

But this hockey thing has worked out pretty well.

This summer, Rucchin signed a four-year, $9.2-million contract, a nice reward for having proved himself for four seasons.

“It’s not always easy to play with Paul and I,” Selanne says. “It’s a lot of pressure and expectations and hearing people whisper that he’s not good enough. But Steve’s gotten more and more confidence with every year here. He really wants to make plays.”

“Steve is a great all-around player, better than people notice,” Kariya says. “He has great hands, great vision. He plays defense. It’s not easy to play with us because we play at a very high tempo. And Steve keeps up.”

This praise, this success, this big, new contract, it’s not going to his head. Going back to school to get an advanced degree, maybe in sports medicine, that’s not out of the question for Rucchin. Getting better, making more plays, getting that puck to Kariya and Selanne more often, that’s absolutely a more near-term goal.

“We can get so much better together,” Rucchin says. “I mean, I can.”