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 6, 1998

The Hockey News March 6, 1998

<div class="byline">By Paul Hunter</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-04636/7249394-1-eng-US/f0016-042.jpg" title="f0016-04" width="160" height="158"></div>Some members of the Toronto Maple Leafs spent the Olympic break on the beach. Others took their families to Disney World.Wendel Clark passed the time visiting soft-tissue medical specialists, seeking help for a lingering groin injury.And the news wasn&rsquo;t good. There was growing concern Clark may be finished for the season. While there were no immediate plans for surgery, Toronto&rsquo;s former captain acknowledged that possibility exists if the damaged muscle doesn&rsquo;t heal on its own.&ldquo;It has just hurt a lot worse than we thought,&rdquo; said Clark, who has been out since Dec. 31 and fully expected to rejoin the team after the Olympics.&ldquo;Basically, we&rsquo;re going to try and let time heal it right now. If I have to go under the knife, I&rsquo;ll be gone for the rest of the year.&rdquo;But there is really little expectation Clark will return this season with or without surgery. His injury was healing so slowly that activities as mundane as stepping out of his car were setting back his progress.&ldquo;He has shown minimal improvement in the last few weeks,&rdquo; said team therapist Brent Smith. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re throwing every healing measure we can at it, but time is the essential ingredient in that.&rdquo;The news wasn&rsquo;t all bad from the trainer&rsquo;s room, however.The break worked medicinal wonders for injured rookie center Alyn McCauley and veteran blueliner Jeff Brown. When Toronto gathered for the start of a mini-camp Feb. 17, both were on the ice skating at full speed.McCauley&rsquo;s cracked fibula, an injury that sidelined him New Year&rsquo;s Eve, had healed enough for him to return. Brown, too, was again at 100 per cent after a serious ankle infection cost him 11 games before the break. Both players will be heavily counted on as the Leafs make a late-season push for a playoff berth.NOTEBOOK: If left winger Wendel Clark is finished for the season, he may have played his last game as a Leaf. The 31-year-old becomes an unrestricted free agent this summer and Toronto has not indicated whether it will bid for his services&hellip;Defenseman Jeff Brown&rsquo;s return to full-time action is a chance to redeem himself. He sat out last season following back surgery, saw limited ice time with Carolina this season and then fought off a serious infection with the Leafs. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m anxious for this two-year paid vacation to end and to get back to work,&rdquo; Brown said&hellip;Coach Mike Murphy plans to give left winger Fredrik Modin more powerplay time. Modin had eight goals in the 10 games before the break. &#9632;

f0016-04

NHL TEAMS

Ailing Clark may be done for season

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0026-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-011003/7249828-1-eng-US/f0026-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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IN THIS ISSUE

NHL GOALTENDING STATISTICS

<div class="byline">By Adrian Dater</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-03751/7248797-1-eng-US/f0011-032.jpg" title="f0011-03" width="569" height="901"><figcaption class="caption-body">Joe Sakic</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-021122/7248804-1-eng-US/f0011-022.jpg" title="f0011-02" width="162" height="159"></div>It was the subject nobody wanted to think about when the Colorado Avalanche sent nine of its players off to the Winter Olympics.What if one of them got hurt at the Games?GM Pierre Lacroix, a big booster of the Olympic experience, was well aware of the risks.&ldquo;The only worry I have personally,&rdquo; Lacroix said during the Games,&rdquo;is injuries.&rdquo;That worry became reality when Avalanche captain Joe Sakic went down in the quarterfinal. It happened in Canada&rsquo;s game against Kazakhstan when Sakic collided with an opponent and fell awkwardly. The 28-year-old center suffered a Grade II sprain of the medial collateral ligament in his left knee and was expected to be out of the Avalanche lineup until at least early March.While the injury wasn&rsquo;t welcome news, everyone around the Avs was breathing a sigh of relief that Sakic only sprained his knee, however, and didn&rsquo;t tear any ligaments.There was even some thinking around the Avalanche the forced rest may actually do Sakic some good in the long run. The Avalanche has had success without Sakic in the lineup in the past.Colorado went 11-4-2 without him last season, when he missed 17 games because of a tom calf muscle. The hope now is the 1996 Conn Smythe Trophy winner as playoff MVP will be back in top form for the stretch run and the post-season.NOTEBOOK: Just as center Joe Sakic headed to the injury list, right winger Keith Jones got ready to finally leave it. Jones, who tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee during the playoffs last season, was set to return to the lineup Feb. 25 at Phoenix. Jones played some games with the Avalanche&rsquo;s American League affiliate in Hershey with no ill effects during the Olympic break&hellip;With so many Avalanche players at the Olympics, practice sessions during the break were sparse. So Marty Lacroix, a TV producer in Quebec, joined brother and Avalanche left winger Eric at the minicamp to help make numbers&hellip;Construction of the Pepsi Center began in earnest and the arena is expected to open on schedule for the start of the 1999-2000 season. &#9632;

