At 43 years, 253 days and counting, Chelios spends four hours a day vacuum-sealed to preserve freshness.
Since Mark Messier retired, Chris Chelios is the oldest guy in the league. The Traverse City
Record Eagle notes that he even has seniority over his new coach Mike Babcock (42). Maybe most surprisingly, he's now also the oldest Red Wing in team history, passing
Gordie Howe, who was a young 43 when he played his last game as a Red Wing in '70-'71.
(Howe, of course, played pro hockey for another decade after that, incredibly leading the 1978 WHA Whalers in scoring as a 50-year-old. He even reappeared in the NHL when the leagues merged the following year. Let's forget the purely ceremonial shift he skated with the Detroit Vipers in 1997.)
Chelios is famous for his dedication to off-season conditioning, but at a certain point they just stop making parts for these old models. Consider this: in Chelios's
rookie year, Ilya Kovalchuk was born. Ronald Reagan was still serving his first Presidential term. When Chelios won his first Norris Trophy, he was already a five-year veteran. The next month,
Seinfeld premiered.