The Hockey News has been providing the most comprehensive coverage of the world of hockey since 1947. In each issue, you'll find news, features and opinions about the NHL and leagues across North America and the world.

March 15, 2010

The Hockey News - Mar-15-10

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0013-0133/9398466-1-eng-US/s0013-012.jpg" title="S0013-01" width="227" height="275"></div><h2><b>1</b>&nbsp;<b>Goalie</b></h2><h3><b>ROBERTO LUONGO</b></h3><p><b>Key Contribution</b></p><p><i>Won four do-or-die games in the crease</i></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0013-0217/9398459-1-eng-US/s0013-022.jpg" title="S0013-02" width="228" height="275"></div><h2><b>2</b>&nbsp;<b>Defense</b></h2><h3><b>DUNCAN KEITH</b></h3><p><b>Key Contribution</b></p><p><i>Saw more ice per game than any other Canadian</i></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0013-037/9398452-1-eng-US/s0013-032.jpg" title="S0013-03" width="227" height="275"></div><h2><b>6</b>&nbsp;<b>Defense</b></h2><h3><b>SHEA WEBER</b></h3><p><b>Key Contribution</b></p><p><i>Shot pucks so hard one went through the net</i></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0013-046/9398445-1-eng-US/s0013-042.jpg" title="S0013-04" width="228" height="275"></div><h2><b>7</b>&nbsp;<b>Defense</b></h2><h3><b>BRENT SEABROOK</b></h3><p><b>Key Contribution</b></p><p><i>Finished a reliable plus-2 in seventh D-man role</i></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0013-055/9398438-1-eng-US/s0013-052.jpg" title="S0013-05" width="227" height="275"></div><h2><b>8</b>&nbsp;<b>Defense</b></h2><h3><b>DREW DOUGHTY</b></h3><p><b>Key Contribution</b></p><p><i>20-year-old was a force at both ends of the ice</i></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0013-064/9398431-1-eng-US/s0013-062.jpg" title="S0013-06" width="227" height="275"></div><h2><b>10 Left Wing</b></h2><h3><b>BRENDEN MORROW</b></h3><p><b>Key Contribution</b></p><p><i>Wore down opponents with his grinding game</i></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0013-074/9398424-1-eng-US/s0013-072.jpg" title="S0013-07" width="228" height="275"></div><h2><b>11 Left Wing</b></h2><h3><b>PATRICK MARLEAU</b></h3><p><b>Key Contribution</b></p><p><i>Tied for team lead with 28 shots on goal</i></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0013-084/9398417-1-eng-US/s0013-082.jpg" title="S0013-08" width="227" height="275"></div><h2><b>12 Right Wing</b></h2><h3><b>JAROME IGINLA</b></h3><p><b>Key Contribution</b></p><p><i>Provided leadership and team-best five goals</i></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0013-094/9398410-1-eng-US/s0013-092.jpg" title="S0013-09" width="228" height="275"></div><h2><b>15 Right Wing</b></h2><h3><b>DANY HEATLEY</b></h3><p><b>Key Contribution</b></p><p><i>Heavy shot had the respect of every foe</i></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0013-104/9398403-1-eng-US/s0013-102.jpg" title="S0013-10" width="227" height="275"></div><h2><b>16 Center</b></h2><h3><b>JONATHAN TOEWS</b></h3><p><b>Key Contribution</b></p><p><i>Earned top forward honors at the Games</i></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0013-114/9398396-1-eng-US/s0013-112.jpg" title="S0013-11" width="227" height="275"></div><h2><b>18 Left Wing</b></h2><h3><b>MIKE RICHARDS</b></h3><p><b>Key Contribution</b></p><p><i>Embraced checking role while still pushing attack</i></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0013-123/9398389-1-eng-US/s0013-122.jpg" title="S0013-12" width="228" height="275"></div><h2><b>19 Center</b></h2><h3><b>JOE THORNTON</b></h3><p><b>Key Contribution</b></p><p><i>Scored opening goal in 8-2 rout of Germany</i></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0013-133/9398382-1-eng-US/s0013-132.jpg" title="S0013-13" width="227" height="275"></div><h2><b>20 Defense</b></h2><h3><b>CHRIS PRONGER</b></h3><p><b>Key Contribution</b></p><p><i>Had best game in gold medal win over U.S.</i></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0013-142/9398375-1-eng-US/s0013-142.jpg" title="S0013-14" width="228" height="275"></div><h2><b>21 Left Wing</b></h2><h3><b>ERIC STAAL</b></h3><p><b>Key Contribution</b></p><p><i>Three assists in qualification win over Germans</i></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0013-152/9398368-1-eng-US/s0013-152.jpg" title="S0013-15" width="227" height="275"></div><h2><b>22 Defense</b></h2><h3><b>DAN BOYLE</b></h3><p><b>Key Contribution</b></p><p><i>Scored one goal, two assists against Russians</i></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0013-162/9398361-1-eng-US/s0013-162.jpg" title="S0013-16" width="227" height="276"></div><h2><b>24 Right Wing</b></h2><h3><b>COREY PERRY</b></h3><p><b>Key Contribution</b></p><p><i>Potted pair of goals in quarterfinal vs. Russia</i></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0013-172/9398354-1-eng-US/s0013-172.jpg" title="S0013-17" width="228" height="276"></div><h2><b>27 Defense</b></h2><h3><b>SCOTT NIEDERMAYER</b></h3><p>&nbsp;<b>Key Contribution</b></p><p><i>Top defenseman in gold medal game against U.S.</i></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0013-18/9398347-1-eng-US/s0013-182.jpg" title="S0013-18" width="227" height="276"></div><h2><b>29 Goalie</b></h2><h3><b>MARC-ANDRE FLEURY</b></h3><p>&nbsp;<b>Key Contribution</b></p><p><i>Got first Olympic experience as third goaltender</i></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0013-19/9398340-1-eng-US/s0013-192.jpg" title="S0013-19" width="228" height="276"></div><h2><b>30 Goalie</b></h2><h3><b>MARTIN BRODEUR</b></h3><p>&nbsp;<b>Key Contribution</b></p><p><i>Shut down the Swiss in shootout victory</i></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0013-20/9398333-1-eng-US/s0013-202.jpg" title="S0013-20" width="227" height="276"></div><h2><b>37</b>&nbsp;<b>CENTER</b></h2><h3><b>ATRICE BERGERON</b></h3><p>&nbsp;<b>Key Contribution</b></p><p><i>13th forward worked well on penalty kill</i></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0013-21/9398326-1-eng-US/s0013-212.jpg" title="S0013-21" width="227" height="276"></div><h2><b>51 Center</b></h2><h3><b>RYAN GETZLAF</b></h3><p><b>Key Contribution</b></p><p><i>Tied for second in team scoring with seven points</i></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0013-22/9398319-1-eng-US/s0013-222.jpg" title="S0013-22" width="228" height="276"></div><h2><b>61 Right Wing</b></h2><h3><b>RICK NASH</b></h3><p><b>Key Contribution</b></p><p><i>Netted third goal in quarter-final against Russia</i></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0013-23/9398312-1-eng-US/s0013-232.jpg" title="S0013-23" width="227" height="276"></div><h2><b>87 Center</b>&nbsp;</h2><h3><b>SIDNEY CROSBY</b></h3><p><b>Key Contribution</b></p><p><i>Scored game-winner in gold-medal game</i></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0013-24/9398305-1-eng-US/s0013-242.jpg" title="S0013-24" width="227" height="275"></div><h2><b>Executive Director</b></h2><h3><b>STEVE YZERMAN</b></h3><p><b>Key Contribution</b></p><p><i>Belief in Canada&rsquo;s youth paid off in a huge way</i></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0013-25/9398298-1-eng-US/s0013-252.jpg" title="S0013-25" width="227" height="276"></div><h2><b>Head Coach</b></h2><h3><b>MIKE BABCOCK</b></h3><p><b>Key Contribution</b></p><p><i>Shuffled lines until right combinations surfaced</i><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

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IN THIS ISSUE

Golden Boys

<div class="byline">by Nicolas Chabot</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0047-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-01510/9397998-1-eng-US/f0047-012.jpg"></div><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span>

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IN EVERY ISSUE

HOME STRETCH WARRIORS

<div class="image-hero"><img title="SS0005-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/ss0005-012/9398621-1-eng-US/ss0005-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(IMAGE: BRUCE BENNETT/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><span>C</span>anada scores just one goal in the first period of a must-win qualification game against Germany, but Rick Nash and the boys kick it up after that, eventually drubbing the Germans by an 8-2 count.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

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STARTING TO ROLL

<div class="image-hero"><img title="C0004-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/c0004-01328/9398174-1-eng-US/c0004-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(IMAGE: BRUCE BENNETT/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><span>T</span>he Canadian women win gold for the third straight Olympics. Szabados is named top goalie, while Meghan Agosta takes top forward and MVP honors after leading all scorers with 15 points in the tournament.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

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THREE-PEAT

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-012137/9396607-1-eng-US/f0004-012.jpg" title="f0004-01" width="766" height="643"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>A</span>FTER THE CANADIAN WOMEN STRUCK GOLD</b> in Vancouver, they struck a few matches and opened a few cans on the ice as part of their exuberant celebration. Poor judgment? Perhaps, but not as bad as the International Olympic Committee&rsquo;s if they follow through on a threat/shot across the bow to eject women&rsquo;s hockey from the Games if the competition gap doesn&rsquo;t close &ndash; and fast.</p><p>Senior writer Ken Campbell touches on the issue on pg. 34 as part of our special post-Olympics coverage. Here are further reasons to stand on guard for she:</p><p>1. Canada vs. the United States in women&rsquo;s play remains one of the most compelling rivalries in all of hockey. It doesn&rsquo;t matter the rest of the tournament isn&rsquo;t &ldquo;there&rdquo; yet. This once-every-four-years matchup is riveting, fuelled by bad blood and mutual respect. Removing it from the grandest stage would rob fans of a special treat.</p><p>2. It isn&rsquo;t the North Americans&rsquo; fault their programs are head-and-shoulders above the rest of the world&rsquo;s. These women have trained every bit as hard and made as many sacrifices as the top downhill skiers, figure skaters and bobsledders. They&rsquo;re world-class athletes in a beloved sport who deserve the spotlight treatment.</p><p>3. For all the predictability of the contests, the occasional upset does occur. When Sweden ousted Team USA in the semifinal in Turin behind the sensational goaltending of Kim Martin, a truly memorable Olympic moment was borne.</p><p>4. The Olympics gives the women&rsquo;s game the showcase it needs to inspire young girls around the hockey globe to take up the sport and speeds international development. The Kim Martins and Hayley Wickenheisers and Angela Ruggieros serve as heroes and role models to impressionable minds, kids who inevitably convince their parents to sign them up with the local program.</p><p>5. The Olympics are also the dangling carrot for national federations, providing heightened incentive to get better. Remove the carrot and the horse slows down.</p><p>6. Best-on-best competitions are critical for the embryonic hockey programs. It not only provides a measuring stick for executives, demonstrating how big the gap is between their programs and others, but gives the actual participants first-hand experiences and lessons on how to improve. You can study all the film you want, but there&rsquo;s no substitute for facing a superior foe in real, intense competition.</p><p>The onus is now on the rest of the world to catch up; that&rsquo;s understood. But pulling the women from the Games would stunt growth and be a cruel stunt indeed.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-021813/9396600-1-eng-US/f0004-022.jpg" title="f0004-02" width="523" height="280"></div><h2><b>NEXT ISSUE march 29, 2010</b></h2><p>CUSTOMER SERVICE AND TO SUBSCRIBE: <b><a href="http://THN.com">thn.com</a></b> CONTACT US: <b><a href="mailto:editorial@thehockeynews.com">editorial@thehockeynews.com</a></b></p><div class="sidebar"><h2><b>LISTEN UP!</b></h2><p><b>THE HOCKEY NEWS RADIO SHOW FRIDAYS 3-4 EST XM 204</b></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-031456/9396593-1-eng-US/f0004-032.jpg" title="f0004-03" width="287" height="305"></div><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></div>

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We stand on guard for she

<div class="byline">Kevin Allison, Avilla, Ind.</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-021542/9396693-1-eng-US/f0005-022.jpg" title="f0005-02" width="888" height="937"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(AP PHOTO)</span></figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-03998/9396700-1-eng-US/f0005-032.jpg" title="f0005-03" width="175" height="175"></div><p class="dropcap"><span>H</span>aving just watched a special on the 1980 &lsquo;Miracle on Ice&rsquo;, I still get goosebumps watching the seconds tick down. But I also get a little sad that I&rsquo;ll probably never witness another team and Olympics like that again. I miss having college players represent our country. There was something so special about having amateurs go up against the best of the best from other countries. You knew some countries had pros playing for them, but the games were more fun to watch and the upsets that much more sweet. All things must come to an end, but I long for the way it used to be and not the way it is.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-012122/9396686-1-eng-US/f0005-012.jpg" title="f0005-01" width="249" height="212"><figcaption class="caption-body"><p><b>FREE SWAG!</b></p><p>Each issue, we&rsquo;ll give a cool THN hat to the top letter.</p></figcaption></div><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span>

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NO MORE MIRACLES

<blockquote class="pullQuote"><b>&ldquo;NBC struck gold when it signed Jeremy Roenick and Mike Milbury as analysts.&rdquo;</b></blockquote><h2><b>OLD-SCHOOL STYLE</b></h2><p>I&rsquo;ve been watching the Olympics lately and really enjoying them.</p><p>I might add, however, I couldn&rsquo;t help but feeling nostalgic for the old, baggy straight-bottom jerseys they used to wear in the NHL.</p><p>Anybody remember those?</p><p>And it made me realize how much I hate the rounded-bottom, form-fitting ones they wear now.</p><p>Nothing like a guy rushing down the ice with his sweater flapping behind him as he seeks to put the biscuit in the basket.</p><p>Aw, the good old days.</p><p><b>John Lucey, Malden, Mass.</b></p><h2><b>NBC&rsquo;S TOP COPS</b></h2><p>I don&rsquo;t know if it was intentional or not, but NBC struck gold when it signed Jeremy Roenick and Mike Milbury as analysts.</p><p>Roenick was the good cop to Milbury&rsquo;s bad cop. Milbury gave all the negative comments (especially about Team USA) while Roenick rebutted with something positive and they both had no qualms stating they didn&rsquo;t agree with what the other had to say.</p><p>The friction between the two of them made it more interesting than the usual blather that goes on between periods. Roenick does need some polishing due to his occasional stammering, but I would love to see them paired up after the Olympics and beyond.</p><p><b>George Belbusti, Orange, Conn.</b></p><h2><b>GREASE THE GOALIES</b></h2><p>Players should be allowed to bodycheck goalies &ndash; they have the most equipment, therefore they have the most protection.</p><p>If goalies can get away with tripping players when they&rsquo;re crashing the net, players should be allowed to hit the goalies when they play the puck.</p><p>The same rules about hitting would apply. If you hit a goalie from behind, too late, to the head or with an elbow, you go to the box for two minutes.</p><p><b>Mackenzie Barton, Barrie, Ont.</b></p><h2><b>CLASSY CANES</b></h2><p>As a diehard Islanders fan, I wanted to acknowledge something extremely classy the Carolina Hurricanes did during their last trip to the Island.</p><p>I&rsquo;m an Islanders season-ticket holder and at every home game during a TV timeout the Islanders welcome back a local veteran who has served in the armed forces, be it in Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere. The Islanders stand, bang their sticks on the boards in appreciation and sit down. On most other teams, a few stand up, some bang their sticks while sitting for a few seconds, but most just sit there.</p><p>However, the entire Hurricanes team stood for the whole segment, which lasted about a minute, and even the coaches were applauding. That&rsquo;s something I had never seen before. I wanted to say that it didn&rsquo;t go unnoticed and was greatly appreciated. It was a classy display by the Hurricanes organization that really exemplifies why hockey is the greatest sport around.</p><h2><b>POINTS CHANGE</b></h2><p>The NHL should take a lesson from the Olympics when it comes to their points system (three points for a regulation win, two for an overtime win, one for an overtime loss, zero for a regulation loss).</p><p>Case in point: Canada vs. Switzerland Feb. 18. National pride aside, Canada pushed hard at the end of regulation because it knew it was going to lose a point if it didn&rsquo;t get the victory before overtime. It was a refreshing change from the typical NHL game at the same point in the third period, where teams typically sit back and wait to earn a point.</p><p>Regular season NHL games would be a lot more exciting towards the end of regulation if the players were trying not to get to overtime.</p><p><b>Pete Stern, Marlboro, N.J.</b><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

