Canada ready to hit the ice
World Cup team hoping to make more memories in an event surrounded by skepticism
OTTAWA — They are Team Canada moments frozen in time and entrenched in our memories:
Paul Henderson’s dramatic goal to win the 1972 Summit Series vs. the Russians.
Wayne Gretzky’s feed to Mario Lemieux, who fired home the winning goal with 1:26 left to give the country a 6-5 victory over Russia in the 1987 Canada Cup in Hamilton.
Joe Sakic’s four-point effort on Feb. 24, 2002 in Salt Lake City to lead Canada to a 5-2 victory over Team U.S.A. to capture the gold medal at the Winter Olympics.
And, of course, who can forget Sidney Crosby’s golden goal Feb. 28, 2010 to break a 2-2 tie and give Canada the Olympic gold medal in Vancouver. Every goal has its own story. As the 23 players chosen for Team Canada report for training camp Monday at the Canadian Tire Centre to prepare for the World Cup of Hockey which begins Sept. 16 Toronto, this group is hoping to make more memories in a tournament that has been surrounded by skepticism.
The reality is once the puck is dropped it’ll be all the best players in the world — with the exception of a few injury situations — going head-to-head in what should produce, by all accounts, a strong competition.
“You’re getting everybody coming in rested and in a great frame of mind in a sense that they’re excited,” Team Canada GM Doug Armstrong told Postmedia in a recent telephone interview from St. Louis. “I think every time the competition starts and you get to play rivals ... it’s going to be interesting playing the World Team and the 23-and-under team.
“Anytime you play the U.S., Russians, Finns or Czechs, you know what to expect, but there’s a little bit of a new dynamics (with those) other (two teams). They’re all proud people participating in this event. I think it’s going to be great hockey.
“I believe the intensity is going to be at a high level quickly.”
Canada won’t waste any time once the players report. Medicals will be done Sunday, there will be a team meeting at the hotel that night and players will hit the ice under the watchful eye of Toronto Maple Leafs coach Mike Babcock on Labour Day to start building what they hope will be a winning combination in early October.
The decision was made not to get together for a couple of days of meetings last month — like some countries did — because they felt with short summers and no ability to put the players on the ice it made sense to just have everybody get together at camp.
“The training camp and exhibition games is something they don’t have at the Olympics. You just jump right into it,” Armstrong said. “We felt with the camp and exhibition games the players will show up ready to work and we’ll accomplish what we need to without disrupting everybody summer plans for a two-day meeting.”
With back-to-back exhibition games against Team U.S.A. next Friday in Columbus and Saturday in Ottawa, the competition is going to ramp up quickly.
“What we’re going to find out after that second exhibition game is that it’s going to be ‘Game On’,” Armstrong said.
One player the group doesn’t have any concerns about is Montreal Canadiens goaltender Carey Price. He missed almost all of last season with a knee injury but Armstrong has gotten regular updates from Habs GM Marc Bergevin, a member of the Canadian staff, and is confidentPrice is fully healed.
“We’ve been on top of this for a while,” said Armstrong. “He’s been training all summer and he’s in great shape. He’ll be 100% ready to go ... when we jump on the ice.”
Armstrong, along with the rest of the staff, got together in July in B.C. to discuss every aspect of training camp and preparations for the tournament. The coaching staff — which includes Claude Julien (Boston), Barry Trotz (Washington), Joel Quenneville (Chicago) and Bill Peters (Carolina) — were part of those talks.
Team Canada officials felt that was important in building togetherness quickly.
“We’re excited about the whole process,” Armstrong said. “Getting the coaches involved has been really important in picking the 16 (players) and the rest of the team. We had a really good meeting in British Columbia where we went over the process we’re going to use for pre-scouting and had some good inter-action with the coaches.
“From a management perspective, we have the players and we believe we have some of the top coaches in the game on our staff. We’ve given them the keys to the car, basically. We’re really excited about the tournament.
“That round-robin is going to be over as quickly as it starts for a couple of those teams and we don’t want to be one of those teams.”
Organizers are hoping this tournament can have the same cachet as the Canada Cup did when it ended in 1987 and Armstrong believes that possibility exists.
“I hope it can be,” Armstrong said. “I think that’s the NHL and the players’ association are hoping it can be. Once you get best-onbest, the competitive juices flow.
“We all remember Mario and Wayne. That’s imprinted in our generation’s mind. We’re hoping like the Crosby goal in Vancouver. There is going to be something in this tournament that’s going to be the staple of it moving forward. We just hope on the right side of the images to propel this tournament to the level we think it can get too.”
The work begins in earnest in the nation’s capital Monday at noon.