THN ARCHIVE: David Backes epitomized what a St. Louis Blues captain was; nobody would know it if you knew him off the ice

Those that covered David Backes' hockey life, you'd think he was the big, bad bodyguard you'd meet at the front door checking your ID at the nightlife establishment.

He was big, bruising, menacing, powerful, willing to sacrifice, lead by example, take punishment, yet skillful enough to impact hockey games for the St. Louis Blues. 

From 2011-16, opponents knew who was the Blues' fearless leader. He wore No. 42, all 6-foot-3, 215 pounds of him that would crush you in the corners with precision body checks, stand in front of the net knowing punishment would grapple his body for the chance at redirecting pucks, tips, knocking in loose pucks and when the chance presented itself, powered his way to the net and beat you with his precise wrister.

Nicknamed 'Captain America,' Backes spent 10 seasons in St. Louis and was named 21st captain in franchise history, taking over for the departed Eric Brewer, making it as far as the Western Conference Final once in 2016 but leading the Blues to the Stanley Cup Playoffs in each of his five seasons as captain.

But off the ice, you wouldn't know it when Backes steps away from the rink. 

In this cover story from THN’s April 2, 2012 edition – Vol. 65 Issue 21 – Ken Campbell chronicles the life of a man that didn't live the high life; he wasn't the NHL's ordinary captain.

(And remember – for full access to this issue, as well as THN’s exclusive 76-year Archive, you can subscribe to the magazine.)

CAPTAIN UNDERDOG

Vol. 65, No. 21, April 2, 2012

By Ken Campbell

You would be amazed at what I picked up today,” David Backes was saying after a recent road trip. “After being gone for eight days with four dogs that sh–– twice a day in the backyard, there were at least five shovelfuls and I have a big spade shovel.”

Bet you never thought you’d read something like that in The Hockey News. Of course, you probably thought you’d never be reading about Backes, the biggest NHL star nobody talks about, either. But both he and the St. Louis Blues have made it impossible for us to continue ignoring them. The Blues are just too darn good and Backes is just too good a story.

Let’s start with Backes. First of all, he’s the kind of guy who really annoys the living daylights out of us regular schmoes. Captain of the Blues pulling down $4.5 million a season? We’re good with that. But did he really have to marry the girl he met in kindergarten, where both their mothers were in the Parent-Teacher Association? (Westwood Elementary School, Miss Bergerson’s Class of ’89.) What’s up with the 4.0 grade point average three years running in electrical engineering at Minnesota State-Mankato? Oh yeah, and he just got his pilot’s license, which came in handy recently when he flew 700 miles from St. Louis to Houston to rescue three dogs. He’s extremely well-spoken and he looks like a clean-cut version of freakin’ Gerard Butler. And he’s unwavering in his basic Christian values, but not in a wacko-religious-right sort of way.

Yes, Backes is perfect, almost. Makes you wonder why the former Kelly Knapp waited until senior year at Spring Lake Park High School in Blaine, Minn., to start dating him. Must have had something to do with the fact that in high school, Kelly was taller than Backes and he was, well, kind of a nerd. Not in the big-glasses-and-pocket-protector sort of way, but he was one of those guys who excelled in sports while completing the first two years of university-level calculus before finishing high school. Once he got to Mankato, while his teammates were experiencing the perks of being big jocks on campus, Backes could often be found in the library with his fellow engineering students trying to untangle math problems. Backes and Knapp were captains of the boys’ and girls’ team at Spring Lake Park during their senior year and a relationship that started with Play-Doh in kindergarten developed into an enduring love affair. “David was a late bloomer, maybe that was it,” said 5-foot-9 Kelly. “I didn’t want to date a guy who was shorter than me. To be honest, in high school, he was better known for the academics part than the athletics part.”

That didn’t stop Backes from slowly and patiently developing into one of the NHL’s premier two-way power forwards with the Blues. One scout who watched Backes play with the Lincoln Stars of the United States League during his draft year in 2003 remarked he had canary legs. The legs, as well as the rest of him, have bulked up to a 6-foot-3, 225-pound beast of a player, one who has enough skill to stickhandle past defensemen and enough brawn to run over them. On a team bereft of star talent, Backes has emerged as the emotional and on-ice leader of one of the best, most surprising teams in the league.