Crowd Shots

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-06339/9396738-1-eng-US/f0006-062.jpg" title="f0006-06" width="562" height="653"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(DUCHENE: CLAUS ANDERSEN/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-05472/9396745-1-eng-US/f0006-052.jpg" title="f0006-05" width="164" height="165"></div><h2><b>MATT DUCHENE</b></h2><p><b>COLORADO, C</b></p><p><b>DEBUT</b> Oct. 1, 2009</p><p><b>VS.</b> San Jose (5-2 win)</p><p><b>ICE TIME</b> 14:51, 24 shifts</p><p><b>KEY STAT</b> 1 assist, minus-1</p><p><b>&ldquo;MY FIRST GAME</b> was at home on the first day of the season against the Sharks.</p><p>I can&rsquo;t think of a better way to start off my NHL career, what with Joe Sakic&rsquo;s jersey retirement ceremony and the fact we were able to beat the Presidents&rsquo; Trophy winner from last year. And I was able to get my first point. It was just an all-around great night.</p><p>All I wanted to do on my first shift was win my first faceoff in the NHL and I was able to do that against Devin Setoguchi. It was a pretty quick shift, I remember, and nothing really happened. But I was able to come away with knowing I won my first faceoff.</p><p>That first point came on the power play. I got caught out there on a long shift and we just couldn&rsquo;t lose the puck.</p><p>I was able to get a stick on the puck and it went back to, I think, Brett Clark and he passed over to John-Michael Liles, and Liles took a shot.</p><p>I was in front screening and it went through my legs and through the goalie&rsquo;s seven hole. It was a very memorable play for me.&rdquo;</p><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-03942/9396731-1-eng-US/f0006-032.jpg" title="f0006-03" width="65" height="65"></div><p><b>Visit <a href="http://TheHockeyNews.com">thehockeynews.com</a> for exclusive Q+A&rsquo;s in our &lsquo;Getting to Know&rsquo; feature</b><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p></div>

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FRESH LEGS

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-07218/9396783-1-eng-US/f0006-072.jpg" title="f0006-07" width="693" height="551"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(GRAIG ABEL/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-04599/9396790-1-eng-US/f0006-042.jpg" title="f0006-04" width="148" height="148"></div><p class="dropcap"><span>W</span>hat&rsquo;s keeping you up at night, hockey fans? If you&rsquo;ve got a question about the game, drop columnist Adam Proteau an email and he&rsquo;ll give you the inside scoop.</p></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><p>Adam, With modern technology, one would think the NHL could find a way to track the puck when it enters the net. Multiple goals were disallowed this year when the camera couldn&rsquo;t find the puck because it was in a goalie&rsquo;s glove, or due to a bad camera angle. Even curling has a sensor inside the rock that triggers a light when it crosses over the &lsquo;hog line.&rsquo; Why can&rsquo;t hockey follow suit and put something in the puck so when it crosses the goal line, we know a goal is scored?</p><p><b><i>Drew Leberer, Buffalo</i></b></p><p>Drew, There is puck sensor technology out there, but the hockey world hasn&rsquo;t bought into it. That likely is due to the costs associated with implementing a new system, but to me, the public relations costs of a missed goal are far higher.</p><p>Yo Adam, I am curious: Do you think the Avs have a shot at the Stanley Cup? Also, do you think Joe Sakic is a lock for the Hockey Hall of Fame?</p><p><b><i>A.J. Metzen, Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.</i></b></p><p>Yo A.J., I&rsquo;m the wrong guy to ask, considering I didn&rsquo;t think the Avs would be a playoff team this year. They might win a few post-season games, but I believe their youth and relative inexperience will work against them. Oh, and if Sakic isn&rsquo;t a guaranteed, first-ballot Hall of Famer, nobody is.</p><p><b>SUBMIT YOUR BURNING QUESTIONS AT <a href="http://TheHockeyNews.com">thehockeynews.com</a></b></p><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-012364/9396776-1-eng-US/f0006-012.jpg" title="f0006-01" width="65" height="65"></div><p>Need more of your questions answered? Read Proteau&rsquo;s <b>&lsquo;Ask Adam&rsquo;</b> column every Friday at <b><a href="http://TheHockeyNews.com">thehockeynews.com</a></b><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p></div>

f0006-07

ASK Adam

<p>Which do you enjoy watching more?</p><p><b>Stanley Cup Playoffs 57%</b></p><p>Olympic Hockey 43%</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-08132/9396828-1-eng-US/f0006-082.jpg" title="f0006-08" width="496" height="696"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(CROSBY: GREGORY SHAMUS/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><h2><b>SPIT IT OUT!</b></h2><p>GET IT OFF YOUR CHEST</p><p>SEND US AN E-MAIL <b><a href="mailto:letters@thehockeynews.com">letters@thehockeynews.com</a></b> OR LOG ON <b><a href="http://TheHockeyNews.com">thehockeynews.com</a></b> SEND US SNAIL MAIL</p><p>Letters, The Hockey News 25 Sheppard Ave. W., Suite 100 Toronto, ON., M2N 6S7, Canada</p><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-021597/9396821-1-eng-US/f0006-022.jpg" title="f0006-02" width="65" height="65"></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><h2><b>BONUS!</b></h2><p>All subscribers get exclusive access on <a href="http://TheHockeyNews.com">thehockeynews.com</a> to digital magazine archives!<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0006-08

thehockeynews.com POLL RESULTS

<div class="byline">&#x2013; Adam Proteau</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0007-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-012116/9396866-1-eng-US/f0007-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>Patric Hornqvist became a &ldquo;true NHLer&rdquo; this year, his second with Nashville.</b> <span class="photo-credit">(JOHN RUSSELL/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-021435/9396873-1-eng-US/f0007-022.jpg" title="f0007-02" width="119" height="119"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>E</span>VERYBODY KNOWS MAKING</b> it to the NHL is a tough gig &ndash; and that&rsquo;s true whether you&rsquo;re a No. 1 overall draft pick or a player who never hears his name called on draft day.</p><p>Straddling the borders between those two realities is the final player picked in the NHL draft every year; he isn&rsquo;t a highly her-alded prospect who will pull in endorsement deals and a massive entry contract, but he also isn&rsquo;t a complete unknown.</p><p>Impressive, then, that a handful &ndash; nine to date &ndash; of last-picked draft prospects have pulled a Mary Tyler Moore and made it after all. Gerry Meehan was the first-ever last-overaller in 1963 (granted, there were only 21 selections made that year). Meehan went on to play 670 NHL games, scoring 243 goals and 423 points, the highest-scoring member of the last-overall club. Then there was current Boston Bruins TV analyst Andy Brickley, who was selected 210th overall by Philadelphia in 1980 and went on to amass 82 goals and 222 points in 385 career NHL games.</p><p>The more recent examples of last-overallers all hail from Sweden. Veteran D-man Kim Johnsson was drafted 286th overall by the Rangers in 1996, he&rsquo;s now in his 10th NHL season; the Red Wings picked blueliner Jonathan Ericsson 291st overall in 2002; and Nashville grabbed current sophomore right winger Patric Hornqvist 230th overall (after the draft was reduced to seven rounds) in 2005.</p></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><p>Johnsson is in the twilight of his career, but Ericsson and Hornqvist have their best NHL days ahead of them. And that&rsquo;s a credit to their own determination and the development teams who eased their adjustment.</p><p>Hornqvist in particular is in the middle of a breakout year with the Predators: the 23-year-old was leading Nashville in scoring with 23 goals and 37 points in 60 games &ndash; and received a massive confidence boost when he was named to Sweden&rsquo;s Olympic squad for the Vancouver Games.</p><p>&ldquo;After I was named to the Olympic team, my confidence was really high,&rdquo; said Hornqvist, who played 28 games for Nashville last season, but spent most of the year apprenticing with Milwaukee of the American League. &ldquo;Last season was a great year for me to see and learn what the NHL is all about, how good everybody is and get used to small rinks.</p><p>&ldquo;It was a little different to move over to a new country (with) a new language, but this year has been a much better year than last year. I feel more confident with everything outside the rink and (in) the rink.&rdquo;</p><p>Barry Trotz, Hornqvist&rsquo;s coach in Nashville, delivers the same message to all prospects.</p><p>&ldquo;In Nashville, we tell all our prospects, &lsquo;Once you&rsquo;re drafted, you&rsquo;re starting at ground zero,&rsquo;&rdquo; Trotz said. &ldquo;We tell them, &lsquo;We really don&rsquo;t care what you did in the past, or what your draft number was, it&rsquo;s about what you do for us from this point on.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p><p>Trotz said Hornqvist&rsquo;s initial struggles with the pro game are typical for young players regardless of their draft status.</p><p>&ldquo;Last year we felt the game was too quick for him and there&rsquo;s a threshold every young player has to go through where they try and transfer from the American League to the NHL,&rdquo; Trotz said. &ldquo;They call it &lsquo;confidence&rsquo;, but really it&rsquo;s that the game is too fast for them and they just can&rsquo;t do the things in the NHL that they did at other levels.</p><p>&ldquo;But the game slowed down for Patric this year. He worked on his speed and that helped, but his mental processing of the game has slowed down &ndash; and now he&rsquo;s a true NHLer. Ever since he broke through that threshold, he&rsquo;s been pretty good.&rdquo;</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-021715/9396859-1-eng-US/f0008-022.jpg" title="f0008-02" width="706" height="978"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>Gerry Meehan was the final pick in 1963, but scored 423 NHL points.</b> <span class="photo-credit">(MEEHAN: BRUCE BENNETT STUDIOS/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p>Trotz has been at the draft table when decisions are made on late-round picks; in his estimation, the process isn&rsquo;t nearly as much of a crapshoot as some would suggest.</p><p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re breaking young players into three areas: the character area, the hockey IQ area and obviously there&rsquo;s the skill area,&rdquo; Trotz said. &ldquo;At that point in the draft, you&rsquo;re looking for someone who&rsquo;s exceptional in one or two of the three areas. If you can find someone who&rsquo;s exceptional in one area and maybe very good in another, that&rsquo;s what teams look for.&rdquo;<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0007-01

LAST MEN STANDING

<h2><b>+THREE-PEAT</b></h2><p>Canada&rsquo;s women beat the U.S. to win their third straight Olympic gold, while Finland takes out Sweden for the bronze.</p><h2><b>&ndash; OVIE AND</b></h2><p>Ovechkin and the high-powered Russians fell well short of where many expected them to finish in Vancouver.</p><h2><b>+ SUPER</b>&nbsp;<b>SELANNE</b></h2><p>Competing in his fifth Games, &lsquo;Finnish Flash&rsquo; Teemu Selanne becomes the all-time leading Olympic scorer.</p><h2><b>&ndash; CAM</b>&nbsp;<b>CAUGHT</b></h2><p>St. Louis Blues tough guy Cam Janssen assessed a five-game suspension for late hit delivered to Cap Matt Bradley&rsquo;s head.</p><h2><b>+ TYLER&rsquo;S</b>&nbsp;<b>TIME</b></h2><p>Plymouth Whaler center Tyler Seguin is making a second-half push to challenge Spitfire Taylor Hall for No. 1 overall.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-04674/9396904-1-eng-US/f0008-042.jpg" title="f0008-04" width="724" height="1171"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>TYLER SEGUIN</b> <span class="photo-credit">(SEGUIN: AARON BELL/OHL IMAGES CROSBY)</span></figcaption></div><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span>

f0008-04

Plus/Minus

<h2><b>5FIVE</b></h2><p>Will the <b>Washington Capitals</b> become the first team to win a division by 30-plus points since Detroit in 1995-96?</p><h2><b>4fOUR</b></h2><p>Who will win the <b>First Underall</b> sweepstakes and get the best chance at the No. 1 overall pick in June?</p><h2><b>3THREE</b></h2><p>Can the <b>Detroit Red Wings</b> avoid missing the post-season for the first time in 20 seasons?</p><h2><b>2TWO</b></h2><p>Will goalie <b>Jonathan Quick</b> of the Los Angeles Kings break Martin Brodeur&rsquo;s single-season wins record of 48?</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-031207/9396935-1-eng-US/f0008-032.jpg" title="f0008-03" width="739" height="600"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(OVECHKIN: BRUCE BENNETT/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><h2><b>1ONE</b></h2><p>Can <b>Alexander Ovechkin</b> and <b>Sidney Crosby</b> give the NHL two 60-goal men for the first time since 1996?<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0008-03

Starting from 5

<div class="byline">&#x2013; Ryan dixon</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-012028/9396980-1-eng-US/f0009-012.jpg" title="f0009-01" width="950" height="919"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-04660/9396987-1-eng-US/f0009-042.jpg" title="f0009-04" width="133" height="133"></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-021412/9396973-1-eng-US/f0009-022.jpg" title="f0009-02" width="867" height="919"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-03870/9396966-1-eng-US/f0009-032.jpg" title="f0009-03" width="867" height="920"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>A lot of NHL rivals will be closely watching their foes&rsquo; results down the stretch.</b><span class="photo-credit">(LEFT: ABELIMAGES/GETTY IMAGES; RIGHT: EZRA SHAW/GETTY IMAGES CENTER: BILL WIPPERT/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p><b>THE ROAD TO</b> the Northeast Division title goes through&hellip;the road.</p><p>When NHL play picked up after the Olympic break, the Buffalo Sabres trailed the Ottawa Senators by one point for the Northeast lead &ndash; and the Eastern Conference&rsquo;s No. 3 seed &ndash; with three games in hand. Both squads have a trying stretch drive, playing the majority of their games on the road, where the Sabres had a .554 points percentage compared to Ottawa&rsquo;s .466 mark in foreign surroundings.</p><p>Buffalo has a five-game road trip in mid-March and concludes the season with six of eight games in enemy territory. The Sens have three separate three-game voyages and end the year by hosting the Sabres on April 10, a game that could have huge implications depending on how things play out.</p><p>Sticking with the Northeast, the Boston Bruins are most concerned with their own schedule as they try to nail down a playoff spot just a season removed from finishing atop the East. However, the Bruins are also likely paying attention to the fortunes of the Toronto Maple Leafs, since they hold the Leafs&rsquo; first round pick thanks to the Phil Kessel swap.</p><p>The Leafs resumed NHL play in 29th place overall, six points behind 28th-place Carolina. The bad news for Boston is the Leafs, based on the quality of their foes over the schedule&rsquo;s remaining days, have the easiest road to the finish, while the Hurricanes have the toughest. The combined points percentage for teams set to face Toronto in its 22 remaining games is .526, while the Hurricanes, in their final 23 games, will face foes with a combined .584 mark.</p><p>Should the Leafs overtake Carolina and climb out of second-last overall, it would adversely affect Boston&rsquo;s chances in the draft lottery, potentially leaving them without a chance to select one of the two prospects rated 1-2 on most lists, Ontario Leaguers Taylor Hall and Tyler Seguin.</p><p>In the West, Detroit&rsquo;s attempt to make a 19th consecutive post-season showing will be buoyed by the fact the Red Wings play 12 of their 21 remaining games at Joe Louis Arena, where they hold a .638 points percentage. Add in the fact Detroit, which began the final chase one point back of eighth-seeded Calgary, is finally starting to get some injured bodies back and it&rsquo;s very conceivable the Wings could become an unwanted first round draw for either San Jose or Chicago.</p><p>Hockey in Atlanta doesn&rsquo;t always draw a fierce amount of attention, but expect that to change on April 6, when Ilya Kovalchuk returns to Georgia to face the Thrashers as a member of the New Jersey Devils.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0009-01