f0011-03

Sakic gets forced rest

<div class="byline">By Jim Cressman</div>First-year teams generally use an expansion draft to fill up a roster with players to give the appearance, at least, of being a team.In many cases few of those players make it to the second year. Even fewer are around for the third season. After all, they were castoffs from their previous teams.That&rsquo;s not the case with overage defenseman Luch Nasato. who has become one of the Barrie Colts&rsquo; thoroughbreds. He was third among Ontario League defensemen with 55 points (nine goals) and fifth overall in penalty minutes (215).Coach-GM Bert Templeton felt he had a keeper when he chose Nasato in the 1995 expansion draft from the Kitchener Rangers.Nasato. who will turn 21 March 10, was Kitchener&rsquo;s seventh round pick in 1994, but played only 18 games. He spent most of that season in Jr. A. The Rangers were going to be deep on the blueline the next season, so Nasato was left unprotected for the expansion draft.&ldquo;I liked his inspirational play and he has brought so many qualities and dimensions to our team,&rdquo; Templeton said. &ldquo;When we looked at the expansion draft, we were looking for character players. We figured we would get the skill out of the European and midget drafts.&rdquo;The Colts have taken just three seasons to become one of the OHL&rsquo;s best teams. They were in the thick of the Central Division race until a 2-6-2 skid saw them fall five points off the pace set by the Guelph Storm. Overall the Colts were 33-18-4.&ldquo;It never felt like an expansion team,&rdquo; Nasato said of that first season. The Colts set an OHL expansion-team record, going 28-31-7, secondbest in Canadian Hockey League history. &ldquo;Bert always talked about how we would do well. We couldn&rsquo;t use the expansion thing for an excuse. We couldn&rsquo;t even use the word. It&rsquo;s amazing what we&rsquo;ve done in three years.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-011364/7249587-1-eng-US/f0018-012.jpg" title="f0018-01" width="690" height="239"></div>TIME HONORED: The Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds released three players-Todd Miller, 19, Scott Behrens. 18, and Chad Woollard. 18-for missing curfew Feb. 7.GM Dave Mayville admitted the team was tolerant of off-ice behavior in recent years. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve learned our lesson through mistakes,&rdquo; he said.The three claimed half the team missed curfew, including defenseman Richard Jackman, suspended in November for the same offense. That cost him a tryout with the Canadian junior team.&ldquo;A lot of other guys were involved. It has happened before,&rdquo; Miller said.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think it&rsquo;s fair,&rdquo; Behrens said. &ldquo;This was my first time. I think it&rsquo;s just because we have too many guys (on the roster).&rdquo;The Greyhounds had 26 players, but Mayville denied the moves were made to trim the roster.Coach Dave Cameron is responsible for checking curfew.&ldquo;When I catch guys, I deal with it,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The guys who were caught are ratting out the others. If the other guys were out, then eventually I&rsquo;ll catch them, too.&rdquo;The Greyhounds sat last in the West Division, 21 points out of a playoff spot.THREE CHEERS: Sault Ste. Marie center Cory Pecker returned to the lineup three months after being diagnosed with Crohn&rsquo;s Disease.NHLers Shayne Corson, Theoren Fleury and Kevin Dineen all have the disease, which is a chronic inflammation of the bowel. Pecker said those three were an inspiration during his convalescence. Corson visited Pecker in hospital and NHL star Wayne Gretzky called to lift his spirits on three separate occasions.&ldquo;Just to get back is a thrill for me,&rdquo; Pecker said. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t believe I did it. I didn&rsquo;t eat for six weeks.&rdquo;The Greyhounds&rsquo; first round pick underwent an emergency appendectomy Nov. 9 and was diagnosed with Crohn&rsquo;s. He had further surgery Dec. 12 in Montreal, his hometown. &#9632;