Coach Ken Hitchcock leans heavily upon Backes, playing him in all situations. His shutdown game is among the best for a player with a decent amount of offensive skill and he’s a terrific bodychecker, both in the open ice and along the walls. He can play center or right wing and has a level of hockey sense that matches his determination. Although he gets a little too aggressive at times and takes himself out of the play, he is not fun to play against.

And neither are the Blues, who have vaulted their way up the standings to elite status. It’s rarified air for a team that has not won a playoff series in a decade, has qualified just once for the post-season in the past six years and not long ago was teetering on bankruptcy. The Blues were 6-7-0 and in 14th place in the Western Conference when Hitchcock replaced Davis Payne as coach in early November, but had moved to the top of the conference by March and have all the makings of a team primed for a long playoff run. Goalie Jaroslav Halak is beginning to look like he did in Montreal circa 2010, the dynamic defense corps has rounded into shape and, buoyed by the return of Andy McDonald and the play of guys like Backes, the Blues look an awful lot like they’re back.

And Backes has an awful lot to do with that. After posting a career-high 31 goals and 62 points last season, he’ll likely experience an offensive dip this year. But you don’t get points for standing in the dirtiest area of the ice and screening the goalie, nor do the stats reflect a guy’s efforts to shut down the other team’s star or give his own team energy with a big bodycheck. “He’s a perfect example of, ‘Do you want to get points or do you want to win hockey games?’” Hitchcock said. “I don’t think David is ever going to be one of those 90-point guys, but he’s going to get important goals, important points. He’s going to be able to do that his whole life with his competitive nature. He’s a good player in big games for us.”

HE’LL GET IMPORTANT GOALS HIS WHOLE LIFE. HE’S GOOD IN BIG GAMES– KEN HITCHCOCK

And the numbers bear that out. Even though Backes was on pace for lower scoring totals, eight of his 21 goals put the Blues ahead at one point in the game, the best mark on the team. He also led the team with five first goals of the game, two shorthanded tallies and seven power play markers. His four goals that put the Blues ahead to stay was tied for tops, too.

Backes also heads up David’s Dogs, which is not to be confused with what the Blues were coming out of the gate this season. It’s an initiative Backes has undertaken with the Five Acres Animal Shelter in suburban St. Charles, Mo., in conjunction with the team, but that’s only a small part of the story. It’s not uncommon for a high-profile athlete to stroke a few checks or be an honorary chairman and do PSAs for a charitable effort. And those are all good things. But Backes and his wife go beyond – way, way, beyond – that. It’s one thing for the host of the The Price is Right to advise everyone to get your pet spayed or neutered. It’s quite another to rescue a stray pregnant Boxer, section off a part of the basement for her to give birth, then rush her to the vet when the first of 12 puppies gets stuck and spend the better part of the next hour assisting a C-section by pulling puppies out of amniotic sacs, removing fluid from their mouths and clearing their airways – and then take all 12 puppies and the mother back home and keep them until permanent owners could be found.

Backes later said that might have been one of the coolest things he has ever done. And emotional. You get the sense it’s pretty simple to tug at Backes’ heartstrings. Kelly calls him her soulmate and confidant and can’t believe she found someone in the sandbox in kindergarten who would grow up to be as passionate about life as she is. “I’m a big softy,” Backes said. “I cry at movies and weddings and all that stuff. But that’s sappy stuff we don’t like to admit as big, tough hockey players.”

And this kind of stuff is routine for Backes. During the all-star break, he used the time off to combine a training flight with a dog rescue in Houston, picking up three and delivering them to the Five Acres shelter where they were adopted in no time. Apparently people like the thought of adopting a dog that was rescued by the captain of the Blues, particularly since he often goes in person to check out the adoptive home to make sure it’s suitable.

Backes had a dog and a goldfish growing up in Minnesota, but began to develop a passion for disenfranchised animals after he Kelly began dating. There has to be some karma at work in that he plays in Missouri, which has the ignominious distinction of being the puppy mill capital of the world. Thousands of puppies are bred in those mills, where they live primarily in wire cages that barely allow them to move. Any time a dog is in heat, a stud is brought in with the objective of producing as many puppies as quickly as possible. The ones that don’t die are funneled through to pet stores, which buy them from the mills and sell them at a profit. The dogs, meanwhile, are often disease-ridden and unhealthy. Cages can be stacked one on top of each other, so the feces and the urine either falls on the ground or on the dog underneath.