THE FINAL COUNTDOWN

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0010-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-021621/9397018-1-eng-US/f0010-022.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>Ex-Minnesota center Patrick O&rsquo;Sullivan knows about calls from assistant GMs.</b> <span class="photo-credit">(ROBERT LABERGE/GETTY IMAGES/NHLI)</span></figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-012226/9397025-1-eng-US/f0010-012.jpg" title="f0010-01" width="206" height="245"></div><p><b>PLAYERS DREAD THE PHONE CALL</b> from the assistant GM. It&rsquo;s almost always never good news.</p><p>The tradition for most NHL teams is to have the assistant GM deliver the bad news to players. Bad news meaning trades, training camp cuts, per diem smaller than expected and the like. This represents a measure of job security for those in the role, as they realize the more distasteful the tasks they&rsquo;re willing to undertake without complaining, the more likely the GM will want to keep them around and not have to do them himself. Occasionally, the trade of a veteran player will necessitate the involvement of the GM, especially if the player was with the team for a good number of seasons, but most are communicated by the team&rsquo;s designated Ax-Man.</p><p>In my nine seasons as assistant GM of the Minnesota Wild, we traded 20 players who had worn a Wild sweater and a good number more from the minor league affiliate (I also served as GM of the minor league team). This amounted to a lot of difficult phone calls and personal conversations. Unlike training camp cuts, however, which were almost universally negative (I always felt like the Angel of Death wandering through the dressing room during training camp), the majority of &ldquo;you&rsquo;ve been traded&rdquo; calls are actually positive.</p><p>Rarely does a team trade a player who is producing in his role and is expected to help in the future. For the player&rsquo;s part, if you are not producing and are not in the team&rsquo;s future plans, you&rsquo;ll most likely appreciate a fresh start elsewhere. In fact, through more than 30 of these conversations, I never had a player react angrily, and only a few times with sadness and regret. Surprisingly, only twice did the traded player even ask me what he was traded for from his new team. As soon as a player hears the news, most react with some measure of surprise, immediately start calculating what this means to career and family in terms of the new team and city. They don&rsquo;t worry about anything else right away.</p><p>I had many interesting trade calls. The first one I ever made was in 2001 to Scott Pellerin, the Wild&rsquo;s leading scorer its first season. Scott was on the road with the team at the time. It was the morning of a game day, so he didn&rsquo;t answer his mobile phone. I reached our equipment manager at the rink, where he located Scott preparing for the morning skate. When he answered, it was very loud in the background and I asked him where he was. He replied he was in the bathroom of the dressing room. I asked him if he could go somewhere else to talk but he said this was the only phone around, so with the background noise of bathroom chatter and toilets flushing, I let him know he had been traded.</p><p>The scariest call I had to make was to former Wild center Sebastien Bordeleau in 2001-02. When he answered the phone, I asked him where he was and he cheerfully responded that he was in a hospital room holding his newborn baby. I asked if he could hand the baby to his wife. He said she was asleep and did not want to wake her after her ordeal, so I asked if he could at least sit down, but he noted there were no free chairs in the room. With a chill of dread that he might drop the baby, I slowly and carefully told him he had been traded to Phoenix. Thankfully, he took the news well (he needed a new venue) and held on tight to the infant.</p><p>Believe it or not, I&rsquo;ve actually had a few funny incidents in trade calls. In June of 2003, shortly after the Wild-affiliated Houston Aeros won the American League&rsquo;s Calder Cup, I called defensive standout Curtis Murphy  to inform him he had been moved in a three-way deal to Nashville. I could barely hear him above the crowd noise. He told me he was sitting on a fire truck waving to the crowd during the team&rsquo;s victory parade through Houston. What timing to give him the news. I told him about the trade and thanked him for his service but suggested he finish the parade instead of jumping off the truck, which brought a laugh from him.</p><p>The most fun I had with a trade conversation was when the Wild traded Patrick O&rsquo;Sullivan and a first round pick to the Los Angeles Kings on the draft floor in June of 2006 for Pavol Demitra. Kings GM Dean Lombardi had played cat and mouse with this trade for days and was clearly nervous about his first major deal in his tenure with Los Angeles. After the trade was made, Dean asked me for Patrick&rsquo;s phone number so he could call and welcome his new player. As I wrote it down for him, he asked if this was Patrick&rsquo;s cell phone and I casually answered no; it was a juvenile detention facility somewhere in California. Dean&rsquo;s face went white and he nearly fell off his chair (Patrick previously had an undeserved reputation for his off-ice behavior). Credit Dean&rsquo;s sense of humor that he didn&rsquo;t take a swing at me after I started laughing.</p><p>The most difficult call I ever had to make by far was to a kid I had personally recruited and signed as a free agent out of junior. Ryan Hamilton still has not made it to The Show, but is an eleven (out of 10) on the scale of hard work and character and is the toughest player I ever saw play. I once saw him take such a vicious spear to the lower solar plexus that he came to the bench completely white, vomited in the tunnel (coincidentally called a &lsquo;vomitory&rsquo; by arena architects) and immediately jumped back on the ice and threw a nasty open-ice hit in the neutral zone. For the good of the organization, we had traded Hamilton to Toronto for Robbie Earl, who brought speed as a depth player the Wild lacked. But in preparing to make that call, I never realized a phone could weigh so much. Ryan was surprised and very disappointed, as was expected, but was at least encouraged he was going to his hometown to play. I was the one who was more broken up on the call and had to end it early.</p><p>Oddly enough, although trades often don&rsquo;t work out for teams, they almost always work out for the players involved, as it did for those players mentioned above. Going to a new place for a new chance with fresh expectations is one of the best coaching tools in hockey.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0010-02

DESIGNATED AX-MAN

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0012-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-021702/9397063-1-eng-US/f0012-022.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>Cory Conacher is hoping to get his family&rsquo;s name back into the NHL soon.</b> <span class="photo-credit">(TOM WOLF IMAGING)</span></figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-012173/9397070-1-eng-US/f0012-012.jpg" title="f0012-01" width="207" height="245"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>I</span>F SOME HOCKEY PLAYERS</b> are born great and others have greatness thrust upon them, Cory Conacher is a hybrid of both: a young man with an impressive hockey pedigree who has overcome obstacles and made the most of the opportunities afforded him.</p><p>And because of that combination, Conacher is making himself known &ndash; not only to fans of his Canisius College team, but to professional scouts who overlooked the 20-year-old at last year&rsquo;s NHL draft.</p><p>&ldquo;I guess you could say this has been a breakout year for me,&rdquo; said Conacher, a Burlington, Ont., native, two-time Hobey Baker Award candidate and distant cousin of legendary NHLers Lionel and Charlie Conacher.</p><p>&ldquo;I lucked out with the family I have. My father and my family really put everything right in front of me to help me succeed in hockey. So it&rsquo;s almost been handed to me to succeed and I think if I apply the necessary powers in the gym and on the rink, I have a good chance to make hockey my living.&rdquo;</p><blockquote class="pullQuote"><b>&lsquo;NOW (SCOUTS) ARE SAYING, &lsquo;I&rsquo;D BETTER GET OUT AND WATCH HIM&rsquo;</b></blockquote><p>Conacher isn&rsquo;t the oldest member of his team &ndash; actually, he&rsquo;s second-youngest on the squad, despite being a junior at the Buffalo-based school &ndash; and at 5-foot-8, the winger definitely isn&rsquo;t the bulkiest player on the ice. But through late February, he led not only Canisius in scoring, but ranked third among all NCAA Division 1 players.</p><p>According to his coach, the affection Conacher has for the sport and the determination to overcome obstacles on and off the ice is what makes him so valuable.</p><p>&ldquo;He&rsquo;s not one-dimensional,&rdquo; said Canisius coach Dave Smith. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a well-rounded kid who has a lot of other interests, but his focus on hockey clearly is No. 1.</p><p>&ldquo;He&rsquo;s one of those guys in practice who tries things and that&rsquo;s what rubs off on his teammates. The skill, creativity and puck possession they see from Cory, that&rsquo;s what sticks with other players.&rdquo;</p><p>One of the obstacles Conacher copes with every day is diabetes, which he was diagnosed with at age eight. But early on in his college career, that issue was the least of his worries.</p><p>&ldquo;In my first official practice at Canisius, I broke my wrist,&rdquo; said Conacher, who also excels at inline hockey and has represented Canada at the IIHF World Inline Hockey Championship. &ldquo;Just a fluke drill, a fluke hit and my wrist went the wrong way. I was out the first 20 games of the season, but it helped just watching the games and getting used to what college hockey is all about.&rdquo;</p><p>Conacher has slowly built his game and now he&rsquo;ll likely demolish Canisius&rsquo; all-time scoring record if he returns as a senior next year.</p><p>That is his intention, but with all the focus NHL and minor pro scouts now pay to undrafted collegiate athletes, there&rsquo;s a chance Conacher could replicate the success of NCAA free agents-turned-NHLers Matt Gilroy and Tyler Bozak.</p><p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s cool to see Gilroy and Bozak score in the NHL this year, because they were in this league last year,&rdquo; Conacher said. &ldquo;Hopefully that continues and we get a couple more college guys into the NHL to continue making that statement.&rdquo;</p><p>One of the main reasons for Conacher&rsquo;s success is his improved defensive play.</p><p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s fairly obvious he loves the puck and when he first came in he was all about the puck, but he&rsquo;s become our best defensive player,&rdquo; Smith said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s our top penalty-killer, he&rsquo;s our top plus-minus forward. That, he didn&rsquo;t have when he first came to Canisius.&rdquo;</p><p>Smith, who enjoyed a productive playing career with Ohio State, recognizes that the increased attention given to undrafted college players makes Conacher a pioneer of sorts.</p><p>&ldquo;As an assistant (coach at Mercyhurst College), I was fortunate to be part of the program that had a guy by the name of Jamie Hunt, who was one of the first guys to sign with an NHL team out of Atlantic Hockey,&rdquo; Smith said. &ldquo;He saw he could sign as a junior and he played a few NHL games; that showed it can happen. And more recently, (former San Jose Sharks and New York Rangers left winger) Pat Rismiller did it while playing at Holy Cross.</p><p>&ldquo;But our guys are seeing NHL scouts at our games lately &ndash; and I think with Cory, their question has really been &lsquo;can he keep doing it?&rsquo; And he has. And now they&rsquo;re saying, &lsquo;I&rsquo;d better get out and watch him&rsquo;, and they&rsquo;re seeing a dynamic talent.</p><p>&ldquo;Cory understands that, because that&rsquo;s something we talk about &ndash; that there&rsquo;s no footprints ahead of us. We&rsquo;ve talked about that with our program for a number of years, but now we&rsquo;re seeing guys who are living it. That&rsquo;s pretty satisfying and rewarding for us.</p><p>&ldquo;He&rsquo;s an example of a guy who can do it. And we talk about him with all our recruits. If Cory can do it, they can do it.&rdquo;</p><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-031094/9397056-1-eng-US/f0012-032.jpg" title="f0012-03" width="52" height="53"></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><p>For Adam&rsquo;s web-exclusive <b>Screen Shots</b> column, visit<a href="http://THN.com">thn.com</a><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0012-02