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LEAGUES

Nasato’s steadying influence keeps Colts running

<div class="image-hero"><img title="Cover-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/cover-01975/7250004-1-eng-US/cover-012.jpg"></div>CZECH MATE! FIRST-EVER OLYMPIC GOLDEN GLORYDOMINIK HASEKWorld Cup Champs Five Ring CircusChris CheliosCanadians Falter No Medal For MenWayne GretzkyAmerican womenOlympic GOLDEN GIRLS &#9632;

Cover-01

BITTER SWEET

<h2>Stars & Stripes Olympic stars</h2>1. Dream weavers Americans decisive winners of first gold in women&rsquo;s hockey debut.2. Czech Champs Dominik Hasek-led Czechs surprise winners of first Olympics with full NHL participation.3. Best of the best Forward Pavel Bure, defenseman Rob Blake and goalie Dominik Hasek named best Olympians.4. Rocket man Pavel Bure&rsquo;s five goals for Russia in the Olympic semifinals is one of all-time great clutch performances.5. Triumphant Belarus and Kazakhstan earn stripes with entrance to final round at expense of Germany and Slovakia.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-021290/7248211-1-eng-US/f0002-022.jpg" title="f0002-02" width="324" height="461"><figcaption class="caption-body">Pavel Bure</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-03967/7248204-1-eng-US/f0002-032.jpg" title="f0002-03" width="326" height="460"><figcaption class="caption-body">Rob Blake</figcaption></div><h2>North America takes it on chin</h2>1. Huge disappointment Men&rsquo;s Olympic medal tally: North America 0 Rest of the World 3.2. Men behaving badly Unspecified members of the American Olympic team damage rooms and team reputation.3. Shoot out A multi-national firing squad should be assembled to kill the shootout once and for all.4. Red tape rules Proud Swede Ulf Samuelsson kicked out of tournament for holding two passports.5. Lack of competition Nine of 17 games in women&rsquo;s event decided by five or more goals. &#9632;

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PLUS MINUS

<div class="byline">By Steve Dryden Editor-in-Chiet</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-04734/7248249-1-eng-US/f0002-042.jpg" title="f0002-04" width="345" height="429"></div>Seventeen thoughts, one for each day of the NHL winter break:1. There were two opening ceremonies at the Olympics, one featuring the arrival of all teams and the other featuring the arrival of Wayne Gretzky at the Nagano train station.2. International and International League hockey teaches us games can be played comfortably in less than 2-1/2 hours.3. When THN named its all-snub Olympic team in the Dec. 19 issue, we picked a shootout specialist: Yanic Perreault of Canada.4. This is the first time in seven best-on-best toumaments-including six Canada/World Cup events-that Canada hasn&rsquo;t finish first or second. There is heartache in the hockey heartland.5. THN named new Columbus Blue Jackets&rsquo; GM Doug MacLean, then the Florida Panthers&rsquo; coach, as a leading candidate for the expansion Columbus GM job in our July 31 issue.6. It was evident at the Three Nations Cup, when high strung head coach Shannon Miller lost her cool, and again during the NHL all-star weekend, when the Canucks were prematurely super-charged, that the Canadian women were piquing at the wrong times rather than peaking at the right times.7. Ben Smith is an exquisite coach.8. The shootout is one of the three greatest evils ever visited on hockey. The others? Mascots and FoxTrax.9. The Ottawa Senators entered the winter break with the second-best record in the NHL against teams with marks.500 or better and the second-worst record against sub-.500 teams. Only nine of their last 24 games are against the plus group.10. The Vancouver Canucks and Edmonton Oilers have the fewest games (eight) against teams with.500 or better records. It will make no difference to the Canucks.11. If I were hunting for an NHL head coach, I would interview Steve Ludzik of the Detroit Vipers.12. The much-maligned Ron Hextall has a sub-2.00 goals-against average.13. Canada&rsquo;s Olympic team handled itself with more distinction than the U.S., not so much because they had more to gain by winning gold, but because they had more to lose.14. Not until the American sporting public raises its level of awareness and expectations for the U.S. men will they mature.15. Tara Mounsey represents terra firma of women&rsquo;s hockey.16. Let&rsquo;s say it one more time: NHL and Olympic star Teemu Selanne is having one of the best seasons ever by a hockey player.17. Sudafed anyone?<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0002-011541/7248242-1-eng-US/f0002-012.jpg" title="f0002-01" width="1703" height="2411"></div> &#9632;

