Arnott recalls Cup-winning goal for Devils, 'craziest memories' from 2000

Jason Arnott went to the eye doctor in Dallas on Thursday expecting to get his vision tested.

Little did he know he'd be playfully insulted too.
"When he recognized me, he called me, well, not a nice word," the retired NHL center said with a laugh. "He was joking, thankfully."
The doctor is a longtime Dallas Stars fan. With one look at Arnott, he identified his patient as the player who scored the Stanley Cup-winning goal for the New Jersey Devils against the Stars in the second overtime of Game 6 of the 2000 Final on June 10, 2000.
"He told me, 'You broke my heart in 2000, but at least you live here and love it here now,'" Arnott said. "We had a laugh about it.
"I actually get a lot of that here. It's fun."
Wednesday is the 20th anniversary of Arnott's goal in Dallas that gave the Devils a 2-1 victory and the second of their three Stanley Cup championships (1995, 2003).
Two decades later, Arnott's goal is revered by Devils fans and has not been forgotten by Stars fans, who would cheer for Arnott two seasons later when he was traded to Dallas, where he played from 2002-06.
It's a moment he will never forget, nor will his teammates and family members, who all have stories to tell from that night.
For Arnott, it took a flick of his wrists to live a moment he'd so often fantasized about as a child in Wasaga Beach, Ontario, a vacation town 90 miles north of Toronto.
"When you're a kid growing up in your basement, every time you take a shot on the net, you're like, 'Overtime, I just scored the Cup winner,'" he said. "I probably did that a zillion times as a kid.
"It's the highlight of my career. It's awesome because it's something they can't take away from me. It's really cool. It'll be with me forever, and I'll be etched in the history of the NHL."

A Stanley Cup-clinching goal has been scored in the second overtime or later six times in NHL history. Mush Marsh of the Chicago Black Hawks (1934, 10:05 of second overtime), Pete Babando of the Detroit Red Wings (1950, 8:31 of second overtime), Uwe Krupp of the Colorado Avalanche (1996, 4:31 of third overtime), Brett Hull of the Stars (1999, 14:51 of third overtime) and Alec Martinez of the Los Angeles Kings (2014, 14:43 of second overtime) are the others to do it.
"That in itself shows you how rare it is," said then-Devils general manager Lou Lamoriello, now the GM of the New York Islanders. "You couldn't score a bigger goal than Jason did."
Arnott said the fact that he lives in Dallas only adds to the story.
Arnott had 938 points (417 goals, 521 assists) in 1,244 NHL games with the Devils, Stars, Edmonton Oilers, Nashville Predators, Washington Capitals and St. Louis Blues. When he retired in 2013, he decided to make his permanent home in the Lakewood district of Dallas, less than 8 miles from where Reunion Arena, where he scored his famous goal, once stood. The Stars moved to American Airlines Center in 2001, and Reunion Arena was demolished eight years later.
"It's pretty crazy," he said. "There's a park and some parking lots where it used to be. The difference is, they've torn down that rink now and so you don't get the same feeling driving by the new rink."
Arnott's son Chase, 15, and daughter Lola, 10, had not been born when he scored the Cup winner. He said Chase understands the significance of his dad's feat after watching it repeatedly on YouTube.
"Lola is starting to, too," he said. "The girls at her school tell her what I did and who I am, and she'll go 'What? I knew he played hockey but …' It's because their parents watched hockey. So she's getting more of the gist of it."

There are reminders of the goal throughout the house too -- photos, souvenirs, even the stick and puck he used to score the biggest goal of his career. Sometimes when he's working out on the stationary bike, he'll start watching the highlights.
Cue the tears.
"My wife Dina will walk in, take a look at my eyes that have welled up, and ask what the heck is going on," he said. "I'll tell her I'm watching our video and she'll say 'OK, I get it now.' She gets it. She understands.
"I mean, it's hard to believe it's been 20 years. I'm getting goosebumps right now just talking about it."
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Bill Arnott, Jason's dad, didn't see his son's historic goal. He was in the bathroom at the time.
"He heard my mom yell and came running out," Arnott said. "Then they went bananas."
Bill and Eileen Arnott watched Game 6 at their home in Wasaga Beach. They'd been in New Jersey for the Devils' 1-0 triple-overtime loss in Game 5 two days earlier and figured they were bad luck.
"I told them after the loss I was arranging flights for Game 6 to Dallas for them," Jason said, "and [my mom] said 'No, we're not going. We're going back home. I sat in my chair at home for Game 4 and you won, so I'm going to sit in it again for Game 6 and not move.'"
She didn't. Until her son scored.
"My mom gets excited when a shot goes wide, so you can imagine her reaction when that goal went in," Jason's older brother, Wade, said with a chuckle.
Wade Arnott, who has been a player agent with Newport Sports for more than two decades, was in Dallas that night and is quick to point out how defenseman Scott Stevens started the play that led to the goal.
"It was kind of an innocent play, I just shot the puck into the far corner," Stevens said. "Patrik Elias got the puck and made a blind backhand pass to Jason in front. Suddenly it was in."
Arnott said the subsequent seconds were a blur.
"The most common question I get asked is what it felt like," he said. "Well, it all happened so fast. You don't really realize it until guys are jumping on you.
"All you are thinking about is, 'Oh man, we just won the Stanley Cup.' It wasn't until I was sitting there watching guys skate around the rink with it that I realized that, wow, I scored the Cup winner. I really did that."
It was a thrill he shared with his brother in the chaotic dressing room.
"Because he'd scored the goal, he was the first guy they gave the Cup to drink out of," Wade Arnott said. "He immediately pulled me over so we could do it together. I have a photo of it in my office.
"Every year we have clients, I have clients, at least one, that will win the Stanley Cup. I'd go to their celebration if invited but said I'd never drink out of the Cup. It wasn't my place. I always said if a family member wins, that's the only way I'd drink out of the Cup. And here I got to do it. That was my highlight."