TRAILBLAZING IN BUFFALO

f0013-01

SUBSCRIBE TO WIN

<div class="byline">ALL STORIES BY KEN CAMPBELL</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0021-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-011261/9397160-1-eng-US/f0021-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(BRUCE BENNETT/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-011442/9397153-1-eng-US/f0022-012.jpg" title="f0022-01" width="2127" height="1259"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>Canada&rsquo;s win was a team effort, but got a huge boost from kid defenders.</b> <span class="photo-credit">(HARRY HOW/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>V</span>ANCOUVER &ndash; LET&rsquo;S FAST-FORWARD</b> about four months to the NHL Awards ceremony, shall we? Yeah, they&rsquo;re in Las Vegas again. No, we can&rsquo;t quite figure out what sense that makes either.</p><p>Isn&rsquo;t that Shea Weber playing Black Jack? Look over there, Duncan Keith is at the craps table. Hey, is Drew Doughty even old enough to be in this place?</p><p>Really, would anyone be blown away if Keith, Doughty and Weber were the three finalists for the Norris Trophy this season? Didn&rsquo;t think so. And if not this year, they might want to all get themselves a good tuxedo because they&rsquo;ll probably be wearing it, if not this June, then surely for many to come in the years ahead.</p><p>That Keith, the oldest of the three, is just 26 is impressive enough. But blend that with the fact the three young men were lynchpins for Canada&rsquo;s gold medal-winning team at the 2010 Winter Olympics and you&rsquo;re onto something really special.</p><p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a dream come true,&rdquo; Doughty said. &ldquo;Words can&rsquo;t explain how good we&rsquo;re feeling right now. We had so much fun out there.&rdquo;</p><p>When have there been three defensemen who are so good so young and, more importantly, when have they all been from the same country? And that doesn&rsquo;t even include Mike Green of the Washington Capitals, who just happened to enter the stretch run leading all NHL defensemen in scoring. And remember Chicago&rsquo;s Brent Seabrook, the 24-year-old defenseman who saw limited action with the Canadian team as its seventh blueliner?</p><p>At the Olympics, Keith, Weber and Doughty weaved a remarkable tale. So much was made of the veteran presence on the team and Scott Niedermayer, Dan Boyle and Chris Pronger had their moments of greatness, but it was truly a coming out party for Keith, Doughty and Weber.</p><p>In Canada&rsquo;s decisive 8-3 drubbing of Russia, Weber drew the assignment of containing Alex Ovechkin and when Canada was protecting a 3-2 lead over Slovakia in what became a wild semifinal, the defense tandem of Doughty and Keith was called upon to hold down the fort.</p><p>All right, maybe they didn&rsquo;t make out so well on that one. They failed to clear the puck several times and only a miraculous glove stop by Roberto Luongo on Pavol Demitra &ndash; and the fact they were saved by the bell&ndash;prevented something awful from transpiring. However, that they were the ones out there and survived the experience says a lot for their maturity.</p><blockquote class="pullQuote"><b>&lsquo;I ALWAYS THOUGHT I COULD BE ON THE TEAM, BUT I WAS PRETTY SURPRISED TO MAKE IT.&rsquo;</b></blockquote><p>&ldquo;I thought that when they were stuck out there for about a minute and 40 seconds, they showed how young they were,&rdquo; said Canadian coach Mike Babcock. &ldquo;But, you know, that&rsquo;s just part of getting whiskers in the league. You have to go through some situations like that, you&rsquo;ve got to be chasing your tail a few times to figure out exactly how to stop and play with some poise. But those kids were great for us.&rdquo;</p><p>Poise and whiskers. Despite a few gaffes in the tournament, Doughty showed an incredible amount of the former even if he doesn&rsquo;t have much of the latter. Nothing he has done since he entered the league last season would suggest he won&rsquo;t be a top-caliber defenseman; it&rsquo;s that he has become so good so quickly that is so surprising.</p><p>&ldquo;I guess I always thought maybe I could be on the team, but I was pretty surprised to make the team,&rdquo; Doughty said after the gold medal final in Vancouver. &ldquo;I really didn&rsquo;t think I was going to make it. Now that I did and now that I&rsquo;m a gold medalist, I wouldn&rsquo;t trade anything for that.&rdquo;</p><p>Nobody would have seen it as travesty if Doughty hadn&rsquo;t made the Olympic squad, but then we wouldn&rsquo;t have seen him spin off forwards and go to the net. We wouldn&rsquo;t have seen him start with the puck in his own end and hit his stride in the neutral zone before carrying it past the opposition&rsquo;s blueline. We wouldn&rsquo;t have seen a 20-year-old play with a veteran&rsquo;s poise.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-011265/9397146-1-eng-US/f0023-012.jpg" title="f0023-01" width="1399" height="1229"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>Drew Doughty&rsquo;s ice time increased as coaches discovered he has ice in his veins.</b> <span class="photo-credit">(HARRY HOW/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p>Forget about Doughty being a candidate for the Norris Trophy in a few years. He&rsquo;s in the mix right now.</p><p>Let&rsquo;s consider that for a moment. Since the NHL began handing out the Norris in 1953-54, the average age of a first-time winner is 27. Among the past six first-time winners, Chris Pronger was the youngest to do it at 25. Nicklas Lidstrom didn&rsquo;t win his first Norris Trophy until he was 31. Scott Niedermayer was 30, Al MacInnis 35 and Zdeno Chara 32. In fact, even if Doughty didn&rsquo;t win the award until after the 2011-12 season, he&rsquo;d still be the second-youngest player to win the Norris after Bobby Orr, who first won the Norris months after turning 20 in 1968.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-011390/9397139-1-eng-US/f0024-012.jpg" title="f0024-01" width="2336" height="1697"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>Shea Weber crunches Alex Ovechkin and helped crush Russia&rsquo;s spirit.</b> <span class="photo-credit">(KEVORK DJANSEZIAN/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p>Usually coaches tell kids Doughty&rsquo;s age to chip the puck off the glass and stay out of trouble or risk being nailed to the bench by their hockey pants. But here he was in the biggest tournament on the biggest stage in the world, rushing the puck, moving it up the middle of the ice and having the green light to actually do something with the puck.</p><p>It was to Babcock&rsquo;s credit that he allowed Doughty to continue doing so even after an ill-advised pinch led to the tying goal against Switzerland earlier in the tournament. After having his aforementioned hockey pants nailed to the bench for a short period, Doughty was put right back out and it&rsquo;s probably no coincidence that he got better from that point.</p><p>&ldquo;The coaches certainly didn&rsquo;t hold us back,&rdquo; Doughty said. &ldquo;They told us right from the start that they wanted us to move the puck and skate and jump up into the play. For them to have that confidence in me helped so much.&rdquo;</p><p>With Doughty, it&rsquo;s the Doug Harvey-like poise he shows when he&rsquo;s carrying the puck that makes you sit up and take notice.</p><p>&ldquo;He has ice in his veins,&rdquo; Babcock said.</p><p>That might be true, but if his arteries do indeed contain frozen water, he has undoubtedly managed to keep his hands and feet warm. Not even Doughty can fully explain where he gets his low panic threshold.</p><p>&ldquo;I guess I get it from my dad (Paul),&rdquo; Doughty said. &ldquo;He was a pretty good soccer player and he&rsquo;s the kind of guy who&rsquo;s pretty laid back and just goes with the flow. When I was younger, my mother (Connie) was always on me to move the puck faster.&rdquo;</p><p>Moving the puck with speed from his stick to the net has never been a problem for the 24-year-old Weber, who has a scary-hard shot, with the emphasis on scary. Last March, he broke teammate Martin Erat&rsquo;s leg with one of his blasts and earlier this year, broke bones in Jordan Too-too&rsquo;s foot. But nothing was more impressive than during the qualifying game against Germany when Weber shot the puck through the net.</p><p>&ldquo;I did that once when I was playing ball hockey when I was a little kid,&rdquo; Weber said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve always worked on my shot ever since I was a little kid. I had a piece of plywood in the backyard and I would just shoot and shoot and shoot.&rdquo;</p><p>Yes, being a mountain of a man helps. Vital statistics: 6-foot-4, 229 pounds, tied for second (ironically, with Olympic teammates Doughty, Keith and Dan Boyle) for second among NHL defensemen in goals with 11 entering the Olympic break. But like Al MacInnis did in Calgary, Weber is going to have to learn to tame that shot of his or his teammates are going to start retreating to the corners every time he winds up.</p><p>&ldquo;Sometimes, they get a little scared,&rdquo; Weber said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a tough place for them, but for the most part, I think a lot of our guys are willing to go to the front of the net because that&rsquo;s where you get rewarded. Pucks will bounce your way. I&rsquo;ve broken a couple of bones, so I guess that&rsquo;s not great, though.&rdquo;</p><p>If you haven&rsquo;t followed Keith&rsquo;s career closely, you&rsquo;d probably be surprised to learn he&rsquo;s as old as he is. The Chicago Blackhawks knew that when they signed him to a (frickin&rsquo;) 13-year contract extension worth almost $72 million that kicks in next season. But it&rsquo;s not as though he has just entered our consciousness. He was a very good defenseman, for the past couple seasons, but this year he arguably has been Chicago&rsquo;s best all-round player.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-011237/9397132-1-eng-US/f0025-012.jpg" title="f0025-01" width="2336" height="1422"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>Duncan Keith has emerged as one of the most valuable players in the NHL.</b> <span class="photo-credit">(BRUCE BENNETT/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><blockquote class="pullQuote"><b>&lsquo;I&rsquo;M NOT A WILY VETERAN, BUT I FEEL LIKE I&rsquo;VE LEARNED A LOT&rsquo;</b></blockquote><p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not a wily veteran by any stretch of the imagination, but I feel like I&rsquo;ve learned a lot in my six or seven years pro,&rdquo; Keith said. &ldquo;I feel like I still have a lot to learn and a lot to keep improving on, but having said that, I don&rsquo;t feel like I&rsquo;m surprised where I&rsquo;m at right now.&rdquo;</p><p>Hawks captain Jonathan Toews, who might have been Canada&rsquo;s best forward from the start of the tournament to the end, has had an all-access pass to Keith&rsquo;s exploits for almost three seasons now and said he wasn&rsquo;t surprised his teammate played such a prominent role for Canada at the Olympics, since he does so with one of the best teams in the NHL.</p><p>&ldquo;He plays the game the right way and he just enjoys the game,&rdquo; Toews said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s an old-school guy. He takes care of himself and he works hard and there are definitely no shortcuts in his game.</p><p>&ldquo;He&rsquo;s one of those guys who might not have gotten the hype as guys who were high draft picks, but he&rsquo;s worked for every inch and he&rsquo;s showing his true colors as a player and a guy. I think he was one of the best defensemen on our team.&rdquo;</p><p>He might even be the best defenseman in the game this season and for many to come. So might Doughty and Weber.</p><p>The envelope please&hellip;<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0021-01

Canada’s new defending champions

<div class="byline">BY KEN CAMPBELL</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0026-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-011403/9397191-1-eng-US/f0026-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>Tenacity is a hall-mark of Sidney Crosby&rsquo;s game and personal make-up.</b> <span class="photo-credit">(HARRY HOW/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>V</span>ANCOUVER &ndash; SIDNEY CROSBY&rsquo;S FATHER</b> often tells a story about how his young son woke up one morning to learn that a blizzard had battered eastern Canada. The first thing he did was grab his stick and his skates and head to the local rink in Cole Harbour, where the doors were thrown open for anyone to play shinny.</p><p>As the morning and afternoon wore on, kids came and went, but Crosby stayed all day and into the evening. It was <i>The Iowa Baseball Confederacy</i> on ice.</p><p>We&rsquo;re willing to bet that at some point during his marathon, Crosby yelled for a pass from a winger along the wall and, standing in the slot, swept it five-hole into the net.</p><p>Years later, in one of the biggest games of his life &ndash; he&rsquo;s had a few of those, hasn&rsquo;t he? &ndash; Crosby did it again to give Canada a gold medal.</p><p>Crosby was born for moments such as the 7:40 mark of overtime in the gold medal game of the 2010 Olympics. For three full games prior to the extra period, he struggled mightily to make something happen, but Canadian coach Mike Babcock, knowing that big moments and destiny tend to follow players such as Crosby around, continued to send him over the boards.</p><p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re just happy he&rsquo;s on your team, aren&rsquo;t you?&rdquo; Crosby&rsquo;s Canadian teammate Joe Thornton said after the gold medal victory. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re happy he was born in Canada. Thank God.&rdquo;</p><p>At the risk of sounding blasphemous, God has had very little to do with Crosby the hockey player. Sidney Crosby is not blessed with an overabundance of natural gifts. He is not a Wayne Gretzky, he is not a Mario Lemieux. He wasn&rsquo;t born into a rich family that could find him the best competition and coaching money could buy.</p><p>Crosby is what writer Malcolm Gladwell refers to as an <i>Outlier</i>. In his book of the same name, Gladwell talks about The 10,000 Hour Rule, claiming the key to success in any field of endeavor is a matter of practicing a specific task for 10,000 hours.</p><p>That&rsquo;s exactly what Crosby has done and, as such, he is one of the hardest-working superstars in NHL history. When Crosby found early in his career that he wasn&rsquo;t very good on faceoffs, he devoted himself to improving and is now one of the better faceoff men in the league.</p><p>When he was named rookie of the year in the Quebec League, he was embarrassed he couldn&rsquo;t accept the award in French and vowed that night to his agent that he would do so the next year in both of Canada&rsquo;s official languages. Now he and teammate Maxime Talbot share inside jokes in French in the Pittsburgh Penguins dressing room.</p><p>When he realized he would never be considered an all-time legendary player until he started to score more, he set out to amp up that part of his game and entered the NHL stretch run tied with Alex Ovechkin for the goal-scoring lead with 42.</p><p>So when Crosby called for that puck from Iginla in overtime of the gold medal game, he didn&rsquo;t do anything he hasn&rsquo;t done thousands of times before.</p><p>And a little bit of it, no doubt, can be traced back to that snowy day in Cole Harbour when the hardest-working superstar in hockey laid the foundation for history.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0026-01

‘The Kid’ was built for greatness

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0027-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-011317/9397229-1-eng-US/f0027-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>Roberto Luongo finds out the hard way the Americans won&rsquo;t roll over and die.</b> <span class="photo-credit">(BRUCE BENNETT/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>V</span>ANCOUVER &ndash; THE YEAR WAS 1994</b>, going on 1995. Patrick Kane had just turned six and little Jack Johnson was counting the sleeps until his eighth birthday. A world away in the Canadian hinterland of Red Deer, Jamie Langenbrunner was being humiliated.</p><p>The 1995 U.S. World Junior team was a mishmash of major junior and college players who pretty much hated each other. Before their game against Canada, the players sat in the dressing room with their knees knocking together. They were totally unprepared for what they were about to face and as soon as they stepped on the ice in front of 6,000 hostile fans, they cowered. They lost the game 8-3 and finished fifth.</p><p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t remember much about it,&rdquo; said Langenbrunner, who played for that 1995 U.S. team. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve tried to block it out. I do remember we got hammered. We weren&rsquo;t even in the same class as they were.&rdquo;</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-011381/9397222-1-eng-US/f0028-012.jpg" title="f0028-01" width="1954" height="1147"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>Ryan Miller&rsquo;s heroic play gives Team USA a chance to win in every game.</b> <span class="photo-credit">(JAMIE SQUIRE/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p>Fifteen years later, the Canadians are still the class of the field and they have the Olympic gold medals around their necks to prove it. After all, when you win the gold medal at the Olympics, you&rsquo;ve earned the right to call yourself the best and thump on your chest.</p><p>But the team and country that painted itself as such an underdog in these Olympics was the best team in the tournament until the last game. The Americans somehow went into hostile territory, romped their way through the proceedings and managed to emerge as the sweetheart of the Olympics without looking like, well, ugly Americans.</p><p>USA entered the tournament with the youngest team &ndash; which had a lot of people comparing it to the 1980 Miracle on Ice &ndash; and while it&rsquo;s difficult to portray a team whose players pull down an average of $3.64 million a season as a plucky underdog, the tag somehow fit.</p><p>Who knew? There was once a whole generation of American players who were full of swagger and cockiness despite the fact they hadn&rsquo;t accomplished a whole lot. But this Olympic team that came so close was so humble, so workmanlike and so not afraid of the world stage it was wonderful to watch.</p><p>Take Jack Johnson. Every time he touched the puck during the Games, he was booed mercilessly. That goes back to a vicious elbow he applied to Steve Downie &ndash; the bastion of all that is good and pure in hockey &ndash; during the 2006 world junior tournament in Vancouver. Wow, people have long memories around here.</p><p>But Johnson, who just turned 23 in January, didn&rsquo;t allow it to rattle him. In fact, he reveled in it, not because he enjoys being booed, but because he&rsquo;s a part of a new generation of American player who has a ton of confidence without being self-absorbed. Most American players run through the National Team Development Program in Ann Arbor, Mich., as 16-and 17-year-olds and by the time they reach the Olympics, they exude confidence.</p><p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;d say there&rsquo;s no fear factor. It doesn&rsquo;t matter who we play, we&rsquo;re not going to be scared,&rdquo; Johnson said. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re all human beings. They all put their skates on one at a time and there&rsquo;s no reason to be scared. Myself and a lot of the young guys, we&rsquo;ve had success against every single team and you might win a game, you might lose a game, but there&rsquo;s absolutely no excuse for being scared. Nobody&rsquo;s got a knife or a gun out there. There&rsquo;s nothing too bad that&rsquo;s going to happen.&rdquo;</p><p>Seven players on the American team &ndash; Erik and Jack Johnson, Patrick Kane, Ryan Kesler, Phil Kessel, Ryan Suter and Ryan Whitney &ndash; went through the under-17 and under-18 programs established in 1997 to help USA build better players for the NHL and international competition. USA Hockey spends about $2.6 million a year on the program, which hothouses the most promising young players and exposes them to the best coaching and international play.</p><p>Ask some NHL people what they think about USA Hockey and they&rsquo;ll tell you what a lot of people think about bureaucracies &ndash; that it&rsquo;s rife with fat cats who have their own agendas and are out of touch with the grassroots &ndash; but clearly it is doing something right. In case you haven&rsquo;t noticed, the Americans are currently the reigning world champions at the under-17, under-18 and world junior levels.</p><p>&ldquo;Now the U.S. is a contender on every level, which is not something I think you could say a few years ago,&rdquo; said Zach Parise, who finished the tournament with four goals and eight points, including a dramatic tying score with 25 seconds remaining in the gold medal contest. &ldquo;We have a legitimate chance to win every tournament, which is great. From my experience, there&rsquo;s no fear in playing the Canadians or playing the Russians anymore. If there was years ago, I&rsquo;ve never witnessed it or seen it. We&rsquo;ve never had that type of mentality.&rdquo;</p><p>American GM Brian Burke was working at the NHL&rsquo;s head office when the concept of the national development program was proposed and remembers there was a &ldquo;monumental internal struggle&rdquo; within the organization whether it should be spending so much of its budget essentially on about 40 players.</p><p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s the best money USA Hockey ever spent,&rdquo; Burke said. &ldquo;There was a lot of sentiment that those millions of dollars should go toward increasing the base of the pyramid rather than trying to refine the point of the pyramid. It has not just benefited the NHL, it has benefited the NCAA and major junior hockey. A marvelous decision.&rdquo;</p><p>What that program has done, in many ways, is create a bond between players at a young age so that by the time they get to the world junior tournament, there aren&rsquo;t petty jealousies between those who play major junior hockey and those who opt for college. It might sound silly, but that&rsquo;s the way it used to be.</p><p>&ldquo;It really was like that, even for me when I played in the world juniors five years ago,&rdquo; said American winger Bobby Ryan. &ldquo;Everybody looked at you differently because you went up to Canada to play.&rdquo;</p><blockquote class="pullQuote"><b>&lsquo;IT DOESN&rsquo;T MATTER WHO WE PLAY, WE&rsquo;RE NOT SCARED&rsquo;</b><br>&ndash; JACK JOHNSON</blockquote><p>Of course, not all of the American team&rsquo;s success can be attributed to the Ann Arbor developmental program. Some of it has to go to Burke, who built his team in Toronto based on testosterone and belligerence and all that stuff and put together a fair number of grunts for his Olympic squad, which turned out to be the least penalized team in the event.</p><p>Part of that had to do with the fact coach Ron Wilson effectively laid down an edict before the tournament that retaliatory and selfish penalties would not be tolerated. Again, if you&rsquo;ve watched American teams in the past, it might surprise you that nation was able to put together a collection of players who were so selfless.</p><p>And let&rsquo;s face it &ndash; Burke was brilliant in his roster construction. Jarome Iginla said Canada had &ldquo;four first lines&rdquo; on their team, but that wasn&rsquo;t the case on the American group.</p><p>&ldquo;Part of it is the group we put together,&rdquo; Burke said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re not asking 30-goal scorers to do grunt work, we have grunts that are doing the grunt work. When we put this team together, we tried to identify people who were good at specific tasks.</p><p>&ldquo;These are not players who are going to bitch about ice time or situational play. They&rsquo;re not going to say to their coach, &lsquo;Why am I not on the power play?&rsquo; because they&rsquo;re not on the power play at home either.&rdquo;</p><p>And even guys who do play a more prominent part with their NHL team are increasingly willing to fulfill reduced roles for Team USA. David Backes of the St. Louis Blues isn&rsquo;t having a terrific offensive year, but he&rsquo;s still someone with legit offensive upside. Still, he accepted a fourth-line role with the Olympic team. That&rsquo;s not something you might see from a high-caliber player who doesn&rsquo;t play for the Canadian team.</p><p>You also might not see it from a player who holds grudges. Backes and teammate Ryan Kesler had quite a battle going during the playoffs last year. However, Backes said Kesler went over the line when he said something on the ice about Backes&rsquo; wife &ndash; although he did give Kesler props for doing his research on Google.</p><p>&ldquo;If he wants to pick a fight with my wife, he&rsquo;s better off picking a fight with me,&rdquo; Backes said of Kesler. &ldquo;But that&rsquo;s the great thing about the U.S., I think. You&rsquo;ve got that freedom of speech and all of a sudden you&rsquo;ve got to work for a common goal and united we stand and divided we fall.&rdquo;</p><p>For the span of two weeks, the American team stood united. They were the only team to defeat Canada in the tournament and that has to count for something. They did it without becoming public enemies and managed to show the hockey world they can be strong and confident without being obnoxious.</p><p>&ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t say it&rsquo;s just Canada, it&rsquo;s everyone,&rdquo; Jack Johnson said when talking about the Canadian-U.S. rivalry. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re not discriminating against any country. We pretty much dislike everybody.&rdquo;</p><p>All right, perhaps it&rsquo;s a work in progress. But all in all, the reconstruction of the U.S. as a hockey power is going very, very well.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0027-01