f0002-04

U.S. public has to care more so players will too

<div class="byline">Bob McKenzie Associate Editor</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-021407/7248287-1-eng-US/f0003-022.jpg" title="f0003-02" width="343" height="431"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-011760/7248280-1-eng-US/f0003-012.jpg" title="f0003-01" width="3014" height="1903"><figcaption class="caption-body">FLASHY SCORER Teemu Selanne shows his Finnish by knocking one past Tommy Salo in Nagano. (Photo by Canapress)</figcaption></div>NAGANO&ndash;No one, certainly not the NHL, disputes the value of international hockey, be it the Winter Olympics, World Cup or a revamped AllStar Game format that pits North America against the Rest of the World.But how much is too much? That is the question that will be asked in the months to come as the NHL and NHL Players&rsquo; Association formulate a long-term international calendar almost certain to culminate with NHL participation in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.&ldquo;I expect we&rsquo;ll make all those decisions in the summer,&rdquo; NHL commissioner Gary Bettman told The Hockey News. &ldquo;When we get back (from Nagano), our focus is going to be entirely on the conclusion of our regular season and then the Stanley Cup playoffs, which is as it should be. But when all that is over, we&rsquo;ll sit down with the Players&rsquo; Association and take a long, hard look at what we&rsquo;re going to do internationally.&rdquo;The difficulty is that everything the NHL and NHLPA have done internationally in the last two years has been a raging success, but may be bordering on overkill, especially as it pertains to the health and welfare of the players. Consider:o While the impact of shutting down the regular season for 17 days has yet to be gauged, NHL participation in the Olympics earned good reviews-with the exception of Team USA.The hockey was great and the Canada-U.S. game Feb. 16 attracted the largest American TV audience for a game involving NHL players in two decades. Canadian TV ratings were also spectacular. The American men, however, behaved and played badly, causing PR headaches for the NHL. The failure of both the U.S. and Canada to reach the gold medal game also minimized total impact.Time zone differences made live viewing a challenge, but that won&rsquo;t be a problem in Salt Lake City.o The new all-star format-North America versus the the Rest of the World-was a huge success. NHL post-event consumer polling revealed a virtually unheard-of approval rate of 78 per cent. That doesn&rsquo;t mean there&rsquo;ll never be another Western Conference vs. Eastern Conference game again, but it does mean a variety of formats will be considered, depending upon the time and locale of the game.o The 1996 World Cup, played in August and September, was an artistic and commercial success, earning profits of $14.7 million, shared by the NHL and NHLPA. An encore World Cup presentation is projected for 2000. But the players, notably the superstars whose talents drive the international hockey machine, have voiced concerns over the demanding schedule. Eric Lindros has said a major international event the scope of the Olympics or World Cup every two years is too taxing. Once every four years, he said, is about right and it makes sense for the one big splash to be the Olympics. The challenge for Bettman and NHLPA executive director Bob Goodenow is to find a way to address the players&rsquo; concerns and keep alive both the World Cup and Olympics.The NHL is considering a twopronged plan to do just that. First, in World Cup or Olympic years, do away with the NHL All-Star Game. Second, move the World Cup from a four-or five-week fall event to a two-week mid-season tourney resembling the Olympic format.That would significantly reduce demands on the players and keep the World Cup event alive. The impact of a mid-season World Cup shutdown would be minimized by doing away with the All-Star Game and its four-or five-day break. But the NHL all-star weekend is valuable to the league. For example, Fox and CBC have purchased rights&rsquo; packages that include an All-Star Game and the weekend is important for corporate advertisers and sponsors.For his part, Goodenow would like to do something to take advantage of the new millennium. What better way to ring in the year 2000, he suggested, than with a world-class international hockey event? &ldquo;There may be some unique opportunities to do something really creative at that particular time,&rdquo; Goodenow said.Regardless of what happens in the big picture internationally, response to this year&rsquo;s All-Star Game in Vancouver showed the league that different is often better. The league realizes there&rsquo;s something to be said for creativity and tailoring the all-star format to the time and place it&rsquo;s being played. For example, the 1999 game is being played in Tampa Bay. If the Americans had won the gold medal in Nagano, the league would have considered a Team USA vs. the Rest of the World format.If, for example, the defending Stanley Cup champion happened to be hosting the next AllStar Game-the Tampa Bay Lightning need not concern itself&mdash;it could play against the NHL allstars. That&rsquo;s not a new concept-it used to be standard operating procedure-but the point is the league doesn&rsquo;t intend to lock itself into any one specific all-star format.Or, for that matter, it won&rsquo;t lock itself into an All-Star Game at all if that&rsquo;s what it takes to make the international calendar go. &#9632;

