In the Spotlight: Little ball of hate?
Whether it is the NHL or the FLW Tour, Pat Verbeek is a major league competitor
Current home: Dallas, Texas
Birthplace: Sarnia, Ontario
Favorite fishing spot: Lake St. Clair. Also enjoys fishing Lake Fork and Lake Ray Roberts in Texas and Apache Lake in Arizona.
Largest bass ever caught: 11.65 pounds (largemouth) at Lake Ray Roberts near Aubrey, Texas.
Largest bass that got away: 10-pound largemouth. “After I set the hook, it tore off to the left and then tore off to the right. Finally, it danced on the water for a second then went left again and my lure went right. I was just sick after that.”
Career highlights: Ranks in the top 10 in career goals among active NHL players with 515.
Played in two All-Star Games: 1991 and 1996.
Won the Stanley Cup with the Dallas Stars during the 1998-1999 season.
Fourth player to reach 500 goals in Detroit.
Hockey traits: Tenacity, grit and occasional nastiness.
Current NHL team: Signed as a free agent with Dallas in 2001.
_________________________________________
After talking with Pat Verbeek, you’d never guess that his nickname is “Little Ball of Hate” or that the 5-foot, 9-inch 37-year-old from Sarnia, Ontario, holds the somewhat dubious honor of being the only NHL player with 500 goals and more than 2,500 penalty minutes.
Make no mistake, despite his laidback disposition, Verbeek is a fierce competitor – on and off the ice. His competitive nature may stem from being the oldest of four boys, who all played hockey, or from the strong work ethic instilled in him while growing up on the family farm. For whatever reason, Verbeek only knows one speed when it comes to competition – and that’s wide open.
Sports writers describe the Detroit Red Wings forward as tenacious, the kind of player who will drive the net, throw a few elbows if necessary and let loose a pretty good slap shot when the opportunity presents itself. He is by all accounts a gritty player who built a 19-year career in the NHL on being a pest and a scorer. In fact, he is the only player in NHL history to lead a team in goals scored and penalty minutes, which is an honor he earned with the New Jersey Devils and Hartford Whalers during the 1989 through 1991 seasons.
On March 22, 2000, Verbeek celebrated a milestone in his unlikely career as a blue-collar battler. His second goal of the night not only gave the Red Wings a 2-2 tie with Calgary, it also earned him a place in NHL lore as only the 28th player to reach 500 career goals.
At home on ice or water
Verbeek’s competitive nature is matched only by his love of fishing. And while he is a somewhat less accomplished angler than he is a hockey player, he knows how to put fish in the boat. Just ask pro Terry Segraves of Kissimmee, Fla., who fished with Verbeek on day two of the 2001 Forrest Wood Open on Lake St. Clair near Detroit.
After a disappointing opening day during which he caught only one smallmouth weighing 2 pounds, 1 ounce, Verbeek matched Segraves’ limit weighing 13 pounds, 8 ounces on day two and earned a respectable 49th place finish in the Co-Angler Division.
“It was a lot of fun,” said Verbeek, who admits that he was a regular at local Tuesday night tournaments during his tenure with the Dallas Stars from 1996 to 1999.
But how does a veteran right wing for the Red Wings go from scoring two goals in an upset playoff series loss to the Los Angeles Kings in April to fishing the Forrest Wood Open on Lake St. Clair in June? “Don Stevens (of Otsego, Mich.) got me curious, and I decided to give it a shot,” Verbeek says with a smile that belies his fiercely competitive nature.
To really understand how Verbeek was swept off the family farm into the NHL and eventually to the Wal-Mart FLW Tour, however, requires a deeper look into his past.
“Brian Marchment really got me started fishing when I was with the Hartford Whalers,” Verbeek confesses. “In Connecticut everyone fishes for trout, but no one fishes for bass. We would just pick different lakes around the state and try them out.”
Verbeek didn’t fish much as a child except for an occasional outing with his uncle.
“We were so busy growing up on the farm that dad didn’t have time to take us,” he says. “Now that I have my own boat though, I take him, and he has an absolute ball.”
Over the years the Verbeek family farm grew from a couple of barns on 300 acres into a sprawling 2,000-acre pork operation. And it is the life lessons learned while watering pigs as a 5-year-old and running a milling machine at 7 that Verbeek credits with his success today.
