Dominik Hašek was riding his mountain bike in Pardubice in early July when he got a shocking phone call.

"My agent told me he would connect me with Ken Holland, general manager of the Red Wings. ... I was so shocked that I almost fell off the bike," Hašek said.

Holland had called to offer the 41-year-old hockey great a place in the Red Wings' goal. The call brought Hašek, who has won six Vezin Trophies for best goalie in the NHL in his 14-year career and was widely considered the best goaltender in the world in the late 1990s, out of forced retirement.

In May, the Ottawa Senators, the team Hašek had played with for the past two seasons, did not renew his contract. Though Hašek said he wouldn't play for any other team, Holland's offer was just too good to resist.

"It's true that I insisted that I wouldn't play anywhere else but in Ottawa," Hašek said. "After the Senators' elimination from the Stanley Cup, I told my agent that if he received some offers from other clubs, he could politely reject them immediately."

"At that point, though," he said, "Detroit was not at stake. I've got special feelings for the Red Wings, and I knew from the very beginning that it was a fantastic offer."

Hašek spent one of the best seasons of his NHL career with the Red Wings in 2002, winning his only Stanley Cup. His goal is to get another one.

"I'll be working hard to get in the best possible shape," he said.

It's clear that the Red Wings are expecting a lot out of him.

"Dom seems very committed and very excited about an opportunity to come back to Detroit and to try to help our team win a Stanley Cup," Holland recently told the Associated Press.

Comeback kid

This isn't Hašek's only comeback in his long career. In 1990, he joined the NHL as a star European goalie, carrying three World Championship best goalie awards.

Yet his European achievements didn't carry much weight in the NHL. As a backup to the famous Ed Belfour of the Chicago Blackhawks, Hašek didn't get much playing time in his first two seasons and was traded to the Buffalo Sabres in 1992.

Hašek became a hockey legend, however, after almost single-handedly carrying the Czech Republic to a surprising gold medal at the 1998 Olympics in Nagano, Japan. But right at the top of his career, Hašek announced in July 1999 that the next season would be his last.

"I know that you should never say never, but my decision is serious, and I don't think I'll change my mind in a year," he then said at a news conference. Hašek explained that he wanted his children to grow up in their homeland, and that he needed a break from all the attention he was getting in America.

Hašek called off his retirement after repeated groin injuries kept him from playing a full season that year.

"When I made that decision, I didn't know I wouldn't be able to play for half the season," he said then.

Then, after winning the Stanley Cup with the Red Wings in 2002, Hašek announced another retirement.

"The Stanley Cup was the biggest motivation for me; it was the ultimate force driving me. I wouldn't be able to perform on the same level without it," he said, insisting that he would never put on his equipment again. "Maybe, I'll put it on when I'm showing the kids something."

A year later, Hašek said he was ready to play again and joined the Senators. But another groin injury during the Winter Olympics in Turin in February has kept him out of the lineup ever since.

The Senators said Hašek's fragile health was behind their decision not to renew his contract.

Now, Hašek says he's fit and ready to enter his 15th NHL season.