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Five Minutes With the Dallas Stars’ Mike Modano

FRISCO - Mike Modano reported to his first NHL training camp in autumn 1988 in Kalamazoo, Mich., home of the Minnesota North Stars’ farm club.

Next week, camp No. 21 will get underway and include a field trip to Central Texas to help kick off the Stars’ new affiliate in Cedar Park. This week, most of the players are participating in voluntary workouts.

The NHL career goals and scoring leader among American players, Modano turned 39 over the summer and decided to at least finish out his current contract, take another run at a Stanley Cup now more than a decade since that late night in Buffalo, and maybe make a fourth trip to the Olympics.

Modano sat down for brief interrogation earlier this week:

What do you remember about your first training camp?

How tough camps used to be back in the day. Two-a-day practices; we’re on at nine, and we’re on at three. There were no CBA rules back then about how many hours they could keep you. There were three- to four-hour practices and scrimmages.

Were the veterans hard on you and the other rookies?

They were real hard on you. Didn’t let you slide on anything at all.

Did they make you buy dinner?

No, they knew you didn’t have money. They were going to make you pay in other areas.

After the Stars failed to make the playoffs last April, you said you needed to go off to the beach to decide about your future and later announced your return. Did it happen like that?

It kind of comes and goes in cycles. I think sometimes I feel good, where I’m excited about it. Some other days, I feel like it’s tougher to get motivated than I thought it would be. But once you start training and working out, then you really feel it’s hard to keep it at such a high level when you get older. Skating and working out and what we used to do to keep up with the type of workouts I used to do – it doesn’t happen anymore. That kind of brings you down to reality to ponder things a little bit more. But I think once you get into a rhythm and you get here and you get through camp, everything kind of settles in.

Was it a situation where the Stars awaited you saying you’d play this season or they assumed you would unless you said otherwise?

I think they assumed I was coming back. That would be a big, hard, long decision if I was going to end it right then and there. I hadn’t really talked to a lot of people at the time. When I did, people said play as long as you want. But there’s going to come a time when I don’t feel as good out there and I don’t feel as productive and consistent. When that reality sets in, then it’s going to be an easy decision.

Is it a year-to-year decision now?

I don’t know. It’s hard to say. I’m obviously going to get through this year and see what happens, how I feel. My contract will be up, so I don’t know what they’ll have planned for me here. It’s a little different circumstance when you have a contract.

You go from playing for one former teammate, Brett Hull, to another, Joe Nieuwendyk, in the G.M.’s office. Do those arrangements prove awkward in any way or easy to just move ahead?

It’s real easy to move ahead, have conversations with those guys, communication, talks on the phone. You’re not too apprehensive about what they’re going to say on the phone and if they’re going to give you the cold shoulder because they feel like they need to be management, keep that distance. It hasn’t been the case with Joe or Brett. We’re too old to try to go into those types of circumstances.

Did you go to the beach?

Went to a few beaches. I find that’s a good way to get away and relax and rest. I think the longer I’m at beaches, it’s harder to leave and come back to reality. I could very easily pack up and move there.