DETROIT -- The teen-ager has gone missing again.

He's not in his room, he's not out playing, he's nowhere to be found. And this is a problem, because the Red Wings equipment staff is hungry.

Hungry, yet unable to eat -- they can't go to lunch until the rookie reappears.

They need his sweat-soaked practice jersey, among other things, and, quite honestly, they need to turn the lights out and lock the doors.

Today's practice has been over for nearly two hours and the rookie is the lone holdout, the veterans having scrambled out the door into the crisp, sunny late-October afternoon long ago.

Fifteen minutes pass, and still no sign. An imaginary time limit comes and goes. A peewee hockey team already has taken the ice for its mid-afternoon practice. And still, the rookie remains a ghost.

Fifteen more minutes and finally someone sighs, "OK, enough. Time's up."

And off he goes, in search of Jiri Fischer.

They find him in the weight room, of course.

It's where he's been since before he was a teenager: on the ice or in the weight room. There, he sheepishly admits, is where he loses track of time, where he thinks and learns and wonders while he works.

"Right now," he laughs, "I can't imagine not going to the gym."

This is no ordinary teenager. Ask him, the coach says.

"Ask him where he learned to work like that," says Dave Lewis, the Wings' associate coach. "I've been meaning to ask him myself."

So, what about it, Jiri?

"My father taught me," says Fischer, a Czech-born defenseman who, at 19, has managed to land a three-year, $2.925-million contract and a spot in the Wings' veteran starting lineup this fall. "That's probably the part of my hockey that I'm most proud of. My dad, when I was little, maybe 8 or 9 years old, his philosophy was that you have to do more to be better than the other one if you have as much talent as he does."

And if you have more talent, not to mention Fischer's considerable size at 6-foot-5 and 225 pounds, well, then, the sky's the limit.

Adds Lewis: "I look at Jiri, and he's got nothing but upside." The father, also named Jiri, saw that, too. One day -- and the son remembers this vividly -- he was sitting at the kitchen table eating while his father read the newspaper. An article caught the father's eye, something about someone looking for young hockey players. "I was 5 years old, and I had no idea what was going on," Fischer says. "But my father asked me if I wanted to play hockey, and I said, 'Sure.' I mean, I was only five, so what did I know? I would probably beat myself up now if I had said no then."

The son's next memory is of his first time on ice, wobbly-kneed and barely able to stand next to his father despite wearing double-bladed skates.

"He was just holding my hand dragging me all over the ice, and I was like, 'Ok, whatever,'" Fischer laughs now. "I was the worst. But then I started to learn, and it was awesome."

His father had rules, however: "Every day, until you are 16, I'm gonna push you," he told his son. "After 16, do whatever you want."

Daily workouts included squats and push-ups and, sometimes when the son balked, "I couldn't watch TV," the son says.

"He pushed me so hard," says Fischer, whose mother, Vera, played professional basketball in the Czech Elite League. "But I'm extremely happy. Now, working hard, I enjoy it. I go through a practice, I know I'm gonna almost puke, but I'm happy. That's thanks to my dad."

And to the thanks of his coaches.

"For a kid that age, to have the work habits that he has, it's just incredible," says Lewis, who coaches the Wings' defensemen, and hasn't been able to keep Fischer out of the lineup. "That was the first thing that I noticed about Jiri."

Maybe the second thing, actually. The first thing anyone notices is Fischer's size, a direct result of genetics -- his father, also 6-5, doesn't exactly tower over Vera, while Jiri's sister, at 6-1, plays professional basketball in Germany. (Fischer's parents' appearance in the Wings' dressing room Tuesday -- they're in town for a two-week visit -- prompted one teammate to chuckle: "Fe Fi Fo Fum.")

And then there's the physique, which is, of course, a direct result of the countless hours in the weight room. It's impressive enough that some of his new teammates are feeling a little self-conscious. Aaron Ward, who offered to let Fischer stay with him and his wife during the rookie's first month in Detroit, jokingly banned Fischer from walking around the house bare-chested.

"Most of my career, I was a little bigger than the other guys," says Fischer, a product of the same junior hockey team (Poldi Kladno) that once featured Jaromir Jagr. "But that can't stop you from working hard."

Slowly, the Wings' staff is reigning in that enthusiasm.

"Sometimes," trainer John Wharton admits, "we have to slow him down a little bit." The NHL season is long -- a 10-month grind if all goes well -- and more than capable of outlasting a rookie, even this one.

"I'm starting to realize that a day off doesn't help you the next day," Fischer says, "but it helps you in the long run." Learning, always learning. Education continues

The education of Jiri Fischer is never-ending.

With Ward's help, he found an apartment last week, got a driver's license, bought a new truck, acquired a cell phone -- and a new computer arrived Wednesday.

During training camp in Traverse City, when teammates headed to the golf course after practice, Fischer was off to the public library looking for an internet connection to stay in touch with friends and family back home in the Czech Republic. But he quickly discovered that his typing skills were lacking.

"I sat down at the computer and started typing, one at a time, you know? 'Where is the other one? Where is it?'" Fischer says, laughing. "And then this girl beside me, she was chatting with somebody, and she wrote in one minute more than I did in 10 minutes. She was banging away on the keyboard and I was like, 'You've got to be kidding me.' It was unbelievable. That's not fair.

