Ex-nhlers named to Team Canada
Canada will ice a men’s hockey team with more than 5,500 NHL games under its belt at the Pyeongchang Olympics.
With Nhlers not taking part at the Winter Games, Hockey Canada drew talent from seven different leagues across North America and Europe. And while the team may not have the marquee value of Canada’s recent Olympic champion teams, Hockey Canada officials and coaches made a point of noting it is long on heart.
“All of our players, at somewhere along the line, they’ve been told ‘No,’” head coach Willie Desjardins said at the roster reveal Thursday. “They not going to get a chance to continue their NHL career or even start it in some way.
“A lot like other Canadians, they’ve managed to battle it and fight back. They’ve stuck with it, they won’t give up ... That’s what our team is about. It’s about guys who have received a no but found a way to make a yes.”
Added Team Canada GM Sean Burke: “When we go to these Olympics, this team will make Canada proud. There’ll be a goldmedal effort and there won’t be one guy that puts that jersey that this isn’t the highlight of their hockey career and the highlight of their family’s career.”
The bulk of the NHL experience comes from a half-dozen forwards with some familiar names.
Chris Kelly, who won the 2011 Stanley Cup with the Boston Bruins, leads the way with 833 regular-season games in the NHL. Most recently the 37-year-old, who has 123 NHL goals and 166 assists, signed a tryout contract with Belleville of the AHL.
Derek Roy played 738 NHL games for Buffalo, Dallas, Vancouver, St. Louis, Nashville and Edmonton with 189 goals and 335 assists. Rene Bourque played 725 NHL games, notching 163 goals and 153 assists for six teams including Calgary and Montreal.
Maxim Lapierre played 614 NHL games for Montreal, Anaheim, Vancouver, St. Louis and Pittsburgh. Mason Raymond saw action in 546 NHL games with Vancouver, Toronto, Calgary and Anaheim.
Wojtek Wolski, who thought his hockey career was over a year age to due to a neck injury, played in 451 games for five teams.
The blue line is less experienced with Cody Goloubef leading the way with 129 NHL games.
Defencemen Chris Lee and Mat Robinson have not played in the NHL while Chay Genoway has one game and Maxime Noreau six.
Goalies Justin Peters, Ben Scrivens and Kevin Poulin have 277 NHL games between them, spread between eight teams. Peters plays in Germany, Scrivens in Russia’s KHL and Poulin for a Croatian team that plays in the Austrian league.
Thirteen players come from the KHL, four from the Swiss league, three each from Sweden and the American Hockey League, and one from Germany and Austria.
The roster announcement, carried live on several networks, was made at the Hall of Champions at Hockey Canada’s office in Calgary. It came one day after the NHL released its all-star squad.
Training camp starts Jan. 28 in Latvia for the Canadians.
The 12-nation men’s hockey tournament at the 2018 Games goes from Feb. 14 to 25 at the Gangneung Hockey Centre and the Kwandong Hockey Centre.