There have been other significant figures in the Coyotes’ 23-year Valley history – franchise-saving ownership groups, an always-quotable GM, iconic captains, two Jack Adams Award-winning coaches and a host of key players. Most of them will be at Gila River Arena on Feb. 24 to watch as the most significant Coyotes player in franchise history is properly fêted.
Shane Doan will have his number retired before the Coyotes game against the Winnipeg Jets — the first player to have his jersey retired by the Coyotes organization. He will also join Bobby Hull, Dale Hawerchuk, Thomas Steen, Keith Tkachuk, Jeremy Roenick and Teppo Numminen in the team’s ring of honor. The Athletic is running a special series titled “19 Days of Doan” to honor the longtime captain. We’ve collected stories, anecdotes and tributes from all of the groups mentioned above. On Day 3, Martin Hanzal is dealing.
Shane Doan cut his card-playing teeth in games of Hearts on team flights with the likes of Keith Tkachuk and Jeremy Roenick.
“We played $5 a point and it can get away from you in a hurry,” Doan said. “This one time on the way from Phoenix to Dallas, I did unbelievable. I was up big time and I’m thinking, ‘I’ve got this figured out.’
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“Then on the way home from Dallas, I lost everything and twice as much.”
As Doan’s seniority grew, so did his knowledge base, but the players who had defined the franchise moved on, so he had to find a new playing partner. Along came Martin Hanzal, an intimidating presence who had played his junior hockey in Doan’s native Alberta (Red Deer) and wore a tattoo of playing cards on his arm.
“I got first choice and I figured if you’re going to put a tattoo of gambling on your arm, you’ve got to be pretty good,” Doan said, laughing. “It was a great theory.”
Before Doan could settle in with Hanzal, he also had to adjust to the new generation’s game, Spades, but the concepts were similar so he mastered it quickly. Hanzal said that in the seven or eight years he partnered with Doan, the pair took full advantage of their teammates.
“He was one of the best card players I ever played with,” Hanzal said. “We were just stealing the other guys’ money for a long time.”
One of their favorite victims? Goalie Mike Smith.
“Smitty would get so mad at us because he lost David Moss as a partner and him and Mosser were pretty good,” Doan said. “After that, it was a rotation of partners for him and that just wasn’t fair.”
Doan said he and Hanzal developed chemistry quickly.
“You get so much better if you have been playing for a long time so it’s a huge advantage, anyway,” Doan said. “It’s like playing bridge with your grandma. She’s going to beat you. That’s just the way it is.
“When you play with the same guy long enough, you figure out the way he’ll play and he figured out how I would play. We could read off each other. You never want to play against guys who have played together a while. They’ll beat you badly.”
Doan labeled Hanzal a card shark, but Hanzal dismissed the label.
“Shane’s really smart,” Hanzal said. “He was always counting cards. So was I, but he always figured out in his head the best possible moves and he was really good at it. Shane was always leading the way. In those years, I learned to play from him. I learned a lot from him and nobody could ever beat us.
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“I don’t know how much money we won. It could be thousands of dollars. We never lost.”
There are many things Doan enjoyed about his hockey playing days. Card games are one benefit his wife, Andrea, remembers.
“That’s the one of thing my wife misses,” Doan said. “I always had cash when I’d come home from road trips.”
(Photo of Shane Doan and Martin Hanzal in April 2017: Joe Camporeale / USA Today Sports)