Patrick Roy, Martin Brodeur and Curtis Joseph compose perhaps the greatest goaltending trio ever assembled on one hockey team. It makes one wonder, how can that team possibly lose?
The world will find out if it can in February, when Roy, Brodeur and Joseph lead Canada in the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. And the early line right now is that incredible goaltending crew isn’t even on the team picked to win the first Olympic hockey tournament to include players from the National Hockey League.
That distinction goes to the United States, which beat Canada in the World Cup last year and has 20 of 23 players back for a run at a gold medal.
On the forward line, “I can’t imagine any team being better,” Dallas coach Ken Hitchcock said of the U.S.
How do you beat goalies like Roy, Brodeur and Joseph? With forwards like the United States’ Keith Tkachuk, John LeClair, Mike Modano, Brett Hull and Tony Amonte. Or Sweden’s Mats Sundin, Peter Forsberg and Daniel Alfredsson. Or the Czech Republic’s Jaromir Jagr, Robert Reichel and Bobby Holik. Or Slovakia’s Peter Bondra, Jozef Stumpel and Zigmund Palffy. Or Russia’s Pavel Bure, Alexei Yashin and Alex Zhamnov.
There is no question these Olympics will feature the best hockey players in the world, and could produce the greatest tournament this side of a Stanley Cup final.
“It’s just like the playoffs. Whoever’s hot at the right time will win it,” said Chris Chelios, one of seven Hawks who will play in the Olympics Feb. 7-22. “Four or five teams can win it. The key is to find the right chemistry.”
That’s what each country was searching for as they put their rosters together. U.S. General Manager Lou Lamoriello didn’t want to disrupt the chemistry of his World Cup champions, sticking with the majority of the same players while adding Jeremy Roenick, Bryan Berard and John Vanbiesbrouck to the mix.
“My job has been made a little easier in the sense there is a chemistry there, a continuity that maybe has been lacking with previous Olympic teams,” said U.S. coach Ron Wilson, who also coached the World Cup team.
“(Winning the World Cup) has changed our expectations. We go in there expecting to be successful. If we don’t win a gold medal, we’ll be very disappointed.”
“From Day 1 there was great unity among the guys,” the Hawks’ Keith Carney said of the U.S. World Cup team. “It was a great atmosphere to be around. From Day 1 we said we’d have fun, but we were going to work hard and the goal was to win the World Cup.”
The goal now is to win a gold medal, with Canada probably posing the biggest threat to that dream.
Team Canada was announced Saturday, and besides the great goalies selected, they also have Eric Lindros, Joe Sakic, Wayne Gretzky and Brendan Shanahan just to name a few superstars.
So strong is the Canadian team, Mark Messier didn’t make the cut.
“If he can get his green card, we’ll take him in a minute,” Chelios said jokingly.
“It wasn’t our position to exclude anybody,” said Team Canada GM Bobby Clarke. “We tried to put together what we felt was the best team, looking at all the needs of a team–penalty killing, power play, checking, scoring, everything.”
“We put a team together with a capital T,” assistant GM Pierre Gauthier said.
Bob Gainey, an assistant GM for Canada, thinks a big difference between this Canadian team and the one assembled for the World Cup is the group that selected the World Cup team didn’t coach the team. This management team, and a coaching staff led by Marc Crawford, has been working together for six months to put this team in order.
Can a club this loaded be beaten?
“I don’t think you can go to any tournament fearing the opposition,” Clarke said. “We know how good the opposition is. That just means we have to be prepared and do everything right along the way.”
There are many experts who believe Canada put its team together solely to beat the United States. But if Sweden gets great goaltending from Tommy Salo, it has plenty of offensive firepower and a strong defense headed by Nicklas Lidstrom. If Dominik Hasek gets in a zone, the Czech Republic could be a threat. And Finland has Teemu Selanne.
Put it all together, and it’s a can’t-miss event. Canada hasn’t won a gold medal in hockey since 1952; the U.S., since 1980, thanks to a miracle on ice.
The title game will be played Feb. 22.
“I probably didn’t appreciate it the first time in ’84,” said Chelios, who was 22 when he played for the U.S. in the 1984 Olympics. “This being the first time NHL players are involved, it’s probably going to be the biggest chance for hockey to get exposure.”
