What Does Marty Turco's Time in Dallas Mean to You?

I’m 16, so my memories of Belfour are extremely vague. For me, Marty’s always been the man for the Stars, no matter how great Eddie was.

I have this phrase that I use sometimes because of Turco. If a goalie ever tries to play the puck away from his net and he flubs it I say, “He pulled a Marty Turco.”

One of my favorite Marty Turco moments was that commercial he did for the NHL where he gets in a car with a little girl after school and her dad’s like, “Honey, why is Marty Turco in our car?” I always laugh.

I have hated on Marty during a lot of occasions, but I will truly miss him. While be may not have won any Cups, he was still a wonderful person through it all.

… on the whole, he was tremendously unappreciated in Dallas. The last year or two, his inconsistency was rightfully cause for criticism, but the beating he took in years prior I thought was a bit over the top. He was hung out to dry in many of his early playoff series (the Colorado series immediately spring to mind, when no one ever seemed to clear the front of the net for him). After 2006, he took a beating because they couldn’t get out of the first round, even though he carried that team to three shutouts and surrendered only two goals in Game 7 against Vancouver.

It was time to move on for sure, but I hope the views of Turco aren’t completely colored by how his time in Dallas ended.

It is too bad he never won a Cup here…he deserved it. He changed the way goaltenders play with his puckhandling. I think it was so hard to watch the last couple of years where he has been playing poorly because he was so good early on that we just expected it. Much like Troy Aikman in his last year or two with the Cowboys where things didn’t seem to go as well as before but we all expected him to play great no matter how bad the guys in front of him were.
Hopefully our future goalies can lead as well as Turco did. One of the saves I always remember was a shootout save when he spun around backwards and knocked the puck out with his stick. I can’t remember the game but it was pretty insane. I’ve watched the Stars play with Moog, Walkaluk (the name is cool),Belfour and all the others since ’93, but Turco has been my favorite by far.

I just loved this guy and I still do. I’m excited of fellow Finn Lehtonen, but I will miss Turco. Perhaps he can one day coach Campbell.
I have so many good memories of Turco, that I want to share one from my girlfriend. I remember when we were watching games in Dallas and I kept telling her to look at the way Turco moves the puck. In Finland guys like Markkanen and co. made me mad, so I had to tell her all the time how great Turco is.
She asked many times why is Turco always sitting on ice – just like that 2006 save – after the game she bought Turco t-shirt – only jersey she will wear is Lehtinen’s – and time went on…
When Joe said that Turco will not return, she came to me and asked how can she wear here favourite t-shirt again…
That’s my last memory of Turco at the moment and a good one it is.

I meant 2008. Heh, too much to say.

I can remember catching an interview with Marty last spring while BAD Radio was on one of their Stars road trips. The points that the team were looking to pick up had been disappearing, but the chat with Turco was like a death march. I remember sitting in the car after parking, just listening and trying to make sense of it all. Marty’s confident ease, sometimes mistaken for arrogance or indifference, had been replaced by a sense of learned helplessness that there was nothing he could do to change the situation.

I kept thinking that the Stars would catch up to 8th spot or better, that it was a good idea to keep Mo and Turks because the team could go places. But it didn’t happen.

I’m not sure if I ever thought Marty was a “bad goalie” but concerns over winning at the Joe and his playoff performance were erased in recent years. The three shut-out series loss to Vancouver was enough for me to look for answers from the five in front of him. Even his mask started looking like a real mask with gargoyles that actually looked scary.

Athleticism in goaltending is harder to spot these days. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that the goalies are not athletes, just that I appreciate the hybrid flopper. Often, the solution between the pipes seems to be to get the tallest guy you can find (for cheap, of course) and make him drop down in a butterly with a couple of towers in front and see if anything gets through. With the tic-tac-toe passing and lateral movement, I like a little acrobatics.

Marty added that flourish. Wether a save with the corner of a skate blade, making a glove save off his skate laces, or a home run pass to a streaking forward, he added a lot of excitement to the game.

Here’s hoping he can recapture some of that spark somewhere else – and soon.

And I meant to do this last night when I was writing this…but you should check out Tyler Bouldin’s fanpost about Marty Turco’s career here:

http://www.defendingbigd.com/2010/7/6/1555569/recap-of-turcos-career-in-dallas

And it just happened to be the first game I ever attended. And that night, Marty became my hero basically. It was a goalie performance that I may never see again in person, with Marty making unbelievable, clutch saves out of nowhere all night long. He was mesmerizing to watch. Nabokov still made the save of the night, but Marty matched him in sheer numbers of great saves. I remember on the way home listening to the post-game show on the radio and my jaw dropping when I heard how many saves he had made. I’m sure they had it posted in the arena, but I was too punch-drunk to bother to notice at that point.

I loved Marty not just because of his ability as a goalie, but for the way he carried himself on the ice. He had this sort of bravado, suave, almost cocky way about him that was just awesome. I remember during the last night for Modano in April, when they did their little tribute to Marty, the camera zoomed in on his face and Marty looked straight into the camera and winked. I grinned so big and yelled “Yup, that’s our Marty!” I also remember during the Capitals game this year, when Semin tripped and fell in the shootout, Marty was sitting in the goal right after and looked at the camera and shrugged. That attitude, that confidence is so, so rare in an athlete, and yet Marty had it every time he went out on the ice. It will be sorely missed next year. Miss ya, Marty.