Watch out world, United skates arrives

<div class="byline">BY KEN CAMPBELL</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0030-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-011391/9397281-1-eng-US/f0030-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>A combination of veteran leadership and young legs delivered another crown.</b> <span class="photo-credit">(BRUCE BENNETT/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>V</span>ANCOUVER &ndash; GENERALLY SPEAKING,</b> the Canadian women&rsquo;s hockey program takes the same approach to individualism as most of us do to our in-laws; we&rsquo;ll tolerate them out of necessity, but that doesn&rsquo;t mean we have to like it. Sure, you see Hayley Wickenheiser and Kim St-Pierre in a television spot for The Egg Farmers of Canada (yeah, really), but for the most part, playing women&rsquo;s hockey means both embracing and spewing the triumph of the collective. They would have made really good communists.</p><p>So it was no surprise that when Marie-Philip Poulin approached a throng of microphones and tape recorders with an Olympic gold medal around her neck, she appeared rather bewildered, looking around at nobody in particular and saying, &ldquo;So, do I just start talking now?&rdquo;</p><p>She might want to start getting used to the attention because there will be a lot more of it from now on. Not only did she emerge as one of the heroes and difference-makers for the Canadian team in the Olympics, but she&rsquo;ll be choosing a U.S. university in the next couple of months and there will be no shortage of college recruiters with visions of her filling the net for them.</p><p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve had a few offers,&rdquo; she said in a rather understated manner.</p><p>So much was made of the veteran experience on the Canadian women&rsquo;s team, which won its third straight gold medal with a 2-0 win over Team USA in the Olympic final, but it was the contribution of the youthful players on the squad that made the difference. In particular, 23-year-old Meghan Agosta and 18-year-old Poulin were spectacular. Agosta, who will finish her final year at Mercyhurst College next season, completed the tournament with nine goals and 15 points in five games to lead all players in both categories (Swiss sensation Stefanie Marty also had nine goals). Poulin scored five goals in the tournament, including both in the gold medal game, making her most important contribution at the most crucial time.</p><p>Now players such as Wickenheiser and Jayna Hefford have been wonderful, wonderful players for Canada over the years and they have the three gold medals to show for their work. But 2010 will be remembered as the moment in time they passed the torch to Agosta and Poulin.</p><p>It is clearly their time now.</p><p>&ldquo;The way Heff and Wick played for us here, I don&rsquo;t think it&rsquo;s a passing of the torch just yet,&rdquo; said Canadian women&rsquo;s coach Melody Davidson, &ldquo;but they&rsquo;re setting it up.&rdquo;</p><p>Consider the fact Agosta was named both MVP and the top forward of the tournament and she and Poulin, not Wickenheiser and Hefford, were named to the post-tournament all-star team. Hefford finished the Games with five goals and 12 points, while Wickenheiser had 11 points, but just two of those were goals.</p><blockquote class="pullQuote"><b>&lsquo;THE WAY HEFF AND WICK PLAYED FOR US HERE, I DON&rsquo;T THINK IT&rsquo;S A PASSING OF THE TORCH JUST YET&rsquo;</b><br>&ndash; COACH MELODY DAVIDSON</blockquote><p>Throw in the fact that 23-year-old Shannon Szabados, the youngest goalie on the Canadian roster, got the start for the gold medal game over St-Pierre and Charline Labonte and you have the makings of a rather formidable foe for years to come. In Canada&rsquo;s media guide, Poulin listed Caroline Ouellette as her favorite women&rsquo;s athlete, which was interesting since she became Ouellette&rsquo;s linemate this season.</p><p>&ldquo;I feel really lucky that I&rsquo;ve played with her with (her club team) the Montreal Stars and now to win that gold medal with her,&rdquo; Poulin said.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-011274/9397274-1-eng-US/f0031-012.jpg" title="f0031-01" width="1032" height="1259"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>HAYLEY WICKENHEISER</b> <span class="photo-credit">(BRUCE BENNETT/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-011363/9397267-1-eng-US/f0032-012.jpg" title="f0032-01" width="1846" height="1382"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>Meghan Agosta wears No. 2, but was the No. 1 star as MVP at the Games.</b> <span class="photo-credit">(ALEX LIVESEY/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s just awesome. She helped me all year long and I owe her a lot.&rdquo;</p><p>Poulin says &ldquo;awesome&rdquo; a lot. Of course that might have something to do with the fact that she doesn&rsquo;t turn 19 until the end of March or that winning a gold medal at that young of an age is a pretty awesome experience.</p><p>&ldquo;I play with awesome players and it was a team effort and it was just awesome to have that medal around my neck,&rdquo; Poulin said. &ldquo;I have no words to describe it right now. It&rsquo;s just awesome to feel that way, just awesome. I can&rsquo;t believe it.&rdquo;</p><p>Agosta wears the No. 2, which is usually reserved for lumbering defensive defensemen. (All right, Doug Harvey wore No. 2 and he was pretty good.) Agosta would look a lot better as a No. 7 or 9. You notice No. 7s and No. 9s a lot more. But she is going to stick with No. 2, the number she was given when she showed up at her first under-22 team when she was just 18. After making the team, she requested No. 10 and No. 12, but got neither of them.</p><p>&ldquo;Right after that, I got invited to the national level and it has just kind of followed me since then,&rdquo; Agosta said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m proud and happy to have No. 2 and I wouldn&rsquo;t change it now.&rdquo;</p><p>Four years ago in Turin, Agosta was in much the same situation Poulin was this time around. She had just turned 19, but was not a frontline player for Canada. Despite that, she still managed to score three goals in five games, which should not have come as a surprise given her drive to find the net.</p><p>&ldquo;This time around I was in much more of a leadership role,&rdquo; Agosta said. &ldquo;And this past summer before we even got together as a team, I worked really hard with a trainer back home and I wanted to do whatever  I could to be the best that I could be and help lead Canada to a gold medal. I think I&rsquo;ve come a long way.&rdquo;</p><p>Like Poulin, Agosta has terrific speed and power in her game and neither is afraid to go extremely hard to the net. Their toughness might have something to do with the fact that both have brothers who play the game at the university level. Agosta&rsquo;s older brother Jeric plays at the University of Nebraska-Omaha and Poulin&rsquo;s older brother Pier-Alexandre played in the Quebec League before joining the University of Moncton.</p><p>Scoring has always been Agosta&rsquo;s calling card, however. As a 16-year-old, she scored 112 goals one season for a women&rsquo;s Jr. AA team in Ontario. In three years at Mercyhurst, Agosta has scored 127 goals and 233 points in just 106 regular season and playoff games; and each year she has been a top-three finalist for the Patty Kazmaier Award, which goes to the best women&rsquo;s player in U.S. college hockey.</p><p>Three years ago, she scored 38 goals as a freshman and was named a finalist for the Kazmaier, which is an almost unheard of accomplishment for a rookie player.</p><p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m very fortunate to have hockey smarts,&rdquo; Agosta said. &ldquo;But it&rsquo;s not just about that. It&rsquo;s about the people you play with and I have been successful because of the players I&rsquo;ve played with. I can play with anybody on my team and be successful because we&rsquo;re all great hockey players.&rdquo;</p><p>Yes, they are, but some are better than others, no matter what Hockey Canada would have you believe. Agosta, Poulin and Szabados are three of the best now and there are more on the way for a country that is prodigious in its production of elite women&rsquo;s hockey players.</p><p>The 31-year-old Wickenheiser, the most decorated women&rsquo;s player in the history of the game, will not go quietly into the night.</p><blockquote class="pullQuote"><b>AGOSTA, POULIN AND SZADADOS ARE THREE OF THE BEST NOW AND THERE ARE MORE ON THE WAY</b></blockquote><p>Wickenheiser strongly hinted that she intends to stay with the national team program through the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia; and there will always be a place for a player with her leadership and ability to produce in important games.</p><p>Hefford wants to keep playing with the national team, but doubts she&rsquo;ll be in the next Olympics at the age of 36. Jennifer Botterill was relegated to fourth-line status and has likely seen her last Olympics, as has 35-year-old defenseman Becky Keller, who shared her gold medal moment on the ice with her two children.</p><p>That leaves the landscape wide open for the likes of Poulin and Agosta. Consider that Poulin accomplished her feat in a province where she can&rsquo;t yet even legally drink. (But, shhh, don&rsquo;t tell anyone. She was smoking a cigar and having a beer with her teammates at center ice after the medal ceremony.)</p><p>The only thing that might stop these players would be if the International Olympic Committee decides to pull the plug on women&rsquo;s hockey. IOC president Jacques Rogge said the day of the gold medal game that women&rsquo;s hockey simply will not remain an Olympic sport in the longterm unless other countries start closing the Zdeno Chara-sized gap between themselves and Canada and the U.S.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-011217/9397260-1-eng-US/f0033-012.jpg" title="f0033-01" width="1033" height="634"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(BRUCE BENNETT/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p>The gap between the two pre-eminent hockey powers and the rest of the world seems to be getting larger with each passing Olympic tournament. So, in a way, players such as Agosta and Poulin and many others like them we haven&rsquo;t even heard about yet might turn out to be the biggest victims of their own talents and success. They&rsquo;re only going to continue to get better, as will the quality of play in America and Canada as long as the two countries continue to push each other.</p><p>But in the short-term, a bright future lies ahead.</p><p>&ldquo;I will just celebrate this with my family,&rdquo; Poulin said. &ldquo;There is a lot of time to think of other things later.&rdquo;<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0030-01