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DEPARTMENTS

All the world’s a stage

<h2>February/March Upcoming Upcoming Milestones</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-011722/7248318-1-eng-US/f0004-012.jpg" title="f0004-01" width="316" height="413"><figcaption class="caption-body">Doug Gilmour</figcaption></div><h3>FEBRUARY</h3>Wed., Feb. 25: NHL play resumes after a 17day Olympic break with nine games. Philadelphia and Carolina are the last teams to get back to action with Feb. 28 visits to the Rangers and New Jersey, respectively.<h3>UPCOMING</h3>Thurs., March 19: The Canadian women&rsquo;s national championship begins in Calgary.Wed., March 25: The push for the last piece to the puzzle reaches its climax at the NHL trading deadline.Wed., March 25: Watch for the fireworks as Chicago and Anaheim meet in the first game since Gary Suter ended Paul Kariya&rsquo;s Olympic dream with a crosscheck to the head.Thurs., March 26: Canada&rsquo;s top university teams face off in the CIAU University Cup in Saskatoon, Sask. The championship game is March 29.Thurs., April 2: The best of U.S. college teams compete for the NCAA crown in the Final Four championship at FleetCenter in Boston. The title game is April 4.<h3>MILESTONES</h3>548 goals: Brett Hull of St. Louis needed one goal to tie Michel Goulet for 15th place all-time.800 assists: Jari Kurri of Colorado needed six assists to hit 800. New Jersey&rsquo;s Doug Gilmour needed nine.1,000 points: St. Louis&rsquo; Al Maclnnis needed 12 points to hit 1,000. &#9632;

f0004-01

CALENDAR

<div class="byline">By Mike Brophy</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0005-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-011694/7248373-1-eng-US/f0005-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">A new Oilers&rsquo; owner might make an effort to keep Curtis Joseph. (Photo by Bruce Bennett Studios)</figcaption></div>If you&rsquo;re the kind of fan who likes players who don&rsquo;t take nights off, you&rsquo;ll be happy the rest of the season.In the 54 days between the resumption of NHL play Feb. 25 and the last day of the season April 19. the league will cram in 330 games, an average of six per night.The busiest teams will be the Philadelphia Flyers and Chicago Blackhawks. They each play 18 games in 32 days, an average of one game every 1.8 days.That&rsquo;s one of a number of things on tap as the NHL comes off its historic 17-day Olympic break. Here are others to look for:&#9633; In an effort to generate more offense, the league mandated another crackdown on obstruction calls effective immediately. Officials were expecting to be briefed Feb. 24 on the new guidelines for calling obstruction, particularly on non-puck-carriers.The league has identified four key areas of concern: neutral-zone obstruction, faceoff obstruction, forecheck obstruction and offensive-zone obstruction.Emphasis will also be placed on tighter restraining standards for hooking, holding and holding the stick on the puck-carrier.Obstruction calls are actually up this season. Through 736 games there were 1,647 obstruction-related penalties called compared to 988 through the same number of games last season, a rise of 67 per cent.Scoring is down this season with teams averaging 5.3 goals per game compared to 5.9 a year ago and 6.3 the year before. Scoring hasn&rsquo;t been this low since 1969-70.Not surprisingly, the league is on a record pace for shutouts. Through 736 games, there were 103 shutouts which put the league on pace for 149. The record of 127 was set last season.Of course that could all change if the crackdown on obstruction is as effective as the league anticipates. More power plays should lead to more scoring.&ldquo;If they want the penalty box filled, that&rsquo;s no problem,&rdquo; one referee said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll fill &lsquo;em.&rdquo;The league has backed down in the past after watching an endless parade of penalties, but resolves to stick to its plan this time.The average number of power plays per game this season was 8.7 before the break. It was 8.1 over a similar period last season.&ldquo;Who are we kidding?&rdquo; one GM said. &ldquo;We put all the pressure on the refs. We say we don&rsquo;t want them deciding the games, but all their calls are discretionary so, in effect, they end up deciding the game. Watch when a team loses an important playoff game because of a marginal obstruction call. Everybody will go nuts.&rdquo;The crackdown is bad news for the Vancouver Canucks, who led the NHL in penalty minutes (averaging 25 per game) and also had the league&rsquo;s worst penalty killers. The Canucks were killing penalties at a 79.9 per cent efficiency rate.&#9633; There was a trade embargo during the break, but that didn&rsquo;t stop teams from talking. A number of GMs contacted by THN said teams hovering close to a playoff spot are interested in quick-fix upgrades.However, don&rsquo;t expect many of the players scheduled to become unrestricted free agents to be shuffled. Players such as Doug Gilmour of the New Jersey Devils, Al MacInnis, Brett Hull and Geoff Courtnall of the St. Louis Blues, John Vanbiesbrouck of the Florida Panthers and Mike Richter of the New York Rangers are too important to their teams to be dumped, even if their teams risk getting nothing for them in the off-season.And after the Edmonton Oilers are sold, the new owner may spend what it takes to keep goalie Curtis Joseph.Vancouver coach Mike Keenan, meanwhile, will trade anyone who hasn&rsquo;t bought into his program, whatever that might be. Jyrki Lumme will almost certainly follow Trevor Linden out of town. It&rsquo;s delusional, but Keenan thinks his Canucks still have a shot at the playoffs. In reality, Vancouver, the Tampa Bay Lightning and Calgary Flames are cooked.There&rsquo;s a market for Marty McSorley of the San Jose Sharks and Steve Duchesne of the Blues. The trade deadline is 3 pm (EST) March 25.&#9633; Former league MVP Sergei Fedorov signed an offer sheet with the Carolina Hurricanes, which the Detroit Red Wings were expected to match. (See pgs. 9 and 13 for more.) &#9632;

