Jim Kelley

Jim Kelley writes regularly on the NHL for Sportsnet.ca and can be heard on Primetime Sports on the FAN590.

There is much discussion across the land as to which of Canada's many hockey greats should be the one to light the cauldron and open the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver.

The debate usually centres around names like Wayne Gretzky, Bobby Orr, Gordie Howe and whatever living legend is still drawing breath and can handle the lifting of the torch or whatever over-the-top spectacle the organizers might dream up (see the Summer Games in China as having pushed the bar passed human comprehension in that regard).

Why is the public perception so certain it should be a hockey player?

If it was up to me I'd have the whole lot of Canada's hockey greats and a great many others -- perhaps less famous but no less worthy -- in a procession that would rekindle the memory of "from failing hands we pass the torch." I'd dismiss the poorly thought out argument that someone like Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Steve Yzerman and even Orr should be dismissed because they either live full time in the United States or have taken out American citizenship (lest we forget, newly minted American citizen Martin Brodeur is still the best bet to start in goal for Canada and you simply can't find a better example of what it means to be a Canadian-born and trained hockey player in the game today).

But at the end of that line, I don't see it as mandatory that Canada brings forth a hockey player. The Olympics have been corrupted at a number of levels, including politics, money and advertising, pros taking the place of amateurs and a certain smugness that somehow the International Olympic Committee is about something other than money and profit.

That gets more difficult to put aside pretty much every time the Games get underway, but at the heart of this endeavour was the idea that people mattered and that people, especially young people, could, through sports, have an impact on the world as we know it with an idea that would carry the hope of change and the promise of a better world, maybe even for people who can't begin to match their athletic excellence.

With that in mind I'd go with the family of Terry Fox, a family that keeps alive the idea that sport, at some level, is for everyone and that the hope that sport can instill in people is still important and that their son did his absolute best - under the most difficult of circumstances -- to spread that message across the country and around the world. The message was simple: a Marathon of Hope is a never-ending run.

True, Terry Fox was unable to complete his quest of running from coast to coast on hope and an artificial limb, but he completed his mission of inspiring us all and, in ways we didn't quite understand some 30 years ago, provided us with a flickering flame of hope that will never die.

As someone who views Canada, and hockey, from both sides of a border, Fox has been an inspiration not just to Canadians or even North Americans, but to the millions around the world who still believe that one person, through sports or whatever means best works for him or her, can make a difference.

I love hockey and feel blessed to have seen many of the greatest players ever to play the game play to the best of their ability and on the grandest stages in the world, but I've never been moved closer to believing that there is always hope for everyone than I have by the efforts of Terry Fox.

It would be a fitting tribute indeed if Canada and the people running the Vancouver Games could find a way to recognize that.

BALLARD PUNISHMENT

Many of my colleagues in the writing and broadcasting fields have gone deep on Florida's Keith Ballard, calling for a multi-game suspension or some form of supplementary discipline for his thoughtless, careless and sooooooooooo-typical-hockey-culture hit to the head of his own teammate, goaltender Tomas Vokoun.

I get it. I can't truly argue they are wrong. Careless use of the stick is something that cannot nor should not be overlooked even if it took place in rather unusual circumstances.

I also can't argue that this goes on all too often in hockey, open displays of frustration that are totally unnecessary (and sometimes totally self-serving) and they should be stopped.

But I also subscribe to the theory that the punishment should fit the crime and though that's not always the case in the National Hockey League, director of hockey operations Colin Campbell has administered some real justice here even though he chooses not to suspend or even fine Ballard.

What he did do, however, is put a focus on this action like none other. It's an issue, a big issue and it's been alive in the media and in the conversation of fans for days that are likely to run into weeks.

In most of those discussions Ballard is being termed an "idiot" or worse. The clip is replayed constantly on highlight shows. It will be on YouTube long after Ballard takes his last breath and it will be on those year-end highlight reels, "The Top 100 Stupid Plays in Sport: Final 10 Coming Up" that will be played well into the 22nd century.

That's a pretty heavy price to pay, one that I'm not certain that Ballard, by all accounts a decent young man, will ever be able to fully shoulder.

Ballard is the face of failure in the NHL right now and likely will be for a long time to come. People will also tag him with words like fool, idiot and moron, and no matter how many great things he does on and off the ice he's likely never to escape that.

Unintentional as it might have been, it happened and, like Marty McSorley's high stick on Donald Brashear, and Todd Bertuzzi's takedown of Steve Moore, it will haunt Ballard forever.

BLACKHAWKS BACKLASH

There's no new ground being plowed in the announcement that the Chicago Blackhawks have signed three of their young standouts, Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews and Duncan Keith, to long-term contracts. The challenge for Blackhawks general manager Stan Bowman is keeping a good team around his newly designated core.

It's not an easy task; it's darn near impossible (as we've seen by what the Detroit Red Wings and Pittsburgh Penguins have had to do to keep their rosters viable in the wake of committing so much cap space to so few players).

Most teams are opting to secure the core long-term and then run what is close to a revolving door for talent the rest of the way, playing kids sometimes before they are ready and hiring veterans at the back end of their careers (and salary requests) to balance out the roster.

It's a delicate balance and from what we've seen from this salary cap format since it's moved beyond its formative years, it's not always doable. The long-term contract to New York Islanders goalie Rick DiPietro has pretty much proven itself to be a mistake and one the Islanders will be struggling with for years.

There are other teams - and the Edmonton Oilers and Buffalo Sabres come to mind - where the jury is still out and the hopes that the young players that received the long-term commitments will carry the team to success aren't necessarily a given just yet and may prove not to be.

Bowman's problems are even more intense given that the Hawks had committed megasums to players like Brian Campbell, Marian Hossa and Cristobal Huet before he even took the job and those seem more like handcuffs than heroes right now.

To paraphrase from the movie Chinatown "It's the system, Jake." Bowman is just the latest GM who has to deal with it.

It won't be an easy task.