Stanley sip: Ailing Nevada Power executive honored

Monday, Aug. 27, 2001 | 11:08 a.m.

Ever since the late 1930s, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis -- a disease that has no cure -- has had an unusual association with the sports world.

That's when Hall of Fame baseball star Lou Gehrig contracted the disease and it became commonly known as "Lou Gehrig's disease."

Today ALS is draining the life from my friend, Steve Rigazio. And on Friday in Las Vegas, the disease and the world of sports met again.

Rigazio, the former president of Nevada Power Co. and an avid ice hockey fan, learned about two years ago that he had contracted ALS after a nagging muscle ache he picked up in a recreational hockey game wouldn't go away.

Doctors still don't know what causes ALS, a progressive degeneration of motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord, but they know most people who have it only live about 2 1/2 years after they are diagnosed. Patients in the latter stages of the disease can become paralyzed, yet the minds of most afflicted people are unaffected.

Rigazio, who retired from Nevada Power June 1 -- the day before the 60th anniversary of Gehrig's death -- still consults with his colleagues at the utility company, going into the office once or twice a week. But Rigazio the sports fan always has time to talk hockey.

During the Stanley Cup playoffs in June, Rigazio dazzled me with his encyclopedic knowledge of the National Hockey League and his predictions that the Colorado Avalanche would be the team to beat.

Rigazio, a Chicago Blackhawks fan, was happy that Colorado won the Cup because some of the players that he has followed for years -- Ray Borque and Rob Blake, particularly -- finally got to hoist the trophy before their fans in Denver and drink champagne from it in the winner's locker room.

The Stanley Cup has often been called the most prestigious trophy in pro sports and it has its own lore, with every player and coach on the winning team getting to spend 24 hours with the hardware before the next season begins. So far this year, Avalanche players and coaches have taken it on a cruise on Vancouver Bay, to a windshield factory in Hawkesbury, Ontario, and to the top of Mount Elbert, Colorado's tallest peak.

The Cup is named for Lord Stanley of Preston, a former governor general of Canada. In 1892, he bought a small gold-plated bowl from a London silversmith and awarded it to the best hockey team in Canada. Ever since, it has been awarded to the team that wins the NHL playoffs.

In one of his conversations with me, Rigazio shared that he had never seen the Cup, but he knew all the stories about it and how the names of all of hockey's greatest players are engraved on its sides.

When I wrote a letter to Pierre LaCroix, president and general manager of the Avalanche to ask if the Cup was going to be anywhere close to Las Vegas, I had no expectations. After all, it had never been to the city before as far as I knew.

But then a series of remarkable coincidences unfolded. LaCroix is a new resident of Lake Las Vegas. And, with his stint with the Cup, he wanted to have a reception for his new neighbors at the SouthShore Golf Club. So, when LaCroix and the staff at Lake Las Vegas planned the event, Rigazio was invited as a special guest.

Rigazio arrived ahead of the crowd and made his way up the red-carpeted entry to a rotunda in the front of the clubhouse Friday afternoon. On a pedestal in the center of the room atop a National Hockey League banner sat the Cup.

"There wasn't anybody here when I first came through the door," Rigazio said of the magical moment when he first saw the trophy. "And I thought, 'Gee, maybe I ought to just grab it and go out the door.'

"There's something about it that just attracts you to it. It's the most famous single trophy in all of sports and it's just remarkable how it's gone from player to player and team to team over the years. And then I remembered Ray Borque skating around the arena with it after Colorado won it."

Borque, the oldest active player to hoist the Cup, had spent most of his career with the Boston Bruins before being traded to the Avalanche in the 1999-2000 season, a move many fans hoped would give one of hockey's most popular players a chance to get his name on the Cup. After this year's victory by the Avalanche, Borque announced his retirement from the game.

Rigazio's wife, Annette, at home with the flu, listened to some of LaCroix's tribute to her husband by phone. Rigazio and his two children dined with LaCroix and the Avalanche coaching staff, including Hall of Famer Bryan Trottier.

"His name is on the Cup four times," Rigazio said with the awe of a true fan.

As the reception hall filled with people wanting to get a close-up look at the sports curiosity, Rigazio found the names of the 1960-61 Blackhawks team, which won the Cup when he was about 6, and he also sought out the name of Wayne Gretzky, hockey's greatest player.

Then LaCroix surprised Rigazio with an honor usually reserved only for players. Giving Rigazio a locker room cap like the ones players wore after their dramatic 3-1 Game 7 victory over the New Jersey Devils in Denver's Pepsi Center, LaCroix poured a bottle of champagne into the Cup and helped him drink from its bowl.

Even LaCroix, a gracious host who posed for pictures with his neighbors and the trophy throughout the reception, was choked with emotion when introducing his special guest.

And Rigazio, who in 1999 helped incorporate a foundation to build awareness, finance research and give financial aid to ALS patients who can't afford it, expressed his appreciation to the team for his time with the Cup before the 100 guests.

The foundation, Nevadans for Prevention of ALS, also donates a portion of the money it raises to the ALS Association Nevada Chapter, which supports about 200 Clark County residents who have the disease. None of the proceeds goes for the treatment of Rigazio, who maintains the same positive outlook he had when he first learned he had the disease.

Mike Bolt, one of the four Hockey Hall of Fame "keepers of the Cup" that stay with it in its travels, said it was a moving tribute with the trophy, which next heads for Europe and a tour of the Czech Republic, Sweden, Finland and Switzerland, another place it has never been.

For Rigazio, it was a memorable day that he felt lucky to be a part of, a reflection not unlike that of Lou Gehrig when he addressed thousands of fans in Yankee Stadium on July 4, 1939.

"Fans, for the past two weeks, you have been reading about the bad break I got," said Gehrig, whose record of playing in 2,130 games in succession was broken by Cal Ripken Jr. of the Baltimore Orioles in 1995.

"Yet today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth," Gehrig said. "I have been in ballparks for 17 years and have never received anything but kindness from you fans. Look at these grand men. Which of you wouldn't consider it the highlight of his career just to associate with them for even one day?"

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