The Jan. 7 announcement of Team Canada’s Olympic roster felt a lot like NHL trade deadline day. On that day, when the clock strikes midnight, the seemingly endless talk about possible NHL trades comes to a screeching halt. Yesterday the same happened with the 24/7 chatter about who will make Team Canada. With the NHL trade deadline, we can focus solely on the remaining regular season playoff races and then the playoffs themselves as 16 teams battle for the Stanley Cup. With our Canadian Olympic team, we can finally now focus on the business of winning our first Olympic hockey gold medal outside of North American since NHL players joined the Games in 1998.
Hockey USA’s efforts to emulate our obsession in Canada suffered a major hiccup when they allowed their behind-the-scenes discussions to be reported by a respected hockey journalist. This resulted in the Brian Burke “roasting” of some of Bobby Ryan’s hockey makeup, even though Burke selected him second overall in the 2005 NHL Entry Draft when he was with Anaheim. Try as they may, there is nothing comparable in the United States (or anywhere else in the hockey world) to the minute-by-minute daily debate millions of Canadian hockey fans are capable of.
In a column in December, I made some predictions for the makeup of the Canadian team, much of it with a good degree of “inside” knowledge. Big mistake, it seemed, and I learned through social media that hell hath no fury like a fan scorned. Usually my columns trigger friendly banter: this one incurred scathing rebuke of my apparently total lack of hockey knowledge and all round general incompetence. Particularly singled out for criticism: my contention there was a very good chance that one of Ryan Getzlaf or Corey Perry wouldn’t be on the final roster. Since Getzlaf and Perry went on to seemingly rack up three points in each subsequent game, I did feel the need to sit alone by myself for two minutes.
As well, give P.K. Subban credit for his excellent play and for the selection committee for not ignoring the obvious. Even though he was the reigning Norris Trophy winner, he was very much on the bubble. The other obvious evolvement was the realization that the chemistry of Chris Kunitz with Sidney Crosby was just too good to pass up. It just makes sense to provide Canada’s greatest hockey player the best opportunity possible to excel on the world stage.
As that combination remains intact, another is broken up: Mike Richards of Los Angeles was always in the grey area, but he, Jonathan Toews and Rick Nash were the one trio of players from unrelated teams that developed some real chemistry in Vancouver four years ago.
They’re all tough calls, really, but I give Steve Yzerman all kinds of credit for the unbiased manner in which he handled perhaps the toughest: the Martin St. Louis situation. Four years ago, three of Yzerman’s final cuts were Tampa Bay players (St. Louis, Steven Stamkos and Vinny Lecavalier), and they were made just a few months before Yzerman took over the Lightning’s front office. Give the classy St. Louis credit for going out and scoring two goals in a big 4-2 Lightning win over the Winnipeg Jets just hours after his Olympic snub. He might be old enough to find comfort with his exclusion knowing that Yzerman the player might have been the highest profile NHL player in recent history to endure the type of snubs that he did by not being included on the Team Canada roster in both 1987 and 1991 for the Canada Cup tournament.
But the feeling is—as it always is—that it will still come down to goaltending. Regardless of the perception that Team Canada won Gold in 2010 “in spite of” Luongo’s play, the fact was he did play well enough to win the Gold Medal. The USA’s Ryan Miller was the best goaltender in the tournament, but the often-maligned Luongo was strong between Canada’s pipes. Whether Luongo will take the reins again this year is very much up in the air, but I would give the job to Price.
Either way, the speculation is done. The team is set, and Canada can get down to what it does even better than debate the roster: cheer for its team. For two weeks all Canadians can set NHL allegiances aside and cheer for the likes of Crosby, Tavares, Doughty, Toews, Sharp and Stamkos as their favourites. I’ll be cheering from the moment the puck drops. And, like the rest of Canada, I’ll be quietly hoping it doesn’t come to another Golden Goal. We could all do without that pressure.