Nick "The Perfect Human" Lidstrom retires
 

The guy is a hockey legend but more than that, he epitomized class and humility and earned the description as the perfect human. He was a winner on the ice and well known for being an absolute gentleman off the ice. I am not a big Detroit Red Wings fan but I feel for their loss because hockey will probably not see another guy like Nik Lidstrom.

Lidstrom announces retirement after 20 NHL seasons

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I only got to see him play occasionally, when The Wings were on a 'regional TV game', but he was a helluva skater and player. Still a closet Red Wings fan here, as I grew up watching them...good art. PNG/K...thanks.
BR, mD

We are going to miss him tremendously here in Detroit!! A shoe-in for the Hall of Fame.

Wow. Happy Retirement to a legend. :bow:

I haven't watched his retirement speech yet but supposedly he took the time to thank people who ran the rink, like the guy who takes care of the ice. Classy to the end. Pro athletes like him are rare and even "regular" people like him are rare. If you get the chance to catch the episode of "NHL 36" where cameras follow a NHL player for 36 hours, the one on Lidstrom is very good.

20 years of never missing the playoffs, 4 Stanley Cups, 8 Norris Trophies, a plus-450 rating - the guy is a stud... and I'm a Canucks fan.

On the local news one of the sports reporters asked the Wings head coach, Mike Babcock, to say something bad about Nick (since everyone was talking up about how Nick could do no wrong). Babcock got a puzzled look on his face as he paused for about 5 seconds (an eternity of dead air) and then said something like "well....there was this one time during practice a couple years ago where he made one bad pass out of the defensive end..." - classic!

Awesome....