O! Can-A-Da!

[Munkay]

The end of NHL players participating, at least?

Is that a joke? The NHL players are going to continue to play hockey in the Olympics for both Team Canada and Team USA. Mike Modano and Wayne Gretzsky both said the same thing about their respective teams in reply to the performance in the Olympics: They chose verteran players to make up a skilled team, and as a result both teams got outskated by the younger players. The vet's just don't have the same leg's as the young ones. Not to mention for team USA the three men between the pipes aren't all-star goalies in the same way Marty Brodeur, Nabokov, Khabibulin, or Dom Hasek are.

Could the old legs really make that much of a difference? After watching both teams play, I think its fair to say so. Team USA and Team Canada are both comprised of NHL players. And although many NHL players play for their countries, other countries also have non-NHL players. What's the rub? The bigger rink plays a larger role than it seems since the non-NHL players play on Olympic sized rinks on a regular basis.

Talking to a good friend's father - who played hockey in College, pro in Germany for three years, and briefly for the Toronto Maple Leafs - he has many stories about playing the military teams in college. Since they often played in European leagues, the military plays on an olympic sized arena. And even though Colgate always had much more talented players than the military teams, they were often beat. They would just skate the other team into the ground.

The long and short of it is that the NHL players will continue to play for team Canada as well as Team USA. But you may see the next time around younger talents like Sydney Crosby won't be snubbed and left out.

Cheers,

Munk