'You don't want to have any regrets': Ben Bishop reflects on NHL career

Ben Bishop wiped the memories from his eyes Tuesday.
There were a lot of them.
There was the move to Frisco in high school to jump start his hockey career with the Texas Tornado.
Getting drafted by his hometown St. Louis Blues and making his NHL debut in their colors.

There was a run through Ottawa and Tampa and Dallas that brought a ton of great games and some haughty trophy talk.
There were the teammates lined up in the back of the press conference, his wife and children standing close buy, his good friend Rick Bowness shedding just as many teers as Bishop.
There were his parents, who traveled down to Cedar Park last week to see his final game.
Bishop on Tuesday said his body won't allow him to play any more NHL games. The meter will stop at 413 regular-season games and 52 more in the playoffs. He's been a finalist for the Vezina Trophy three times and will step away with a 2.32 goals-against average and .921 save percentage.
That's high cotton.
Bishop is 35, he's had a nice run and he understands this was coming. But that doesn't make it any easier.
Asked when he made peace with the decision, he smiled and said, "I don't know if I have yet."

It was that kind of day. Bishop was able to go through the process of saying goodbye to his career, but not his friends. It was just one more step in what has become a two-year process. The 6-foot-7 goalie said he started to have some knee pain in the 2019-20 season and decided to just fight through it. He had a couple surgeries and then tried to test his knee in the Edmonton bubble. The unique environment in which the NHL playoffs were confined to a small area didn't allow him to really explore the best medical specialists, and that probably made a bad situation worse.
Then, when he came back last season, the knee was still a problem. He pushed it and rehabbed and pushed it some more, but it didn't respond. This year, he had a good run during training camp and had been practicing regularly with the team. Last week, he decided to test it in a minor-league game.
He allowed eight goals and his knee was swollen after the game. It was a clear sign that the run was over.
On one hand, it was a punch in the gut. On the other, it was a relief. In the middle, he knew he had done everything he could to continue playing.
"If I was a forward, I could be playing. But with the butterfly and torque you put on your knee, I couldn't really get better," he said. "But in the end, it just wasn't meant to be."
Bishop's efforts were worth it, he said. His thanked the doctors, the trainers, the coaches and his teammates for allowing him the process. In the end, he said, he knows he did everything he could.
"You don't want to have any regrets," said Bowness. "He did everything he could to get back on the ice, and I think that's important. Life goes on, and we all have to retire at some point, and there's a big mental part of that to know I did all that I could."
Bowness was an assistant coach with the Tampa Bay Lightning and helped Bishop get to the Stanley Cup Final. The two have a bond, with Bishop saying Bowness is almost like a father to him, and Bowness saying that Bishop being in Dallas was a big reason he came to the Stars. In the end, the goalie had a huge fan in the coach.
"I love Bish," Bowness said. "When he's on, he's top three in the league. I have nothing but respect for his ability and for him as a person."

Bishop said he'd like to pursue a career in hockey. He has another year left on his contract, and said he expects to still be around the team as much as possible. He's a leader in the locker room, and he's definitely an important part of the goalie group. Second-year NHL goalie Jake Oettinger said he's learned a great deal from Bishop, and the veteran played the same role in Tampa with eventual Vezina Trophy winner Andre Vasilevskiy.
"That's character," Bowness said. "That's the team-comes-first attitude. That's what it is. I think it also shows the confidence he has in his own abilities. He knows he can help these guys and they're going to have to be really good to take his job. He's an elite goaltender. That just shows what kind of teammate he is."
On Tuesday, it was clear how much "team" means to Bishop. Asked what his best memories were, he said, "all the great friendships, all the great people, players, coaches staff." He added that things he'll miss are riding on the plane, having a few cold ones after a game, the locker room, even practices.
It was a wonderful celebration of a wonderful career.
"You want to win the Stanley Cup. That's why you play this game," Bishop said when asked if he was happy with his accomplishments. "To be so close and not get there, I think that's tough. But when I think about how I was a junior in high school, came down to Frisco to try to make a team and try to win the starting job. It wasn't one of those things where you grow up thinking you're going to play in the NHL. It just kind of all happened. So I'm pretty satisfied, as far as the path that I took. I think there's some satisfaction, but you want to win the Stanley Cup. I guess I'll have to try to find a different way to win that now."
This story was not subject to the approval of the National Hockey League or Dallas Stars Hockey Club.
Mike Heikais a Senior Staff Writer for DallasStars.com and has covered the Stars since 1994. Follow him on Twitter @MikeHeika.