5THINGS TO WATCH
1. DECISIONS ... OR NOT: With no skating or actual hockey being played what, exactly, is happening this weekend at the Canadian men’s team orientation camp? Think of it like the first day of school. You talk to your friends, pick up your assignments, sharpen your pencils, but don’t actually do any work whatsoever. This gathering of Canadian hopefuls will feature a four-day “hi-how-are-ya?” between the invited 47 players and Hockey Canada staff including head coach Mike Babcock and assistants Ken Hitchcock, Lindy Ruff, and Claude Julien. It will feature an overview of the preparations needed ahead of travelling across the country to Russia’s largest resort city on the Black Sea coast. Where they’ll stay, how they’ll get there, where family and friends may stay, a walk-through of venues, drug-testing policy, the proper term for “gold medal” in Russian. Strategy, too, will be communicated through video sessions. They’ll work out. They’ll golf. They’ll fish. They’ll go for dinner. In other words, with no on-ice product to evaluate, line combinations, defensive pairings, and starting goaltenders are subjects to debate for now. 2. CAPTAIN CROSBY: This should be obvious. It’s only a matter of time before the 26-yearold has a ‘C’ sewn above his heart on his Team Canada jersey. Left off the team in 2006 (will Hockey Canada ever hear the end of that?), Crosby further planted himself as this country’s hockey hero and earned free drinks for life after scoring the gold-medal winning goal over the U.S. in Vancouver. Long out-grown ‘The Kid’ tag line, Crosby is ready — perhaps more than ever — to lead Canada in Sochi. He’s been in the spotlight his whole life but he’s also spent valuable time in the trenches; from playoffs, to the Stanley Cup Finals; to the Olympic frenzy; to dealing with a major injury and career setback. There were questions in the past — whether he’d make the Olympic team in 2006 and whether he was ready for the captaincy in 2010. There are no more questions now. This is, undoubtedly, his team. 3. YOUNG GUNS: There were four players on Canada’s 2010 roster at Vancouver that won gold in Salt Lake City in 2002: Jarome Iginla, Scott Niedermayer, Chris Pronger, and Martin Brodeur. None of them are on this year’s invited list. Which means, it’s a new generation of stars moving into the picture. Fifteen players that are invited to camp won gold at Vancouver, including Sidney Crosby, Jonathan Toews (21 years old at the time), and Drew Doughty (then 20 who finished with a plus-6). They proved their worth in 2010 and will be four years older and smarter come Sochi. But who is next in line? There’s defencemen Travis Hamonic and Alex Pietrangelo (both 23) and PK Subban. Up front, there’s Matt Duchene, Jordan Eberle, Steven Stamkos, John Tavares, and, the youngest of the bunch, Taylor Hall (who turns 22 on Nov. 14). You can debate for days whether the young legs are better than calmer heads but this group — just like any NHL team — will clearly need a mix of both. Vying for their third trip to the Olympics are Roberto Luongo, Joe Thornton, Rick Nash, and Eric Staal. Meanwhile, Jay Bouwmeester and 37-year-old Martin St. Louis (the oldest player at camp) are the only two that were at Turin and not Vancouver. Steve Yzerman has said repeatedly that age isn’t a huge factor but playing roles are. “We’re not putting together a team for an NHL all-star game … we’re putting together the best possible team we can to compete against the best players in the world and try to win a gold medal,” Yzerman told NHL.com on a conference call. “Part of that comes with players that can do specific things for us.” 4. WHO’S IN NET: No position is scrutinized more than the goaltender. Outside of their past resumes, the first three months of the 2013-14 NHL season are going to be important in Hockey Canada’s decision. Yzerman has said they’ll likely bring three goalies to Russia. Martin Brodeur and Roberto Luongo were the two chosen ones in Vancouver and Luongo is back, vying for his third trip to the Olympics. But, after losing his starting job with the Vancouver Canucks, it’s hard to say how prominent a role he’ll have in 2014 (if any). You’d have to think Carey Price is one of the front-runners but the abbreviated 2013 NHL season wasn’t his best. There’s Braden Holtby (Washington) who is promising and the newly re-signed Mike Smith (Phoenix), and the 2013 Stanley Cup winner Corey Crawford (Chicago) 5. INSURANCE POLICY: It seems odd that Canada’s best hockey players would gather in one place and not do the one thing that they get paid to do: skate. But with an insurance policy worth more than $1 million, Hockey Canada president Bob Nicholson isn’t willing to invest for the invited 47. (Keep in mind that the invited group’s collective 2013-14 salaries are $259 million, according to capgeek.com) Granted, there isn’t a whole lot of time before Sochi and the players are on the ice enough during their own NHL seasons. And let’s be honest, a midget hockey player could find on-ice chemistry with the calibre of players Canada is likely going to send to the Olympics. At previous Olympics, there have been insurance concerns from the NHL and NHLPA’s standpoint but they had always been resolved. In 2009, Hockey Canada provided financial protection for their Olympic prospects and their employers. At the summer orientation camp in Calgary before the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, they skated daily and finished with an intra-squad game before a sold-out crowd at the Scotiabank Saddledome. It makes perfect sense that there would be concern. A player takes a snapshot in the foot, tweaks a hamstring, or absorbs a stick in the eye at camp, their 2013-14 NHL season could be affected. With a high price tag this year, however, Hockey Canada figures the hassle isn’t worth it. Time will tell.