And sometimes he deserved it. Part of what makes him so respectable, though, is that he’d probably be the first to admit it. In fact, I think I remember Razor saying the last week of the season that Turco had admitted his biggest regret was not winning a Cup for the older guys (like Ludwig) when he first got here, as if it was all his fault. Which it wasn’t.

He was a good goalie, no doubt, and with what he did over the Stars last couple playoff appearances, he really shook off the final criticism of him, the “he can’t win the big one” criticism. One hopes people remember that, though we already know when he signs somewhere, there will be someone talking out their end about his lack of postseason success.

More importantly though, with all he did in the community it is apparent he was an even better person; a classy individual who I think we could all respect.

It’s not hard to see why I would become such a big fan (no surprise to anyone here, I know), even with his erratic play over the last two years. I’ve been known to yell at the TV or from the stands just as much as anyone else when he messed up – I was home sick the night of the Islanders game this season and just put my face in my hands and groaned when he misplayed that puck which lead to an Islanders goal. But he would admit when he screwed up – after that game he said flat out that he had misjudged how fast the other player was coming at him.

What has happened over the last two years was not all his fault and I think it was very ugly the way some people would put all the blame on him (including GM Joe in an interview in January), as if he was the only reason the team was losing. He was part of the problem much of the time, but not the entire problem and there was more than one game this season where he was the only member of the team who showed up (the two games in Columbus, the shutout loss in San Jose).

As many have noted, Marty was also a great person off the ice – a very devoted family man and a very generous man when it came to giving back to the community. I will definitely miss him both on and off the ice.

And yes, his reaction to Semin’s gaffe was hilarious – he had this “what the hell” look on his face. That was even more fun than actually winning the game.

when the stars won the cup in ‘99. i was playing goalie in ice hockey by then, and i loved eddie’s pompousness. i thought then there was no goalie who would ever replace him as my favorite.

then marty came along.

and since, he has managed to supersede my two favorites, belfour and modano, and become my favorite player ever. he was honest and hardworking while incorporating enough fun, swagger, and charisma that i tried endlessly to invoke into my own game.

my favorite moments, and also worse moments, were those from the vancouver series. the poise he had, the confidence he played with, was simply unparalleled. yet, in typical turco fashion, the stars were eliminated.

i loved watching him come out of the crease sideways on shootouts. i loved watching him play the puck, because i always strived to get to his level (and not even brodeur is on his level). i loved watching him make flamboyant saves and lazily stay down after making them just because he knew his athleticism would allow him to recover and get ready for the next shot if we made a defensive zone turnover. and most importantly, i loved when he was in the zone; what spectacular goaltending performances he could put on then.

marty, you will be sorely missed. i still hope you end up in washington so i can bandwagon cheer for them after we don’t make the playoffs again this year.

Keep it coming.

This is a nice break from all the bitterness.

sorry I couldn’t help it.

I always had a lot of respect for how Marty handled the Belfour/Turco and then the Turco/Lehtonen situations. I wish him well where ever he winds up.

who used to scream at the TV when he left his net. But no other goalie made me smile more than when he’d start the offensive rush all by himself. He is truly one of the greatest puck-handling netminders of all time, and I will always appreciate what he did for the Stars.

No one here would mistake me for a Turco fan. Part of that is because I only came to the Stars when my guy came here in 2008. I missed the “glory years.” The Turco I saw was not terribly effective and had a questionable attitude. It seemed like ages for him to admit he was struggling, and even then it seemed like he didn’t believe what he was saying.

But everyone loved him, so I knew it had to have come from somewhere. I’ve heard off-ice stories from some fans, and they make me smile. I’m sure he was a fabulous guy to have around. Seeing the on-ice memories is nice, too. He was a big part of this team. It’s too bad he was never able to go all the way with them.

(Sorry Brad G… this didn’t count as bitterness, did it?)

I’ve always had an infatuation with Stars goalies. I was a big Moog fan back in the day even though I was only 10, I was a die hard Belfour fan, and I loved Turco. I hated that he was the scapegoat for many lazy fans, both at the AAC and a particular Dallas Morning News Blog. I would spend hours arguing back and forth with those people trying to convince them to see the bigger picture all to no avail.

I’ll never forget, Turco was signing Autographs at the Player’s Bench in Richardson, I got there late and at the very back of the line. By the time I got close enough to actually see Turco, a rep came over and told us that everyone from the guy 5 spots in front of me and back would be cut off due to time restrictions. Marty overheard this, stopped signing, looked up and yelled out to let us stay and he’d finish the 20 or so people that were left. That’s the kind of guy Marty was. He wasn’t an egotistical maniac like LeBron has become, he never acted like he was forced into signing autographs. He was just Marty being Marty. It’s a shame more people never got to see that side of him.