It would not be the only memorable moment in the dressing room.
A short time later, professional wrestler Bill Goldberg, all 6-foot-4, 285 pounds of him, joined the party. Arnott said teammates began calling for Stevens to have a flex-off with Goldberg.
"Suddenly Goldberg rips his shirt off and there they were, standing and flexing," Jason Arnott said. "It was hilarious. You didn't usually see that side of Scotty at the rink."

Arnott lived with Stevens and his family when he was traded to the Devils by the Oilers during the 1997-98 season, and the two maintain a close relationship to this day. They enjoyed hunting and fishing and became friends quickly.
"He'd watch Disney movies with my daughter Kara, who was 3 at the time," Stevens said. "She'd call him her boyfriend. When Dina, his girlfriend then and now his wife, would come over, Kara would tell her it was time for her to go home. It was so cute.
"It was so great to see Jason score. He deserved it."
After the dressing-room party ended, Arnott and several teammates brought the Cup to the hospital to celebrate with forward Petr Sykora, who was being treated for a head injury sustained in the first period.
"We wanted to share it with him," Arnott said. "He couldn't drink champagne because of the concussion so we put orange juice in it."
Lamoriello said the gesture impressed him but he wasn't surprised.
"When I went to the reunion of that 2000 team in New Jersey this year (Feb. 1), the guys and their families were acting like they were as close as when they played," he said. "It was a special team."
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When is a Stanley Cup parade not a Stanley Cup parade?
When the Stanley Cup is not on hand.
"That almost happened to us," Jason Arnott said. "It's one of my craziest memories of my days with the Cup."
The month after his championship-winning goal, Arnott was scheduled to have the Cup for a celebration in Wasaga Beach July 12 and 13.
"The trouble was, the Cup had been in the Czech Republic with Sykora and Elias, and got delayed at one of the connections at one of the airports on the way back," said Mike Bolt, one of the Hockey Hall of Fame supervisors who traveled with the Cup. "I think it got caught up in a conveyer belt or something."
The delay meant that Cup would not be on hand for the parade, which was scheduled for mid-morning July 12.
The Arnotts called the NHL, and a solution was reached. They could use what Bolt calls the secondary Cup, the one that is normally displayed at the Hall of Fame.
"It's not the one that is awarded on the ice, but at least they had one for the parade until the other one arrived," Bolt said.
Once the arrangements had been made, Arnott left Wasaga Beach at 5 a.m. to pick up the secondary Cup. Five hours later, it was part of a parade attended by thousands of people who were none the wiser.
"One of my friend's dads was a cop, so we got into his car, he put the cherries (red lights) on, and we zipped down to the Hall to get it," he said. "I think a trip that took usually took over an hour to get down there lasted 30 minutes. By 8 a.m., it was in Wasaga at my house.
"It was the first time they let someone use the [secondary] Cup."

Other than the Stanley Cup, of course, Arnott said one of the real stars of the festivities was a car known as the Arnie Mobile.
"My buddy Rob Perkins had an older [car] and he was thinking of getting a new one," Arnott said. "He said, '[Forget] that, let's cut the roof off and paint it up New Jersey Devils, and every time Arnie's playing we'll drive it around. That'll be the Arnie Mobile and the Devil Mobile.' They did that, and it just so happened we won. And it led the parade."
The presentation Cup eventually arrived from Europe and was brought to Wasaga Beach. Arnott, accompanied by family and friends, took it out on Georgian Bay and stood on a sand bar holding it over his head.
"That was so cool," he said. "I remember Mike [Bolt] putting a life preserver over the Cup while we were in the boat to ensure its safety."
Perhaps the most bizarre incident with the Cup came during the afternoon of July 13. Hundreds of people had come to Arnott's backyard for a photo with the trophy when someone on a jet ski came to a stop on the Nottawasaga River, where Arnott's home was located.

"The guy yells out, 'Devils [stink], [Toronto Maple] Leafs rule,'" Arnott said. "And the Cup is just sitting there. He could see it. I think the whole party just kind of stopped and said, 'What?'
"You're always going to get haters. Especially there. It's so Maple Leafs crazy it's unbelievable."
Twenty years later, it's one of the memories that makes Arnott laugh, just like seeing replays of the goal makes him cry. It's all part of what made the experience so special.
And still does.
"Here's the thing," he said. "Just because it's the 20th anniversary doesn't mean I'll have a special toast to it on that day. That's because I kind of drink a toast to it and celebrate it year-round.
"That's how much it means to me. And always will."