New kids on the podium

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0034-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-011380/9397326-1-eng-US/f0034-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>It&rsquo;s a mid-season hassle for the NHL, but its players belong at the Olympics.</b> <span class="photo-credit">(JAMIE SQUIRE/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-03757/9397333-1-eng-US/f0034-032.jpg" title="f0034-03" width="207" height="245"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>V</span>ANCOUVER &ndash; PERHAPS IT WAS LIKE</b> one of those stories you hear from time to time where something gets lost in the translation. You know the ones, where the person telling the story finishes it by saying, &ldquo;Well, I guess you just had to be there.&rdquo;</p><p>In all the years I&rsquo;ve spent chronicling this wonderful game, Vancouver 2010 represented the first time I&rsquo;ve ever had the privilege of covering an Olympic hockey tournament. And it took about five minutes into my first game &ndash; a Sunday afternoon round robin encounter between the Czech Republic and Russia &ndash; to come to the indisputable conclusion that the NHL must continue to participate in this event in 2014 and every one beyond that.</p><blockquote class="pullQuote"><b>SOMETIMES IT&rsquo;S ABOUT REWARDING THE PEOPLE WHO LOVE THE SPORT</b></blockquote><p>And while we&rsquo;re on the subject of Olympic participation, caving in to some of the pressure and pulling the plug on the women&rsquo;s game after just four Olympics would create an incredible double standard and make Sean Avery look like a feminist in comparison to the International Olympic Committee.</p><p>Not to rub it in, but anyone who could have been in Vancouver to feel the energy in Canada Hockey Place (nee GM Place), to watch the speed and intensity of the games from 10 rows up, to sense the sheer bedlam in the streets for the entire Olympic period would leave wondering why in its right mind the NHL is even considering pulling the plug on Olympic participation.</p><p>Well, we kind of know why the NHL is posturing like it won&rsquo;t go to Sochi, Russia, in 2014. Essentially, it&rsquo;s too much trouble for the league to shut down for two weeks every four years. Sustained interest in the NHL from casual fans of Olympic hockey has not been there and the games have been relegated by NBC to C-SPAN3 or something like that.</p><p>Well, too bad. Suck it up guys, because sometimes it&rsquo;s about rewarding the people who actually like the sport and pay to watch the games. Every year, the NHL gives people more product than they actually want and if it insists on shoving a steady diet of Atlanta and Edmonton down our throats and conducting a playoff tournament that is a battle of attrition that goes into June, the least it can do is give something back to the people who pay the freight in the form of a best-on-best tournament on the biggest sporting stage in the world.</p><p>Sometimes the Olympics are held in places where it&rsquo;s not terribly convenient for the networks and requires a major body-clock adjustment for those of us who have to get up in the morning. There are times when countries you wish would win don&rsquo;t and storylines don&rsquo;t go exactly as planned. But the NHL didn&rsquo;t cancel the Stanley Cup final when Edmonton and Carolina were playing in it.</p><p>One thing we do know is that Olympic participation will morph into a collective bargaining issue for the NHL. Somehow the tall foreheads in that office seem to think if they cave on Olympic participation, it will create the perception they&rsquo;re giving something back to the players. The players want to play in the Olympics, but not badly enough to let the NHL use it as a bargaining chip.</p><p>So here&rsquo;s a radical idea. The NHL could pretend for a little while that there really is a partnership with the players and announce well in advance of the 2012 termination of the CBA that it plans to continue Olympic participation. Instead of throwing pre-CBA salvos at the players, it could actually extend an olive branch and at the same time placate millions of hockey fans who want NHLers at the Games. Don&rsquo;t know about you, but can anyone envision hockey at the Olympics actually going back to the college kids, guys playing in Europe and minor-leaguers, and continue to be compelling?</p><p>With respect to the women&rsquo;s game, the dominance of Canada and the U.S. has prompted calls for the IOC to consider removing women&rsquo;s hockey from the Olympics. There has been a fair bit of piling on when it comes to the lack of competition in women&rsquo;s hockey and some of it is deserved. As Swedish coach Peter Elander said after his team lost 9-1 to Team USA in the semifinal after beating the Americans in the semifinal four years ago, &ldquo;We worked much harder between Torino and Vancouver, but I think USA stepped up and worked 10 times harder. Canada and USA have outworked all the other clubs in this tournament&rdquo;</p><p>That&rsquo;s not a good thing at all to hear and this trend clearly can&rsquo;t continue in the longterm, but let&rsquo;s take a step back and give the women&rsquo;s game a chance. If you look at the margins of victory posted by Canada and Team USA on the men&rsquo;s side in the first half-dozen  Olympics, it makes the women&rsquo;s games look like nail-biters by comparison.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-011288/9397319-1-eng-US/f0035-012.jpg" title="f0035-01" width="1095" height="758"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>Pulling the plug on women&rsquo;s hockey at the Olympics would be a mistake.</b> <span class="photo-credit">(CAMERON SPENCER/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p>What people tend to forget is that the Americans dominated track and field until about the 1960s and people weren&rsquo;t trying to have that series of events removed from the Olympics. Kenya has won the gold medal in the 3,000-metre steeplechase in each of the past seven Olympics and has taken silver in five of those seven races. The Americans have won six of the past seven 4x400-meter relays and Ethiopians and Kenyans have taken gold and silver in the 10,000 meter race in each of the past four Games. The top nine overall times in the marathon are also currently held by Ethiopians and Kenyans and nobody is lobbying to have Haile Gebrselassie or Kenenisa Bekele booted out of the Olympics.</p><p>It&rsquo;s clearly going to require some broad thinking and a healthy dose of patience when it comes to the future of both men&rsquo;s and women&rsquo;s hockey in the Olympics. But those who were in Vancouver or at any other Games can see that both sides of the game must remain involved in a spectacle so grand.</p><p>Guess you just had to be there.</p><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-02950/9397312-1-eng-US/f0034-022.jpg" title="f0034-02" width="52" height="53"></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><p>For Ken&rsquo;s web-exclusive <b>Campbell&rsquo;s Cuts</b> column, visit<a href="http://THN.com">thn.com</a><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0034-01

Let the Games continue

f0036-02

NHL Team Reports ATLANTIC DIVISION

<div class="byline">BY TIM CAMPBELL</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-01757/9397682-1-eng-US/f0042-012.jpg" title="f0042-01" width="969" height="1193"></div><p><b>A HANSON BROTHER&rsquo;S</b> son as a role model for someone&rsquo;s daughter? It&rsquo;s true.</p><p>&ldquo;The one thing I&rsquo;ve said to his mother and father is that I wanted them to know what an excellent job (they) have done as parents,&rdquo; said Toronto Marlies coach Dallas Eakins. &ldquo; &lsquo;If I could have my daughter grow up to have the same character and drive as what you&rsquo;ve given this young man, I will be a very, very happy.&rsquo; &rdquo;</p><p>The young man is Christian Hanson, the Marlies&rsquo; well-rounded center, who may soon be ready for the hockey big-time, though a little differently than his father Dave&rsquo;s character with the Charlestown Chiefs in the 1977 iconic hockey movie <i>Slap Shot</i>.</p><p>&ldquo;To be honest I don&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;ve ever sat down in my house and watched it, but over the years with hockey road trips and bus trips, probably 20 to 30 times,&rdquo; the 6-foot-4, 228-pounder said.</p><p>Their styles are different, but the father&rsquo;s famous character and the son have something in common; both are willing to do what it takes.</p><p>&ldquo;If you were to guess, wonder what this kid&rsquo;s like, you&rsquo;d expect he&rsquo;s some kind of criminal or loony-tune or nut,&rdquo; Eakins said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the exact opposite. This kid is so professional, so driven. His diet is in line, he&rsquo;s in the gym. He works his ass off in practice, he wants to see video&hellip; everything a coach wants in a player.&rdquo;</p><p>To say Hanson, who&rsquo;s had three NHL auditions totalling 15 games after signing with the Maple Leafs as a free agent last March 31, is bright and promising sells him a bit short.</p><p>He has a finance degree from Notre Dame, where he played four seasons, scoring 29 goals in his two final years that included a trip to the NCAA&rsquo;s Frozen Four.</p><p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m really not awestruck this year, I had the five (NHL) games at the end of last year and I really think that helped,&rdquo; said Hanson, 23. &ldquo;It eased the tension and all summer I had a better idea of what I was getting myself into.&rdquo;</p><p>Hanson, who tallied 12 goals and 29 points in 35 AHL games, has had no shortage of career support from his dad, who played 10 years, including 33 NHL and 103 World Hockey Association games.</p><p>&ldquo;He&rsquo;s my best friend,&rdquo; the younger Hanson said. &ldquo;I talk to him three or four times a day. I don&rsquo;t think I could have a better relationship. Growing up, my mom and dad never pushed me towards hockey. They wanted me to play a sport for every season.&rdquo;</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-02481/9397675-1-eng-US/f0042-022.jpg" title="f0042-02" width="213" height="214"></div><h2><b>Christian Hanson</b></h2><p>Toronto Marlies</p><p><b>Ht.</b> 6-4</p><p><b>Wt.</b> 228</p><p><b>Pos.</b> C</p><p><b>Age</b> 23</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-03375/9397668-1-eng-US/f0042-032.jpg" title="f0042-03" width="231" height="137"></div><p><b>AND COUNTING 3</b></p><p>Points (1-2-3) in 15 appearances with the Toronto Maple Leafs</p><h3><b>NOTES from the west</b></h3><p>Don Cherry will roll his eyes and Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke, too, after defenseman Keith Aulie sustained a season-ending injury.</p><p>Aulie was going back for an icing call against the Manitoba Moose when winger Michael Grabner extended his stick, trying to touch the puck. Grabner instead tripped the rookie pro, leading to a damaged shoulder.</p><p>Initially the Marlies hoped Aulie wouldn&rsquo;t require surgery, but an MRI revealed he will in fact need to go under the knife. He&rsquo;s expected to make full recovery by late summer.</p><p>NEW DON, SAME RESULTS Coming off an out-of-the-playoffs finish last spring, the Chicago Wolves were in disarray in the opening month of the season. But under new coach Don Lever, who replaced Don Granato just a few weeks in, the Wolves are back to their feared selves, going 36-12-0-4 for Lever and all the way to the top of the West Division.</p><p>AMERKS MILESTONE Rochester needed four tries to do it, but finally reached the 2,000-victory plateau with a shootout win against Portland in late February.</p><p>The Americans joined the Hershey Bears as the only league franchises with 2,000 victories.</p><p><b>&ndash; TIM CAMPBELL</b></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-07200/9397661-1-eng-US/f0042-072.jpg" title="f0042-07" width="175" height="175"></div><h2><b>Hey, Ivan Vishnevskiy!</b></h2><h3><b>EXPECT THE CALL</b></h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-04304/9397654-1-eng-US/f0042-042.jpg" title="f0042-04" width="196" height="103"></div><p>The 22-year-old Russian, acquired from Dallas just before the Olympic break, has a skating gear most D-men don&rsquo;t. He&rsquo;s the No. 51 ranked prospect in Future Watch 2010 and No. 3 with the Atlanta Thrashers.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-05263/9397647-1-eng-US/f0042-052.jpg" title="f0042-05" width="186" height="272"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(GRAIG ABEL)</span></figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-06235/9397640-1-eng-US/f0042-062.jpg" title="f0042-06" width="330" height="91"></div><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span>

f0042-01

PROSPECTS UNLIMITED

A ROUNDED HANSON

<div class="byline">BY KEVIN OKLOBZIJA</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-02511/9397734-1-eng-US/f0043-022.jpg" title="f0043-02" width="853" height="1193"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(BRENNAN: HEATHER HARVEY)</span></figcaption></div><p><b>T.J. BRENNAN&rsquo;S RISE</b> from novice to top-notch prospect has been quick, to say the least.</p><p>For someone who didn&rsquo;t play organized hockey until he was 11 and never had a college scout talk to him, he has defied long odds with what he has already accomplished on defense.</p><p>The Quebec League&rsquo;s defensive rookie of the year with the St. John&rsquo;s Fog Devils in 2006-07, Brennan was a second round pick, 31st overall, by the Buffalo Sabres in 2007. But the blueliner promises that if he really makes it big, he&rsquo;ll remain humble.</p><p>That&rsquo;s because the Portland Pirates rookie has already had an up-close-and-personal view of the ultimate pro sports ego: Growing up in Moorestown, N.J., just across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, his neighbor was superstar NFL wide receiver Terrell Owens.</p><p>&ldquo;That whole situp/pushup thing in the driveway with all the (news) cameras was two houses down,&rdquo; said Brennan, who was 16 at the time Owens was feuding with the Philadelphia Eagles and quarterback Donovan McNabb.</p><p>Brennan saw a different view of Owens, however.</p><p>&ldquo;He had a basketball net in his driveway and me, my brother (Shane, who is two years younger) and the kids in the neighborhood were always playing sports,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;When he first moved in, me and my brother knocked on his door and asked him to come out and play with us. We played basketball with him a couple times and he&rsquo;s an amazing athlete.&rdquo;</p><p>A hockey invitation was all Brennan was hoping for a year or two later. He always envisioned playing college hockey in the U.S., except no one ever watched him. A few schools offered lacrosse scholarships, though.</p><p>So off to the QMJHL he went for three years, catching the eye of Sabres scouts in his first season.</p><p>There has been big-time learning as a first-year pro in the American League. From figuring out how to cook and forcing himself to do laundry, to keeping his feet moving on the ice and playing with consistency, the 6-foot, 208-pound Brennan has grown in all facets.</p><p>&ldquo;I really didn&rsquo;t know what to expect this year,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t know how much work would have to be put in just to keep my job. As soon as you get scratched, it&rsquo;s a reality check. I now know you have to earn it and keep it every day.&rdquo;</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-01746/9397727-1-eng-US/f0043-012.jpg" title="f0043-01" width="214" height="214"></div><h2><b>T.J. Brennan</b></h2><p>Portland Pirates</p><p><b>Ht.</b> 6-0</p><p><b>Wt.</b> 208</p><p><b>Pos.</b> D</p><p><b>Age</b> 20</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-03426/9397720-1-eng-US/f0043-032.jpg" title="f0043-03" width="232" height="137"></div><p><b>AND COUNTING 56</b></p><p>Brennan&rsquo;s penalty minutes through 44 Portland games</p><h3><b>NOTES FROM THE EAST</b></h3><h2><b>OUTDOOR SUCCESS</b></h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-04326/9397713-1-eng-US/f0043-042.jpg" title="f0043-04" width="818" height="597"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>The AHL&rsquo;s firstever outdoor game in February set a record for attendance.</b> <span class="photo-credit">(OUTDOOR: JUSTSPORTS PHOTOGRAPHY)</span></figcaption></div><p>The first outdoor game in American League history, a 2-1 victory for the Syracuse Crunch over the Binghamton Senators, was a smashing success on the ice, at the gate and very likely at the bank, but that doesn&rsquo;t mean other teams are now making plans to host their version.</p><p>&ldquo;It was a terrific showcase and an energizing event for that region of New York State,&rdquo; said AHL president Dave Andrews. &ldquo;But it also was a terrific undertaking for the Crunch staff and a huge risk.&rdquo;</p><p>Based on the AHL-record crowd of 21,508 that jammed the grandstand and temporary bleachers at the New York State Fairgrounds, the risk was well worth it. The old mark, 20,672, was set at the Greensboro Coliseum in 1996-97, that last of just two seasons of existence for the Carolina Monarchs.</p><p>The cost to build the rink, remove snow and create a party atmosphere with tents, a New York Air National Guard flyover, skydiver and hot tubs was about $1 million. Sponsorship and state grants paid about half, the Crunch the rest.</p><p>&ldquo;It had the same feel as the NHL Winter Classic, on a smaller scale,&rdquo; Andrews said. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a template now that teams can look to and understand the financial ramifications and revenue streams.&rdquo;</p><p>PIRATE TREASURE Derek Whitmore became a hometown hero in two cities when his third-period goal gave the Portland Pirates a 4-3 victory over Rochester on Feb. 20.</p><p>Whitmore is from the Rochester suburb of Greece, N.Y., and his mother, Linda, sold nearly 150 tickets for her son&rsquo;s homecoming. The victory he secured ran the Pirates&rsquo; winning streak to a franchise-record 11 games.</p><p>&ldquo;Our team just made history tonight so it&rsquo;s pretty special,&rdquo; Whitmore said.</p><p><b>&ndash; KEVIN OKLOBZIJA</b><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0043-02

