Captain Canada

IT WAS THE BEST OF TIMES, IT WAS THE WORST OF TIMES.

On Feb. 24, 2002, Canadians celebrated a long-awaited victory — the magnitude of which we haven’t seen since. In Salt Lake City, our men’s Olympic hockey team defeated their rival Americans 5-2, in an emotional and decisive win that would put our nation atop the men’s hockey podium for the first time in 50 years. If the 100m dash is the showpiece of the summer Olympics, the men’s hockey final is the premiere event of its winter counterpart. Our hockey-obsessed nation’s team had won it all, reassuring the country that despite almost a decade of American teams winning the Stanley Cup, and a disastrous medal-round unravelling in Nagano four years prior, Canada was still king of the rink.

But our rightful place in the hockey empire didn’t last long. Four years later with a renewed swagger in their skate, Canada failed to live up to expectations. At the 2006 Turin Games, they faltered in their opening group A games, winning only three of five, placing third behind Finland and Switzerland (yes, Switzerland). They promptly lost to Russia in the quarterfinals and poof, their hopes of medal contention were gone.

After Canada’s 2002 victory, general manager Wayne Gretzky said, “Our country desperately needed to win this tournament.” Eight years later, the desperation is creeping back in.

HOPES OF A NATION
The 2010 Olympics loom, and bearing much of the brunt of the country’s expectations, dreams and skepticism is Team Canada’s executive director, Steve Yzerman. It’s a leadership position well-earned. Captain of the Detroit Red Wings for two decades (beginning at age 21), and currently serving the franchise as vice-president/alternate governor, Yzerman is revered, known simply as “The Captain” by Wings fans and Detroiters.

Part of the victorious 2002 Olympic squad and winner of three Stanley Cups with the Red Wings, his one and only team of 22 seasons on the ice, Yzerman knows about winning. He’s hesitant, though, to make comparisons between the glory of Salt Lake and the woes of the Turin team, of which he was not a member. With any Olympic tournament, there’s precious little time to prepare. (In 2010, for example, NHL games will be played until Feb. 14, Team Canada will get together to practice on the 15th, and they’ll begin play on the 16th.) With that in mind, Yzerman says the tournament can be “a little bit of a crapshoot.”

After 2002’s win, Wayne Gretzky said, “Our country desperately needed to win this tournament.” Eight years later, the desperation is creeping back in.

Team selection and health may have contributed to the 2006 outcome as well. “They had some players come into the tournament with some injuries who didn’t play up to the level everyone expected,” he says. “They basically went with a lot of the ‘02 team and a lot of the ‘04 World Cup team and kind of rolled them into the ‘06 team, and maybe left off some younger players that had really taken a step forward since the ‘04 World Cup.”
 
Yzerman is doing what he can to avoid the mistakes of his predecessors. “What it told me was really pay attention to who’s playing well; don’t assume a player’s on a team a year before the event,” he says. “Things can change. Players can recover from injury and younger players are a year older, a year more experienced and can really take off.”

Yzerman chuckles when asked about his master plan for avoiding an ‘06 repeat. “We’re going to have 23 players and once we officially start the tournament that’s our 23, so we can’t change it,” he says. “But the first three games kind of feed you for the knockout stages, and that allows you a little bit of time to sort things out if things don’t start off the way you plan.”

RUSSIANS AND AMERICANS AND SWEDES, OH MY!
The first three countries that Team Canada will face are Norway, Switzerland and our rival to the south, the United States. Seems like a relatively easy warm-up. Comfortable victories over Norway and Switzerland, and a good test against the Americans to prepare for the one-game elimination rounds. But Yzerman isn’t resting on the team’s historically patchy laurels. One only has to look back to Turin to see that Canada has logged a loss against Switzerland. “To be honest, I worry about [every team]... So much can happen in any one game,” he says, citing the 2002 Games when red-hot Sweden was punted from the tournament by Belarus in the quarter-finals.

He says he’ll be nervous for each game, but it’s clear who Yzerman considers legitimate gold-medal contenders. “I think there’s a handful of countries that can win this tournament,” he says. “Sweden is a defending Olympic gold medallist with some of the top players in the game. Henrik Lundqvist is possibly the most informed goaltender in the league or in the world right now.” And though their recent Olympic record is far from stellar, those Yanks are definitely on Yzerman’s radar. “Very quietly the United States is assembling a really young, really talented team with big, strong, young athletic defencemen,” he says.

And then there’s the Russian squad, which will no doubt feature the fierce duo of Evgeni Malkin at centre and Alexander Ovechkin at left wing, both of whom could be argued best player currently in the NHL. (Chill, Crosby fans, we’re getting to him). “Having faced [Russia] in the championships the last two years and they beat Canada both times, and with the forwards they have — big, strong, skilled, some of the top forwards in the NHL — I gotta put them in there as the favourites to win this tournament,” says Yzerman. “They’re going to be a formidable team to hold back.”