What’s old is new again
2018 Olympic hockey team will be made up of Canadians playing pro in Europe, and minor leaguers
We didn’t know it at the time, but the most recent Spengler Cup — the annual Christmastime hockey tournament in Davos, Switzerland — was a prelude to what fans can expect to see next February in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
Things might change, but don’t expect to have Sidney Crosby lining up against Alex Ovechkin, or shooting on Henrik Lundqvist, in the Winter Olympics. Not with the NHL’S board of governors sharing little interest in shutting down the season for a sixth time to accommodate the Olympics.
Remember the days, before Nhlers starting playing for Olympic gold in 1998, when national team vets like Wally Schreiber, Fabian Joseph and Vaughn Karpan represented Canada in the Olympics?
Well, old is new again as Canada’s 2018 Olympic squad will resemble the 2017 Spengler Cup squad, a team comprised of European pros, with a smattering of minor leaguers.
“We had a Plan B in the works (if the NHL was not sending its players to the Olympics),” said Hockey Canada CEO Tom Renney. “I will tell you now Plan B is now Plan A.”
Former goalie Sean Burke will manage Canada in Pyeongchang, and Dave King, long the face of Canada’s former national team, will serve on the management/coaching staff.
Burke was assistant GM to Ron Hextall for Canada at the recent world championship, and was GM of the Spengler Cup team which won the title, beating HC Lugano 5-2 on New Years Eve. King served as an assistant to head coach Luke Richardson in Davos.
Burke was also the GM, and King coached the Canadian squad at the Deutschland Cup in November.
“How we put the Spengler Cup team together is basically how we’ll look at putting this (Olympic) team together,” said Renney. “There will be European Canadians. We’ll talk to the National Hockey League about this, but possibly American Hockey League prospects, depending on their contractual status. We’ll look at NCAA players, Canadian U SPORTS players.”
Renney, in St. John’s for Hockey Canada’s Spring Congress at the Convention Centre, knows a thing or two about international competition, having coached Canadian teams in the world juniors and world championships, and the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics (Dwayne Norris of St. John’s was on that squad).
Hockey Canada, Renney said, has an idea of how this country’s Olympic team roster will look, and will prepare for Pyeongchang by playing in several tournaments, such the Deutschland Cup and Spengler Cup, leading up to the Olympics.
The only question now is whether minor pros on NHL contracts will be permitted to play. Former St. John’s Icecaps goalie Zach Fucale, for example, backstopped Canada to the Spengler Cup. Fucale, playing with the ECHL’S Brampton Beast, is on an NHL contract, and was loaned to Canada by the Montreal Canadiens.
“That will be the NHL’S decision,” said Renney. “Once it’s determined by the league and the International Olympic Committee what constitutes the makeup of your hockey club, then we’ll be able to pursue people like Zach, or at least talk about him.”
At the 1992 Albertville Olympics, Canada dressed 19-yearold Eric Lindros, fresh from the Ontario Hockey League’s Oshawa Generals. In Lillehammer two years later, Paul Kariya played for Canada as a 20-yearold, with two years of NCAA hockey with the University of Maine Black Bears to his credit.
A Canadian Hockey League player, said Hockey Canada president Scott Smith, making Team Canada would be an exceptional circumstance.
Unless he was a young Connor Mcdavid, and there’s nobody who fits the bill today.
The national team was long a staple of Hockey Canada — and the old Canadian Amateur Hockey Association — traipsing back and forth the country playing exhibitions, and representing Canada overseas. There was many a Canadian national team exhibition game at old Memorial Stadium back in the day.
Who knows what will happen for the 2022 Winter Olympics, and whether the NHL will, or will not, send its players to China. Regardless, Hockey Canada does not see the reformation of the national team.
“As much as I’d love that — since I was one of the guys who had an opportunity to coach that team — I don’t see that. Our obligation is grass roots and development, and paying close attention to the children playing hockey, and females.
“I will tell you traveling across the country with a full-time national team that we were able to do an awful lot for development of the grass roots. But there’s an economic piece to this as well, which we feel we have to pump into the kids playing.”