It will be weird not seeing him lead the team out on the ice for warmups. My season seats are in 101 so I always got a chance to watch Marty’s pre-game on ice ritual. He’d do the same exact routine and stretches to the beat of the Pantera Dallas Stars theme song.

As much as fans who didn’t fully understand the sport hated it, his puck handling skills are going to be sorely missed.

Marty got a bad rap and misplaced blame most of the time. He is still a good goalie and I will miss him. He will go on and win a cup. I Would almost guarantee it if he signs with Philly. #35 will be missed. How he complete stood on his head for a team that couldn’t score and when they did not more than one in 07. Good luck Marty!

I have been reading this blog for nearly 2 seasons at least once a day often quite more frequently than that. My appreciation and frustration for the years of Turco as goalie are the muse that serve as my first post.

Prior to the 2006-2007 season the stars had a season ticket holder event where you could bring your own camera, stand with your favorite players and someone who worked for the stars would take your picture. All the players were sitting on these really high seats taller than bar stools so that when people were standing there heads would be level with the players. I unfortunately am in a wheelchair so in almost all the photos my head is at about the knee level of all the players. My best friend and I get through all the various combinations of players (lines and defensive pairings) with about 10 minutes left in the event my buddy and I get to the final line of the day the goalies. The people working the event had actually started to pull the line closed and we talked them into letting us and about 3 other people in so we could get all the players that day. I get in line to get my picture taken with Marty Turco and Mike Smith, (let me remind you these players have been here for over 3 hours taking HUNDREDS if not THOUSANDS of pictures) I give my camera to the woman taking the photo and Marty Turco and Mike Smith each get down from the chair and bend on one knee so that their head is level with mine. The woman takes the picture and I don’t notice this nor does my friend Marty Turco points out “I think your finger was over the flash”. I quickly go “its not a big deal its a digital camera I can just adjust it on my computer” Marty replies we will get it right for you lets take it again.

I’ve been a season ticket holder since the end of the lockout (it was the first year I had a job and could buy a plan) and a hockey fan since the glory days of Reunion arena. I too agree that my memories of Belfour are vague and seemingly a product of the years of highlights from those playoff runs of the late 90s and early millennium. I have met many pro athletes across the years through my charity work with the MDA. While Marty may have never won a Stanley Cup with Dallas that memory will outlast any that I have from the ’99 team.

The memories he gave me are probably that of most of you in the ‘08 playoff run but before I go into that I’d like to call your attention to 2007. I don’t know the stats, but I’m willing to bet there isn’t a goalie with 3 shutouts in one series and was still eliminated. The guy was lights out and his team just couldn’t score for him. I sincerely feel we missed out on a Cup in ‘07 had the game 7 gone the other way. Unstoppable. I now turn your attention to ’08. During that playoff run I think I went to 7 games altogether. My first favorite memory was when they were about to lose to the Ducks, a loose puck goes to the middle boards with Teemu Selanne chasing and Marty comes out of the net to check him into the boards. And now we go to round 2 game 6. I sat in the first row behind the Sharks bench heckling the Sharks coach all night. At one point I received a text from my then girlfriend watching me on tv that said "You’re embarassing me" I didn’t care, in the words of David Puddy “You gotta support the team”. Regardless, a buddy was sitting next to me who is a huge Sharks fan so we were having a blast talking noise back and forth. 3rd period ends tied 1-1 of course. Of course, the first overtime period gives us The Great Richards Robbery of 2008 in which Nabby snags a shot from out of position straight out of the air. And then it happens, Marty’s gorgeous double save that single handedly made my heart stop, I’m sweating, and with a single twist of the body and a swept leg and a paddle save later, Marty brought my heart back to beating. Fast forward, to the fourth overtime period. Around 5 minutes in my buddy looks and me and says “next power play wins” and I couldn’t have agreed more. And then it happened. Sharks take a penalty and Stars go on the job. One minute in as I’m watching the Stars take the zone I watch Mo pass to Ribs and I immediately see Robi open at the mid board and everything goes to slow motion. I feel my heart race and my palms get sweaty and I watch Ribs put a lazer on Robi’s tape, and then in even slower motion watch it go to Morrow and then it’s as if an eternity passes between Morrow’s shot and the goal horn goes off. I’d say I jumped out of my seat but I hadn’t sat down the entire over time, glorious confetti streams from the rafters, and my Dallas Stars are in the Western Conference Finals. Normally, when me and my best friend are at a regular season game, the winner always makes fun of the loser. But tonight that wasn’t the case. It was a handshake and a “good game, man, win or lose I’m lucky to have been a part of it.” I stay and watch all the interviews and the handshakes and two handshakes stuck out to me the most. That of Mo and Roenick, and of course the very last, Nabby and Marty. With looks of shear exhaustion and utmost respect as to say they both won that night no matter what the scoreboard said. And as we’re walking out of the AAC with everybody screaming their heads off, I look back at the arena and got kinda sad. I knew, that at 24, I’d already seen the most exciting sporting event that I will ever go to in my entire life. I was just glad that Marty, Mo, and Jere were all there to witness it with me.. And now, sports cry.