BIG DREAMS SMALL EGO

<p><b>COLBY COHEN</b> was taught how to one-time a puck at a young age.</p><p>&ldquo;I had a shooting room in my basement,&rdquo; said the Boston University junior defenseman and sniper. &ldquo;I played around down there. I don&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;m the strongest guy by any means, but I feel I can shoot the puck with the best of them.&rdquo;</p><p>He won&rsquo;t get many arguments.</p><p>Through 28 games, Cohen had a team-leading 13 goals, including eight on the power play. He had five game-winners and was among the nation&rsquo;s leaders in goals and power play goals by a defenseman.</p><p>The 6-foot-3, 215-pounder from Villanova, Pa., had eight goals last season, including the overtime winner in the 4-3 NCAA title game versus Miami; he was named the Frozen Four&rsquo;s most outstanding player.</p><p>Cohen called his winner against Miami exciting and added: &ldquo;It was nice to get a little spotlight.&rdquo;</p><p>Coach Jack Parker has had a lot of prolific scorers in his 37 seasons at BU; he lists Cohen among them. &ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;t matter if he uses a one-timer, a wrist shot or a slapshot,&rdquo; Parker said. &ldquo;it&rsquo;s amazing how many times his shots go in the net.&rdquo;</p><p>The 45th overall pick by Colorado in 2007, he&rsquo;s also adept at distributing the puck.</p><p>&ldquo;He can change a game with his playmaking ability,&rdquo; said Maine coach Tim Whitehead. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a dynamic player.&rdquo;</p><p>Cohen was a forward until his sophomore year in high school.</p><p>&ldquo;I think my dad made me switch, because he said I&rsquo;d get more ice time,&rdquo; the 20-year-old said.</p><p>Cohen, who lists cousin Jeremy Bloom, a two-time Olympic freestyle skier and freshman all-American wide receiver-return specialist at the University of Colorado as a big inspiration in his life, has worked diligently at his game and said he owes a lot to being tutored on his skating by Travis Howe, Gordie&rsquo;s Howe&rsquo;s grandson.</p><p>Parker feels Cohen will get an opportunity in the NHL. He&rsquo;s Colorado&rsquo;s No. 3 prospect in Future Watch 2010.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0044-01648/9397814-1-eng-US/f0044-012.jpg" title="f0044-01" width="743" height="1009"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(SPORTS ACTION PHOTOGRAPHY)</span></figcaption></div><p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s always a place for someone with his ability,&rdquo; Parker said. &ldquo;How long of a career he&rsquo;ll have depends on how well he can play, defensively.&rdquo;</p><p>Cohen knows it, too.</p><p>&ldquo;When I really commit to it, I can do it well,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I can stay with guys in the (defensive) zone.&rdquo;</p><p><b>&ndash; LARRY MAHONEY</b></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0044-02404/9397807-1-eng-US/f0044-022.jpg" title="f0044-02" width="283" height="283"></div><h2><b>Colby Cohen</b></h2><p>Boston University Terriers</p><p><b>Ht.</b> 6-3</p><p><b>Wt.</b> 215</p><p><b>Pos.</b> D</p><p><b>Age</b> 20</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0044-03303/9397800-1-eng-US/f0044-032.jpg" title="f0044-03" width="376" height="88"></div><h3><b>Draft Status</b></h3><p>Drafted 45th overall by Colorado in 2007</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0044-04245/9397793-1-eng-US/f0044-042.jpg" title="f0044-04" width="231" height="138"></div><p><b>AND COUNTING 169</b></p><p>PIMs in Cohen&rsquo;s BU career. His 70 this season were second on the team</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0044-05208/9397786-1-eng-US/f0044-052.jpg" title="f0044-05" width="288" height="107"></div><h2><b>END OF LINE FOR CULHANE</b></h2><p>After months of speculation, Western Michigan fired coach Jim Culhane, effective at season&rsquo;s end. Despite a solid record of player academics and community service, the Broncos disappointed with eight losing seasons in Culhane&rsquo;s 11-year tenure. &ldquo;You can do all the right things in a lot of ways with your program, but at the end of the day, you&rsquo;re judged by wins and losses,&rdquo; Culhane told the Kalamazoo <i>Gazette</i>. Ex-Broncos Brian Renfrew (associate coach, Michigan State), Scott Garrow (assistant coach, Cornell) and Brent Brekke (assistant coach, Miami) are sure to be considered.</p><p><b>&ndash; PHILIP COLVIN</b></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0044-06183/9397779-1-eng-US/f0044-062.jpg" title="f0044-06" width="318" height="143"></div><h2><b>FLYNN SETS MAINE MARK</b></h2><p>Paul Kariya was the national player of the year with 100 points in 39 games and Jim Montgomery holds the school record with 301 career points. But sophomore left winger Brian Flynn did something no other Maine Black Bear has: he collected seven points in one game. Flynn, 21, scored five goals &ndash; tying a school record &ndash; and added two assists in an 8-4 win over UMass-Lowell. He became just the fifth player in league history to register seven points in a game. &ldquo;Obviously, it was an unbelievable night, one I&rsquo;ll never forget,&rdquo; said Flynn, an undrafted free agent and recruited walk-on.</p><p><b>&ndash; LARRY MAHONEY</b></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0044-07160/9397772-1-eng-US/f0044-072.jpg" title="f0044-07" width="324" height="101"></div><h2><b>ENGINEERI</b><b>NG</b>&nbsp;<b>A GOOD CASE</b></h2><p>The chase for the Hobey Baker Award has a new meaning this year. RPI junior center Chase Polacek, an undrafted free agent, has been among the leading scorers in the nation all year and is on pace to be the Engineers&rsquo; first 50-point man since Marc Cavosie in 2001-02. &ldquo;His assist totals are similar to other years,&rdquo; said coach Seth Appert of the 5-foot-8, 175-pound Polacek, who came to RPI right out of the Academy for Holy Angels high school in Minnesota. &ldquo;The reason he is scoring so much more is he is much more willing to go to high traffic areas to score goals and attack the net.&rdquo;</p><p><b>&ndash; TOM BOGGIE</b></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0044-08120/9397765-1-eng-US/f0044-082.jpg" title="f0044-08" width="388" height="85"></div><h2><b>UPPERCLASS HONORS</b></h2><p>St. Cloud State defenseman Garrett Raboin, Denver right winger Rhett Rahkshani and Michigan Tech defenseman Eli Vlaisavljevich are among 10 finalists for the Lowe&rsquo;s senior class award in the hockey division. The award emphasizes the complete student-athlete, encouraging them to use their athletic platform to make positive impacts as community leaders. To be eligible for the honor, candidates must be Div. I seniors and have notable achievements in four areas of excellence: classroom, character, community and competition. The winner will be named at the Frozen Four.</p><p><b>&ndash; ANDY BAGGOT</b><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0044-01

BIG GAME SHOOTER

<p><b>CHARLES-OLIVIER</b> Roussel knows who he is and who he isn&rsquo;t. No identity crisis here.</p><p>&ldquo;If I&rsquo;m going to play in the NHL, I&rsquo;ll have to be a two-way guy,&rsquo;&rsquo; said the Shawinigan Cataractes defenseman. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not Mike Green, where I can make big rushes and dominate offensively. I think I could be more like Dennis Wideman.&rsquo;&rsquo;</p><p>Roussel has lived up to expectations since being selected third overall in the 2007 Quebec League draft. Now a third-year veteran, the 18-year-old has an impact offensively and physically.</p><p>The native of St-Eustache, Que., was among the league&rsquo;s highest-scoring blueliners this season with 14 goals and 48 points in 60 games, making Nashville, which selected him 42nd overall in 2009, happy.</p><p>Roussel played for Team Quebec at the 2008 world under-17 championship, for Team QMJHL against Russia in the 2008 and &rsquo;09 Subway Super Series and was invited to the Canadian national junior team&rsquo;s summer evaluation camp.</p><p>&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t make Team Canada, but it was a great experience,&rsquo;&rsquo; Roussel said. &ldquo;I saw that I need to work on my speed, my play in the corners and finishing my checks. It&rsquo;s definitely my goal to keep improving and play at next year&rsquo;s world juniors. That&rsquo;s a big motivation for me.&rsquo;&rsquo;</p><p>Shawinigan is the only franchise that&rsquo;s been in existence for the league&rsquo;s entire 41-year history, but has yet to win a title after losing the league final in Game 7 last year.</p><p>The Cataractes are middle of the pack this season after some significant roster turnover.</p><p>The 6-foot-1, 202-pound Roussel was named a second-team all-star last year and has continued to develop into an anchor on the club&rsquo;s blueline this season.</p><p>&ldquo;He could be a two-way NHL defenseman, but with a higher offensive element to his game,&rsquo;&rsquo; said coach Eric Veilleux. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s skilled offensively, but can also be very physical with big open-ice hits. He&rsquo;s a smaller Dion Phaneuf.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0045-01552/9397887-1-eng-US/f0045-012.jpg" title="f0045-01" width="743" height="1009"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(DAVID CONNELL)</span></figcaption></div><p>&ldquo;He sees the play well, sees the open space and he has a great shot. He need to work on his feet, making a smart first pass and just keeping it simple defensively. Sometimes he makes things more complicated than need be. We have a young team and maybe he puts too much pressure on himself to lead the way.&rdquo;</p><p><b>&ndash; NEIL HODGE</b></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0045-02356/9397880-1-eng-US/f0045-022.jpg" title="f0045-02" width="354" height="191"></div><h2><b>Charles-Olivier Roussel</b></h2><p>Shawinigan Cataractes</p><p><b>Ht.</b> 6-1</p><p><b>Wt.</b> 202</p><p><b>Pos.</b> D</p><p><b>Age</b> 18</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0045-03299/9397873-1-eng-US/f0045-032.jpg" title="f0045-03" width="402" height="88"></div><h3><b>Draft Status</b></h3><p>Drafted 42nd overall by Nashville in 2009</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0045-04267/9397866-1-eng-US/f0045-042.jpg" title="f0045-04" width="231" height="138"></div><p><b>AND COUNTING .61</b></p><p>Roussel&rsquo;s points-per-game average during his Shawinigan career</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0045-05239/9397859-1-eng-US/f0045-052.jpg" title="f0045-05" width="276" height="155"></div><h2><b>COACH GETS GM&rsquo;S GOAT</b></h2><p>Everett Silvertips GM Doug Soetaert usually likes to hear his team&rsquo;s coach, Craig Hartsburg, discuss resounding victories. But there are exceptions. On Nov. 11, 1981, Hartsburg notched two assists for the Minnesota North Stars in their 15-2 walloping of the Winnipeg Jets. Soetaert tended goal for the Jets during the most lopsided loss in franchise history. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s going to get mad at me for bringing this up,&rdquo; Hartsburg said with a laugh. In the same breath, Hartsburg raved about Soetaert and Silvertips owner Bill Yuill. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t say enough good things about working with Doug and for Bill,&rdquo; said Hartsburg, who was fired last season after 48 games as coach of the Ottawa Senators. &ldquo;It has put the fun back in the game for me after last year.&rdquo;</p><p><b>&ndash; ROB VANSTONE</b></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0045-06207/9397852-1-eng-US/f0045-062.jpg" title="f0045-06" width="332" height="103"></div><h2><b>TOP PICK HALL GETS OFF LUCKY</b></h2><p>The Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds feel Taylor Hall caught a break from the league after a check from behind left rookie Nick Cousins with 21 stitches across his nose. Hall, the Windsor Spitfires center touted to go first overall in the 2010 NHL draft, received a double-minor after slamming Cousins into the boards. League vice-president Ted Baker said Cousins was breaking from a battle in the corner and Hall couldn&rsquo;t stop his momentum. &ldquo;I asked if it had been Hall on the receiving end of such a hit would the decision have been different,&rdquo; said Greyhounds GM Dave Torrie. &ldquo;I was assured there would not have been a different outcome. As an organization, we hope that&rsquo;s true. I still believe it warranted a suspension. There was no attempt to let up.&rdquo;<b>&ndash; JIM CRESSMAN</b></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0045-07183/9397845-1-eng-US/f0045-072.jpg" title="f0045-07" width="262" height="155"></div><h2><b>MIDDLE OF PACK OK FOR JODOIN</b></h2><p>Rimouski Oceanic coach Clement Jodoin likes what he sees when he looks into his crystal ball. &ldquo;I know what to expect next season,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We should be in position to go for it again with the players we have returning and the guys coming in (to complete trades made this season).&rdquo; Rimouski loaded up to host the 2009 Memorial Cup and was expected to struggle badly as a rebuilding club this season, but that hasn&rsquo;t been the case. The Oceanic, with 15 rookies, was ninth overall at 30-23-7 in late February. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a learning process for us right now, but I&rsquo;m ready to live with this,&rdquo; Jodoin said. &ldquo;According to the pros who know the game, we were supposed to be 18th this season. We&rsquo;re middle of the pack, so I guess we&rsquo;ve surprised a lot of people.&rdquo;</p><p><b>&ndash; NEIL HODGE</b><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0045-01

TWO-WAY THREAT

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-02346/9397960-1-eng-US/f0046-022.jpg" title="f0046-02" width="353" height="109"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-01551/9397967-1-eng-US/f0046-012.jpg" title="f0046-01" width="218" height="156"></div><h3><b>ECHL</b></h3><h2><b>BYE, BYE JOHNSTOWN</b></h2><p class="dropcap"><span>J</span>ohnstown fans&rsquo; worst nightmare has come true. Majority owner Neil Smith will move the Chiefs to Greenville, S.C., to play in the Bi-Lo Center next year. The board of governors unanimously approved the transfer, meaning the league&rsquo;s last original member will depart after 22 seasons. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been committed to keeping the team here,&rdquo; said Smith, the former New York Rangers Stanley Cup-winning GM. &ldquo;Financially, it became impossible.&rdquo; The Chiefs got their name from the Charlestown Chiefs of <i>Slap Shot</i> fame, the movie filmed in Johnstown and based on the 1974-75 Johnstown Jets.</p><p><b>&ndash; MIKE MASTOVICH</b></p><h3><b>UNITED STATES LEAGUE</b></h3><h2><b>KERDILES FINDS HOCKEY HOME</b></h2><p>Nic Kerdiles will join the league next year as a member of the U.S. NTDP &ndash; just another stop on his own Tour de France. Kerdiles&rsquo; parents met in Paris, moved to Dallas (where Nic was born), then back to France before settling in Irvine, Calif. Kerdiles, 16, speaks English and French, but nothing compares to his on-ice vocabulary. With the midget AAA under-16 L.A. Selects, the 6-foot-1, 172-pounder posted 25 goals and 54 points in 37 games this year, second-best in the Tier I Elite League. He&rsquo;s committed to Wisconsin for 2012. &ldquo;I want to play pro hockey, pure and simple,&rdquo; Kerdiles said.</p><p><b>&ndash; PAUL SHAHEEN</b></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-03253/9397953-1-eng-US/f0046-032.jpg" title="f0046-03" width="297" height="148"></div><h3><b>INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE</b></h3><h2><b>LUMBERJACKS LEAVING LOOP</b></h2><p>Citing finances, the Muskegon Lumberjacks are joining the Jr. A United States League next season, ending 50 years of pro hockey in Muskegon. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a lot of change going on in this business right now,&rdquo; said board of governors chairman Michael Franke, who added minor pro sports in general are struggling. &ldquo;I can pretty much on two hands tell you the (hockey) franchises that are doing well.&rdquo; Coupled with the Kalamazoo Wings&rsquo; 2009 move to the ECHL, the Fort Wayne Komets are the last marquee team remaining in the league, which will look to Evansville, Ind., or Chicago to expand.</p><p><b>&ndash;JUSTIN COHN</b></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-04208/9397946-1-eng-US/f0046-042.jpg" title="f0046-04" width="265" height="155"></div><h3><b>CENTRAL LEAGUE</b></h3><h2><b>HARD TIMES, BIG BUCKS</b></h2><p>Several Rapid City Rush players put their luscious locks on the line in the battle against cancer, provided the South Dakota community raise $10,000 during a February game. Good thing Kirk Medernach, Scott Wray, Jon Pelle, Colt King and Luke Fritshaw didn&rsquo;t risk more than getting their heads shaved. The team raised more than $60,000 during its second annual &ldquo;Pink at the Rink&rdquo; event, including a jersey auction that netted $48,500. &ldquo;I have been around hockey and the CHL for a long time and I cannot remember such generosity in one night of fundraising,&rdquo; said Rush GM Tim Hill.</p><p><b>&ndash; DAVID HENRY</b></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-05165/9397939-1-eng-US/f0046-052.jpg" title="f0046-05" width="256" height="155"></div><h3><b>SOUTHERN PRO LEAGUE</b></h3><h2><b>JUST PEACHY IN PEACH STATE</b></h2><p>The new franchise in Augusta, Ga., won&rsquo;t play its first game until October, but is already 1-0. &ldquo;The day we made the announcement, we sold 166 season tickets and solidified three corporate sponsors without a phone number or a corporate address yet,&rdquo; said commissioner Jim Combs. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a fan base that is excited about hockey coming back.&rdquo; The ECHL Lynx folded last season. The league now has eight teams and Combs hopes to have two more in place for 2010-11. Augusta owner Bob Kerzner formerly ran the Twin City Cyclones; GM Gilles Richard was with the old Jacksonville Barracudas.</p><p><b>&ndash; BRETT FRIEDLANDER</b></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-06144/9397932-1-eng-US/f0046-062.jpg" title="f0046-06" width="239" height="155"></div><h3><b>CANADIAN JR. A</b></h3><h2><b>SIOUX LOOKOUT LOOKING GOOD</b></h2><p>The Sioux Lookout Flyers have a new outlook on their Superior International Junior League future. The expansion team nearly folded last season after the owner quit and a replacement coach was linked to convicted murderer Karla Homolka. The Flyers ended up with more coaches (three) than wins (two), but a volunteer committee kept the team alive. &ldquo;We filled the roster with guys who had no business playing Jr. A on more nights than one,&rdquo; said returnee Ian Alcock. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s been night-and-day compared to last year, but we try not to compare&hellip; it&rsquo;s not something we want to think about.&rdquo;</p><p><b>&ndash; NATHAN WHITE</b></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-07119/9397925-1-eng-US/f0046-072.jpg" title="f0046-07" width="253" height="155"></div><h3><b>CANADIAN UNIVERSITY</b></h3><h2><b>X-MEN NEARLY PERFECT</b></h2><p>Call it the &lsquo;Hardcore Hockey jinx.&rsquo; After reporting in the March 1 issue that the UNB Varsity Reds were a mere two games away from completing a 28-0-0 regular season, the defending national champions dropped their 27th game 4-3 to the St. Francis Xavier X-Men. UNB did win its season finale to finish 27-1-0 and topped the CIS men&rsquo;s hockey rankings for the 15th time in 15 media polls this season. The Varsity Reds established a new CIS standard for wins in a campaign and tied the mark for points (54). UNB left winger Hunter Tremblay won the national scoring title with 25 goals and 57 points.</p><p><b>&ndash; JEFF RENAUD</b></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-0884/9397918-1-eng-US/f0046-082.jpg" title="f0046-08" width="274" height="168"></div><h3><b>THE WOMEN&rsquo;S GAME</b></h3><h2><b>HAWKS JUST MISS</b></h2><p>The Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks again had their bid for a perfect season and a conference record for consecutive wins foiled in the season finale. The Windsor Lancers scored late, including in overtime, for a 2-1 victory. &ldquo;I have to admit, I was stunned at the turn of events, too,&rdquo; Hawks coach Rick Osborne told the Waterloo region <i>Record</i> after his six-time defending conference champs settled for a 26-0-1 record. The loss also ended goalie Liz Knox&rsquo;s bid for the CIS all-time shutout record; she shares it with Canadian Olympian Charline Labonte who had 30 with Montreal&rsquo;s McGill University.</p><p><b>&ndash; Christine Rivet</b><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0046-02