"I'm learning. Hopefully, one day I'll be able to look at the screen and type. We'll see."

Other skills, he already has mastered, such as driving in Detroit. (Even if he did get lost -- a bit embarrassing with his parents on board -- on his way to practice the other day.)

"Actually, I don't mind driving at all," Fischer says. "Sometimes I like to jump in the car and just look for new places. It makes me relax. It lets me think about something else than just hockey because as much as you like it, you have to take breaks sometimes."

Ward, a few years removed from his rookie season, has helped with that. Early on, he and a group of the Wings -- seven couples in all -- took Fischer to the Lions' home opener.

"I was the only rookie there," Fischer says. "I thought it was special that I could be there. I would never guess that they would actually take me out. I really appreciated it."

The next morning, Ward made another gesture.

"He came up to me and said, 'Hey Jiri, I just talked to my wife last night and if you want to you can stay at my place while you get settled.' I was like, 'Wow, is he kidding? What's going on?'"

Says Ward: "I just remember how difficult it was for me, living in a hotel when I first started." Fischer knew that Darren McCarty had done the same for rookie Stacy Roest the year before. And that Paul Coffey had hosted Mathieu Dandenault when he was a 19-year-old rookie back in 1995.

"But I never expected anybody to come up to me before I'd even signed," says Fischer, who didn't hammer out his new contract -- complete with a $1.1 million signing bonus -- until a few days before the regular season began. "I was just a regular player, another rookie in the training camp who was fighting for a spot. Since then, I've felt much more positive about everything."

And it shows. Fischer's play has been a bright spot early in the Wings' season. Two seasons with Hull in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League have helped refine a raw talent that had the Wings, according to General Manager Ken Holland, doing "cartwheels" when Fischer slipped from a top-15 pick to Detroit's slot at No. 25 in last year's entry draft. Says Holland: "He's almost the complete package."

In training camp, Scotty Bowman quickly compared the rookie to one of his former players, a Hall of Famer: "He looks a little bit like a Larry Robinson-type. He's big and strong and thinks a good game." Says Lewis: "Scotty doesn't throw out bouquets like that. It's a great compliment." Surprising success

One not taken lightly, either.

"I didn't feel, honestly, that I could make this team so soon," admits Fischer, who scored 22 goals and made the All-Star team last year for Hull. "I was fortunate this year, it's almost unbelievable. It's just awesome. I just keep looking around and shaking my head."

To his left is Nicklas Lidstrom, a two-time Norris Trophy finalist. Next to him is Larry Murphy, who, the Wings veterans' discovered in conversation at the Lions' game, is something of a father figure.

"(Steve) Duchesne was talking about how he's been playing for 14 years," Fischer says, "and I was like, 'Yeah, but Murph, he was playing even before I was born.'"

Everyone turned and looked at him funny.

"It doesn't sound like much, 'Ok, he's 19,'" Fischer continues. "But I mean, he's got more NHL experience than I've been alive. That's a lot."

Murphy, in his 20th NHL season, chuckles at the comparison: "I don't like him at all."

It's hard not to: An inquisitive nature, a willingness to learn, and a surprising sarcastic wit that has kept the Wards laughing at the breakfast table the past month.

Fischer's handle of the language is surprising, too, the result of lessons with an eccentric old fellow in Quebec who taught his 13 pet birds to speak French while he taught Fischer to speak English.

"He's not one of those guys that sits back and doesn't say anything," Ward, 26, says of Fischer. "He's involved, he's funny. It's weird, but I already consider him a friend. I just have to constantly remind myself that he's 19 years old."

So does Fischer, apparently. Already, Fischer has been shocked by the instant celebrity a Wings jersey affords in this town.

"He was kind of taken aback at how much attention you get," Ward said. "But, I mean, he has no interest in living 'the lifestyle,' you know?"

Not at all, in fact.

"I came back from Old Navy with three pairs of pants for $33," says Ward, "and when he heard that ... he was all over it. We packed the 'kid' in the car and off we went."

Says Fischer: "Those are just awesome clothes. I don't know how long they last, but I bought pants for $12. Awesome."

He is not, mind you, a child of bread lines and poverty. Hardly. His family lives comfortably in the Czech Republic -- Jiri was born in Horovice and raised in a town of Beroun, near Prague, where his parents and grandparents still live. "A nice house with a big garden, all the flowers, lots of trees, fresh fruit in the fall. It's just beautiful."

But he is concerned about what money can do to a person. Fischer plans to buy his parents a new car in Beroun, but says he'll keep the old one, and drive that when he returns home next summer. He doesn't want his friends to think he's left them for Hollywood.

"People back home would always tell me, 'Don't change.'" Fischer says. "I suppose I knew what they meant, but I always wondered why they thought I would. I'm not going to change. I have no reason to change.

"No matter what you make, you don't want too spend much. I don't want to buy fancy things, like the most expensive clothes -- you don't have to have Versace or Armani jeans. I mean, I'm still single, but I don't have to show off. There's no reason for that. You just try to stay simple." This is what the rookie has learned so far.

"I just want to fit in," Fischer says, nodding his own approval, "that's all."