“One of the greatest things I learned from my parents was work ethic,” he says. “When dad wanted something done, it was done right.”
Overcoming adversity
Verbeek took the family philosophy that things had to be done right or not at all with him in 1982 when, at 18, he got his NHL start with the New Jersey Devils. Even then, after making it to the big leagues, he returned to the family farm to help plant crops during the off-season. It’s something that he says he has always enjoyed doing. But in May of 1985, the same farm that helped start his NHL career almost ended it.
While operating a corn-planting machine, Verbeek severed his left thumb.
“It just about ended my hockey career,” he says. “My brother drove me to the hospital, and it was very scary for the first 72 hours. I thought to myself that I finally made it to the NHL, and this is how it’s going to end.”
Fortunately, surgery to reattach his thumb was a success and Verbeek’s career thrived.
“Every kids dream, especially in Canada, is to make it to the NHL,” he says. “And once you get there, your life-long dream is to win the Stanley Cup. Anything less is an extreme disappointment.”
Distinguished career
Verbeek played seven seasons with the Devils before playing with the Whalers for five and a half seasons and the New York Rangers for one and a half seasons. Finally during his third season with the Dallas Stars in 1999 Verbeek realized his “life long dream” by helping his team win the Stanley Cup.
He says, without hesitation, that winning the cup is the highlight of his NHL career.
“One of the coolest things about winning is having your name engraved on the cup. It’s your legacy. To look at the names of all the great players that have come before is a special feeling.”
Verbeek signed with the Red Wings following his championship season in Dallas and played for Detroit through the 2000-2001 season. Because his contract with the Detroit ran out at the end of last season, the tenacious right wing was without a team for most of the summer. However, just a few weeks ago, Verbeek signed a free-agent contract that brought him back to the Dallas Stars for yet another shot at the Stanley Cup. Once again, Verbeek found a home in the NHL.
It’s a long and winding route, but one that put Verbeek in the right city at the right time to indulge his passion for fishing and step into the world of professional bass angling, even if just for a single event.
Asked to draw a parallel between his experiences on the ice and fishing, Verbeek says: “Believe it or not, I think it’s the competitiveness. That’s what I love about it. Some of the elements are out of your control, but you have to fight through and adjust. The same thing is true on the ice.”
It shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone who has seen him play that Verbeek describes his fishing style as “pretty aggressive.” He enjoys fishing tubebaits, spinnerbaits and jerkbaits, and he lists a Strike King spinnerbait and Strike King series 1 crankbait as his favorite lures.
As for the species that attracts most of his attention, Verbeek says: “Largemouths are fun, but smallmouths are a whole different animal. They let you know when they are hooked, and you can be aggressive with them.”
There’s that word again-aggressive. It comes up a lot when talking with or about Verbeek. Perhaps uncompromising or driven are more descriptive. Whatever your choice of terminology, the point is that Verbeek continually strives to be the best, be it hockey or fishing. He is particularly keen on honing his skills when bragging rights are on the line with fishing buddies Robert Tucker and Ben Wilson in Texas and Stevens in Michigan.
“Last summer my wife and I went to Dallas and fished with a buddy of mine,” Verbeek fondly recalls about a trip to Lake Ray Roberts near Aubrey, Texas, during which he caught the biggest bass of his life. “It was my first double-digit bass, and it weighed 11.65 pounds. I’ve had a lot of big fish hooked, but that one was huge.”
During another memorable outing, Verbeek lost a bass that weighed over 10 pounds.
“After I set the hook, it tore off to the left and then tore off to the right,” he says. “Finally, it danced on the water for a second then went left again and my lure went right. I was just sick after that.”
While his fans may prefer to think of Verbeek as a hard-nosed hockey player with a penchant for nastiness, he is, in fact, a likable family man. Verbeek and his wife, Dianne, have four girls and a boy: Georganne, 3; Haley, 6; Kendall, 8; Stephanie, 10; and Kyle, 12. And the entire family fishes – during the off-season of course.
“I think the look on a child’s face when they hook something that is trying to pull them in the water is the greatest thing for a parent to see.”
Pretty sensitive words from the “Little Ball of Hate.”