SASKATOON – There were two boards erected in the room where Steve Yzerman and his management team met with coach Mike Babcock to make the final decision on the 23-man Canadian Olympic hockey team.
On one board listed the names of the players of the first Canadian to win gold in 50 years at the 2002 Salt Lake Olympic Winter Games. On the other was the line-up of the team they picked for Torino 2006 which finished seventh.
In there somewhere was the story of what happened here Wednesday. There was no puff of white smoke emerging from the Worldfest site when it was over. But when 13 TV networks left the air after an hour-long production to announce Canada's hockey team to the Vancouver 2010 there was hope that Steve Yzerman, Canada's new Olympic Pope of Puck, had picked a pack of perfect players.
Those boards were the final focus of picking the team introduced to the nation here Monday.
Is it possible for Canada to pick a bad team?
They obviously did four years ago.
“We thought about it a lot,” said Yzerman when it was all over and the room had cleared of fans. “We looked back at '02 and '06 and examined what was different. This didn't work and why. We kept looking at every area, line combinations, defensive pairings, penalty killing and faceoffs and asking ourselves 'What don't we have?'”
Management committee member Ken Holland said Yzerman made great use of Kevin Lowe, Wayne Gretzky's right hand man in both those Olympics, and returning assistant coach Ken Hitchcock.
“The experience of Lowe and Hitchcock had a real impact of why we had success and then didn't have success,” said Holland.
“We put that '02 team up against that '06 team.”
Lowe said there were a lot of differences in picking this team this time around.
“There was more involvement from the coaching staff that previously,” he said. “There was much more discussion about line combinations, defensive twosomes and faceoff guys than in previous years.”
If the problem four years ago was that they picked players who were too old and especially too slow on defence, they took care of that with 15 first-time Olympians including one, defenceman Drew Doughty, in his sophomore season.
There are some obvious points of contention here.
There are four San Jose Sharks who have a history of not getting it done when it matters most, including ex-Ottawa Senator Dany Heatley who, when announced, brought out some boos.
“That's a fair statement,” said Lowe, who said they put a lot of attention on the playoffs and thought this time, despite going out early again, Patrick Marleau and Joe Thornton played well.
As for Heatley, who snubbed the trade to Lowe's Oilers ...
“Any ill feeling about Danny Heatley were put asside because of his history of putting the puck in the net.”
This is a team which isn't going to be particularly popular in Calgary. With people projecting three Flames – Jay Bouwmeester, Dion Phaneuf and Robin Regehr – back at the Team Canada Olympic camp back in the fall not one of them will be playing in Vancouver.
“It's tough,” said Lowe. “They are three great defencemen. At the end of the day we liked the chemistry of the Chicago guys,” said Lowe of Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook.
And for those who figured Jarome Iginla was the likely captain, the choice was instead Scott Niedermayer.
If Canada made a mistake leaving out Sidney Crosby four years ago, they didn't go that way this time, selecting Doughty.
“Doughty was a rookie last year, but when he was at the world championships, as the games became of more importance, he played better. He was outstanding for us on defence at that tournament,” said Yzerman.
“He's had a very good first half. We just thought he was one of our best seven defencemen.”
At the end of the day it may have looked to many like there were plenty of surprises. But not really, said Lowe.
When asked how many changes there would have been from the team they picked and the one they would have picked at the pre-season Olympic camp in Calgary, he said very few.
“Probably two would be different. And Patrice Bergeron would be one of those because he wasn't there.”
terry.jones@sunmedia.ca