HARDCORE HOCKEY BEST OF THE REST

<div class="byline">By Larry Humber</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0049-03" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-03198/9398029-1-eng-US/f0049-032.jpg"></div><h2><b>CROSSWORD</b></h2><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-04180/9398036-1-eng-US/f0049-042.jpg" title="f0049-04" width="108" height="108"></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><h3><b>ACROSS</b></h3><p>1 Alex Ovechkin&rsquo;s last Russian team (with 4 Across)</p><p>4 See 1 Across</p><p>9 Slava ___ was Soviet captain</p><p>10 Clocker</p><p>11 Finnish-born goalie with Chicago</p><p>12 Score many goals in short order</p><p>13 Hall of Famer ___ Larionov</p><p>15 Chris ___ is a scrappy Senator</p><p>18 &lsquo;Red&rsquo; Kelly&rsquo;s real first name</p><p>21 Chicago&rsquo;s Brent ___</p><p>23 Bill Guerin is Sidney&rsquo;s ___ winger</p><p>24 Toronto&rsquo;s old arena was on ___ Street</p><p>25 Going less than all out, ___ up</p><p>26 Abbreviated nickname of Rochester&rsquo;s AHL team</p><h3><b>DOWN</b></h3><p>1 Guard</p><p>2 ___ Dame is a famous Saskatchewan hockey school</p><p>3 &lsquo;Mess&rsquo;</p><p>5 Ahead: two words</p><p>6 Chris ___ is also with Ottawa</p><p>7 Got ready to play, ___ up</p><p>8 Ovechkin&rsquo;s nickname</p><p>14 Tough guy ___ Laraque</p><p>15 Calgary&rsquo;s Eric ___</p><p>16 He was Hart Trophy winner three times</p><p>17 Shuts out</p><p>19 Ottawa&rsquo;s ___ Volchenkov, pictured</p><p>20 ___ Irvin coached the Canadiens</p><p>22 Coach ___ Laviolette</p><p><b>Answers available in the next issue and at <a href="http://THN.com/XWORD">THN.com/xword</a></b></p><p><b>LAST WEEK&rsquo;S CROSSWORD SOLUTION</b>&nbsp;<b>ACROSS</b> 1. DUBNYK, 4. SHIFTS, 9. FITNESS, 10. ALONE, 11. ASHAM, 12. OLYMPIA, 13. GLEN, 15. HART, 18. RICHTER, 21. UPPER, 23. SCOTT, 24. ART ROSS, 25. REXALL, 26. ANDERS <b>DOWN</b> 1. DEFEAT, 2. BUTCH, 3. YZERMAN, 5. HEALY, 6. FLOPPER, 7. STEFAN, 8. OSLO, 14. LACROIX, 15. HOUSTON, 16. FRASER, 17. CRESTS, 19. TOTAL, 20. ROAD, 22. PHONE<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0049-03

Last Minute of Play

<div class="byline">bycharlieteljeur</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0049-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-01352/9398067-1-eng-US/f0049-012.jpg"></div><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span>

f0049-01

hockeysockpuppettheatre

<div class="byline">&#x2013; Ryan Kennedy</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-02258/9398098-1-eng-US/f0049-022.jpg" title="f0049-02" width="715" height="672"><figcaption class="caption-body"><p>EDIN A HORNETS</p><p>1990-91</p> <span class="photo-credit">(vintageminnesotahockey.com)</span></figcaption></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-05140/9398105-1-eng-US/f0049-052.jpg" title="f0049-05" width="108" height="108"></div><p>Minnesota high school hockey has continually churned out great NHLers over the years and some of the sweaters are pro calibre, too.</p><p>The Edina Hornets have produced names such as Paul Ranheim, Brian Burke and Preds pick Zach Budish, and have gone with a similar look the past 30 years. This incarnation features baseball-style lettering with a North Stars flare, not to mention the cool, menacing hornet mascot perched on the breast of the jersey. Great Minnesota colors, too.</p></div><div style="clear: both;"><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></div>

f0049-02

JERSEY Hound

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0050-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0050-02236/9398136-1-eng-US/f0050-022.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>Peter Forsberg says he has developed a brand new shootout move.</b> <span class="photo-credit">(Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0050-01333/9398143-1-eng-US/f0050-012.jpg" title="f0050-01" width="206" height="245"></div><p class="dropcap"><span>V</span>ANCOUVER &ndash; <b>HE</b>&nbsp;<b>IS LISTED</b>in the official guide and record book as a retired player, since it had been two years ago that a frustrated Peter Forsberg decided his problematic ankles wouldn&rsquo;t cooperate anymore and he was leaving the NHL to go home to Sweden.</p><p>Of course, that setback didn&rsquo;t stop Forsberg from working diligently on his rehab. The same qualities that made Forsberg a dominant player in his time &ndash; persistence and a deeply ingrained competitive streak &ndash; convinced him to make one last push.</p><p>It was an Olympic year after all, and for all he accomplished in the NHL, two of Forsberg&rsquo;s signature moments came in these events. The first, Olympic gold in 1994, came during a riveting shootout against Canada&rsquo;s Corey Hirsch, a move memorialized on a Swedish stamp. Then there was an encore performance in 2006, a dozen years later, in Turin, with full NHL participation.</p><blockquote class="pullQuote"><b>&lsquo;I DON&rsquo;T KNOW WHAT I&rsquo;M STILL DOING HERE, BUT I&rsquo;M STILL BATTLING&rsquo;</b></blockquote><p>So here was Forsberg, back again for 2010, just happy to be competing again in the twilight of his distinguished career.</p><p>Forsberg was not exactly a laugh-a-moment interview subject in his NHL playing days, but on this day, in the middle of the tournament, he is in fine form, exchanging funny lines with a couple of familiar faces among the reporting crew. When reminded, with mock seriousness, that no one had a chance to ask him about his injured ankles for nearly two years, he answered: &ldquo;It was more like five years &ndash; and believe me, I didn&rsquo;t miss it.</p><p>&ldquo;But I feel OK now. I played 20 games in the Swedish League this year and it&rsquo;s going better every game. At this stage of my career, I don&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;m ever going to be really healthy again, so I&rsquo;m just going to do my best and see how it goes.</p><p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what I&rsquo;m still doing here,&rdquo; he added. &ldquo;But I&rsquo;m still battling and it&rsquo;s great. Every time you get a chance to play in the Olympics, it&rsquo;s the best thing you can do. It&rsquo;s fun.&rdquo;</p><p>Forsberg was one of the senior citizens on the Swedish team, the defending gold medalists, but he noted: &ldquo;At least I&rsquo;m not the oldest guy on the team. (Nicklas) Lidstrom, he&rsquo;s got a couple of years on me and he&rsquo;s still going strong. But it&rsquo;s definitely different. I played for the Swedish team for the first time in &rsquo;92. That was a few years ago now.</p><p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s great to see the young guys coming in with enthusiasm.&rdquo;</p><p>For Lidstrom, a long-time NHL foe of Forsberg&rsquo;s during those epic Detroit-Colorado playoff battles, having a player of his stature enhances Sweden&rsquo;s lineup because of the aura that he exudes.</p><p>&ldquo;He&rsquo;s a winner, a true winner and a tremendous athlete,&rdquo; Lidstrom said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s had his trouble with injuries, but he&rsquo;s battled through them. He&rsquo;s healthy enough to be here and he should be here. He&rsquo;s that good. He can still contribute to a team like ours.&rdquo;</p><p>The 2010 Olympics were a coming-out party for the new generation of Swedish players &ndash; the Nicklas Backstroms and Loui Erikssons, all starting to make their own marks in the NHL.</p><p>But to that generation, Forsberg is an inspiring figure, in the same way Mario Lemieux was for Canada&rsquo;s youngsters during their 2002 Olympic journey. Forsberg&rsquo;s shootout goal was to Sweden&rsquo;s hockey history what Paul Henderson&rsquo;s goal in 1972 was to Canada or Mike Eruzione&rsquo;s for the Miracle team in 1980 to the Americans.</p><p>Even if there was little chance Forsberg would be on coach Bengt Gustafsson&rsquo;s shootout list, given all the talent at Sweden&rsquo;s disposal, the veteran said he was ready to show something new and different, if called upon.</p><p>&ldquo;That was 16 years ago,&rdquo; he said of the stamp deke. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve worked on a new move.&rdquo;</p><p>As for returning to the NHL, Forsberg says it is not in his immediate plans &ndash; that playing six or seven games in an Olympic tournament is quite a bit different than enduring an 82-game NHL grind. In his prime, the strength of Forsberg&rsquo;s game was his ability to make a tight turn, coming out of the corner, protecting the puck. His weakened ankles just don&rsquo;t allow him to do that anymore.</p><p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a little frustrating, but I look at things this way: The young guys can go forever, but when you&rsquo;re older, you know where to go. What you lose in speed, you gain in experience.&rdquo;<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0050-02

FOPPA MAKES A CAMEO

<div class="image-hero"><img title="S0010-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0010-0151/9398205-1-eng-US/s0010-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(IMAGE: JAMIE SQUIRE/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><span>F</span>lag-waving Corey Perry, among Canada&rsquo;s leaders with four goals in Vancouver, adds another piece of hardware to his collection. His Olympic gold complements a Stanley Cup, World Junior and Memorial Cup titles.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

S0010-01

BORN TO WIN

<div class="image-hero"><img title="S0011-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0011-0146/9398236-1-eng-US/s0011-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(IMAGE: HARRY HOW/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><span>S</span>cott Niedermayer gains a measure of redemption, proving to be a tower of strength when it matters most &ndash; and after some critics questioned his ability to contribute at the highest level earlier in the tournament.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

S0011-01

CAPTAIN CRUNCH

<div class="image-hero"><img title="S0012-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0012-0147/9398267-1-eng-US/s0012-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(IMAGE: BRUCE BENNETT/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><span>T</span>eam USA trails for the first time in the Olympics when Jonathan Toews puts Canada up 1-0 in the first period of the gold medal game. Late-game heroics prove, however, the young Americans can handle adversity.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

S0012-01

DOWN, NOT OUT

<div class="image-hero"><img title="S0014-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0014-0139/9398497-1-eng-US/s0014-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(IMAGE: BRUCE BENNETT/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><span>M</span>arie-Philip Poulin, Canada&rsquo;s youngest player at 18, tees up the happy group photo with two goals in the final and Shannon Szabados is awesome in goal as Canada blanks the Americans 2-0 in the grand showdown.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

S0014-01

GOLDEN GIRLS

<div class="image-hero"><img title="SSC0002-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/ssc0002-01/9398528-1-eng-US/ssc0002-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(IMAGE: BRUCE BENNETT/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><span>T</span>here&rsquo;s no way out for Norway as a Canadian strike force puts up an eight spot to open the Olympics. Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry each tally once as Team Canada fires 42 shots at Norwegian stoppers.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

SSC0002-01

THE GAMES BEGIN

<div class="image-hero"><img title="SS0003-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/ss0003-01/9398559-1-eng-US/ss0003-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(IMAGE: BRUCE BENNETT/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><span>I</span>t&rsquo;s a near Swiss miss as Canada surrenders a 2-0 lead and needs some big saves from goaltender Martin Brodeur &ndash; in regulation, overtime and the shootout &ndash; to get past their determined opponents by a score of 3-2.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

SS0003-01

NEUTRALITY BITES

<div class="image-hero"><img title="SS0004-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/ss0004-012/9398590-1-eng-US/ss0004-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(IMAGE: BRUCE BENNETT/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><span>J</span>amie Langenbrunner celebrates a goal against his Devils&rsquo; teammate, Martin Brodeur in a &lsquo;take that&rsquo; moment over the favored host nation. The Americans stun Canada 5-3 and drive Brodeur from the game and Olympics.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

SS0004-01

MARTY YANKED

<div class="image-hero"><img title="SS0006-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/ss0006-01/9398652-1-eng-US/ss0006-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(IMAGE: KEVORK DJANSEZIAN/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><span>G</span>ame of the century? Think again. Canada blitzes the Russians 7-3, sending them packing in the quarterfinals. Russia has not won gold at the Games since the NHL began sending its players back in 1998.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

SS0006-01

WHAT A RUSH

<div class="image-hero"><img title="SS0007-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/ss0007-01/9398683-1-eng-US/ss0007-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(IMAGE: HARRY HOW/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><span>C</span>anada seems to catch a break by playing Slovakia in the semifinal, but the pesky Slovaks score two late goals and Canada needs a heroic save by Roberto Luongo in the dying seconds for a dramatic 3-2 victory.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

SS0007-01

SLO CLOSE

<div class="image-hero"><img title="SS0008-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/ss0008-01/9398714-1-eng-US/ss0008-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(IMAGE: BRUCE BENNETT/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><span>H</span>e shoots. He scores. A nation exhales. In one magical moment, Sidney Crosby finds a rare chink in American netminder Ryan Miller&rsquo;s armor, lifting Canada to gold and the weight of a country from his &ndash; and his teammates&rsquo; &ndash; shoulders.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

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March 15, 2010

Golden Boys

HOME STRETCH WARRIORS

STARTING TO ROLL

THREE-PEAT