f0005-01

Will crackdown lead to goals?

<div class="byline">Compiled by THN staff</div>Alan Eagleson won&rsquo;t relinquish his Order of Canada medal the way he accepted his ouster from Canada&rsquo;s Sports Hall of Fame.The jailed founder of the NHL Players&rsquo; Association learned in early February he was removed from Canada&rsquo;s Sports Hall of Fame. Eagleson was allowed an opportunity to appeal the decision, but declined to do so.However, Eagleson is fighting a move that would see him return his Order of Canada medal, which he received in 1989.Eagleson, through lawyer Brian Greenspan, informed the order&rsquo;s advisory council he is &ldquo;contesting the termination of membership&rdquo; and has arguments why he should continue to be a member of the elite group.The eight-member council will review the matter and make a recommendation to Canada&rsquo;s Governor General, Romeo LeBlanc. More than 3,000 Canadians have received Order of Canada medals over the past 30 years. Eagleson would be the first to have his taken back.Eagleson pleaded guilty to hockey-related fraud charges in January and is serving an 18-month prison sentence. Eagleson has since been disbarred by the Law Society of Upper Canada. The Hockey Hall of Fame will review Eagleson&rsquo;s status March 31.JAPAN OPENER: The NHL returns to Japan in October when the San Jose Sharks and Calgary Flames open the 1998-99 season.The NHL announced it will continue its GAME ONe program initiated last year when the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim and Vancouver Canucks opened with two regular season games in Tokyo. The Sharks and Flames will play Oct. 10 and 11 at Yoyogi Arena.PLAYERS CHARGED: Two Jr. A players have been charged two months after a pregame brawl resulted in another player being forced to quit hockey with a severe head injury.Cobourg (Ont.) Cougars&rsquo; captain Rob McLean. 19, and defenseman Jeremy Smith. 18, were charged with assault stemming from a brawl in an Ontario Jr. A League game Dec. 22. They will appear in court March 16. The Ontario Hockey Association suspended both players the rest of the season.Ajax (Ont.) Axemen player Markus Quinn, 21, sustained a fractured skull in the incident. &#9632;