I CRY AT MOVIES AND WEDDINGS. BUT THAT’S SAPPY STUFF HOCKEY PLAYERS DON’T ADMIT

Five Acres does what it can by being a “no kill” shelter, meaning it will keep an animal in the shelter for as long as it takes to find a suitable owner. But it can’t prevent euthanasia days elsewhere in St. Louis, which occur at noon every Tuesday and Thursday. Those are the days the other shelters in the city choose which dogs will live and which will perish and be cremated. It’s estimated 20,000 dogs a year in St. Louis and about four million across the U.S. die from this process. Five Acres takes in as many as it can from other shelters that euthanize their extra dogs, but you get the sense Backes and his wife want to save them all.

When Five Acres executive director Kim Brown pulls 10 dogs from the city’s animal control and saves them from death, nobody really cares. But when Backes and his wife fly to Houston to rescue three dogs, it gives the shelter a voice that goes far and wide. And all the better when the star of the show wants to do much more than smile for the camera. “David and Kelly both get in the trenches and get their hands dirty,” Brown said. “To go on a puppy mill rescue or to go to a facility that has to euthanize animals and walk through and pick what five dogs you can bring back that day is a tough thing to do and they’ve both done it.”

Perhaps it’s a Midwestern thing, or a Minnesota thing, or even a Blaine thing. But Backes has a soft spot for disenfranchised and abused animals. The way Backes sees it, it’s easy to fall in love with a Labrador puppy whose fur has been primped up, but that doesn’t leave much room for those with broken limbs, hair so matted down around their mouths they can’t eat properly and issues trusting any human being because all they’ve known all their lives is abuse and neglect. That’s how the Backes household ended up with four dogs and two cats. But we’re not supposed to tell anyone because a local by-law mandates a homeowner can’t have any more than three dogs.

But tell that to Bebe, a beagle Kelly rescued from a mill while Bebe was pregnant with six puppies, three of which died at birth. Tell Bebe you’re only allowed to have three dogs in your house. Backes is obviously willing to take that chance with the authorities.

Bebe is joined by Rodney, a Rottweiler who was tied to a tree outside a motorcycle gang house for five years; and Marty, a Pit Bull/Lab mix who was wandering the streets of East St. Louis, Ill., (Google “Hell on Earth” to find it) with brucellosis, TVT cancer, a broken back and broken leg; and Rosey, a Shar-Pei/Boxer/Pit Bull mix, the 13th of 12 dogs whose lives were being spared at a shelter. Once they got her checked out, they learned she had intestinal parasites, cracked ribs and a broken back leg. In case that wasn’t enough, they also own two rescued cats, one of which has 24 toes, which Backes claims is two short of the world record. Currently they have two puppies in foster care in their home and are nursing them until they’re healthy enough to be brought to the shelter for adoption. “We’ve probably had about 20 foster dogs that have successfully been in and out of our house,” Backes said. “We have four that failed miserably and they’re with us forever.”

Backes, meanwhile, continues along with the surprising Blues on their quest to win their first Stanley Cup. Two years ago at the Olympics in Vancouver, the world finally got a glimpse of what the power forward was all about. To be sure, media from around the continent came away impressed with this hidden gem in St. Louis. In Vancouver, he played on Team USA’s fourth line with Anaheim’s Bobby Ryan and Rangers captain Ryan Callahan. We’re guessing those guys won’t be pulling fourth-line duty in Sochi in 2014 if the NHL continues to send its players to the Olympics. By then, Backes will be 29 and in the prime of his career.

He’s enjoying the good times now, though. The Blues are not a glamorous outfit by any stretch of the imagination. Like the Boston Bruins did last year with their garish jacket, the Blues have a “weenie hat,” which is basically a hat with a giant hot dog on top. The player deemed the hardest working contributor in a victory must wear it on television for postgame interviews. Fittingly, Backes was the first to earn it this season. “I relished it and really embraced it,” Backes said. (Insert rimshot here.)

Whether it’s wearing a hot dog or being the champion of the underdog, the Blues alpha dog is comfortable doing it. Whether he can lead the Blues to a Stanley Cup remains to be seen, but it won’t be for a lack of trying.

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