Eagleson wants to retain Order of Canada

About two weeks ago, I was walking past the fax machine at work when suddenly, for seemingly no reason, a worker from another company hit me in the head with a large stick.He hit me so hard that I fell to the floor and hit my head. I received a concussion and have been off work ever since. I will likely be unable to work for the rest of the year and possibly never again.In addition, I am unable to attend an international competition in which I was hoping to prove that I am the best at what I do. This person was not charged and I will not sue him because this sort of thing is common where I work. However, he was suspended for four days.When asked why he did it, he claimed he meant to hit whomever was there and he didn&rsquo;t know it was me. This is an acceptable defense.Back to reality. Can someone explain to me why this sort of incident happens in the NHL, the way it happened to Paul Kariya, without any legal recourse? If this happened anywhere else, Gary Suter would have to answer to a judge.Brian Tanner, Waterloo, Ont.<h2>Fight back, boys</h2>As goonish as it sounds, after what Gary Suter did to Paul Kariya I&rsquo;m surprised to see Gary Suter still walking on two legs.It would seem to me that a Canadian player-or any other on the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim for that matter-would have taken matters into his own hands and gained revenge for the player considered to be the best player in the world right now. As for the NHL, it&rsquo;s no surprise to me that it once again demonstrated a complete lack of guts in its dinky four-game suspension to Suter.As for Suter&rsquo;s excuse for clearing the net, I hardly see any sense in clearing it after a goal has been scored. What&rsquo;s more, even if a goal had not been scored, I would consider crosschecking your opponent in the jaw quite an unorthodox way to free up your goalie&rsquo;s crease. But maybe I&rsquo;m out of date with new strategies.Dan Taza, Montreal, Que.<h2>Remember &rsquo;72?</h2>Bob Clarke gets funnier every time he talks. He should replace Jay Greenberg as the humor columnist at THN.Commenting on the Gary Suter hit on Paul Kariya, the GM of the Canadian Olympic team said he believed suspensions should be honored globally. &ldquo;Should someone have the liberty to hurt someone in this tournament and then go back and play in the NHL? I don&rsquo;t think that should happen.&rdquo;Hey, Bob, remember Valeri Kharlamov in 1972? Clarke also said,&rdquo;it wasn&rsquo;t a normal reaction to crosscheck someone in the head and knock him out.&rdquo; But apparently deliberately slashing your opponent and breaking his ankle is all right.We already knew Clarke was a hypocrite when he called the New York Rangers vultures for trying to sign free agents, then signed Chris Gratton to a huge contract. This just made it official.Rob Yasinsac, Tarrytown, N. Y.<h2>Give Keenan time</h2>Mike Keenan has taken more teams to the Stanley Cup final than any active coach other than Scotty Bowman, but Eric Duhatschek still feels compelled to malign Keenan&rsquo;s methods and results (THN, Feb. 13).The complaint that in a quarter century of coaching, Keenan failed to achieve his personal standards of excellence in two years with the St. Louis Blues is petty and malicious.Keenan will do with the Vancouver Canucks what he has always done. Win.Chris Mottola, Cape May Point, N.J.<h2>Houle be better?</h2>When Rejean Houle was hired as GM of the Montreal Canadiens, I and millions of Canadiens&rsquo; fans wondered why he was chosen.He looked bad from the start, hiring Mario Tremblay as coach; trading Patrick Roy and Mike Keane for Martin Rucinsky, Andrei Kovalenko and Jocelyn Thibault; and trading the talented Pierre Turgeon for Shayne Corson and Murray Baron.This year, however, Tremblay is gone and Houle has responded with some great moves. First, he picked up goalie Andy Moog as a free agent and he was fantastic. Rucinsky was playing well and Kovalenko was replaced by the gritty Scott Thornton. Baron was also traded and fill-in Dave Manson was quietly having a great season. Corson was also rejuvenated and looked great.But best of all, Houle hired Alain Vigneault as head coach and Dave King as associate coach and they led the Canadiens to a 28-21-7 record going into the Olympic break.Maybe, just maybe, Houle knows what he&rsquo;s doing after all.Darren Daynard,&nbsp; Edmonton, Alta.Fax us your comments at&nbsp;(416) 340-1641&nbsp;or write to&nbsp;Letters, THN, 777 Bay SL, Suite 2700, Box 148, Toronto, Ont, M5G 2N8&nbsp;in Canada. In the U.S., write to&nbsp;Letters, THN, P.O. Box 904, Buffalo, N.Y., 142409947.&nbsp;E-mail us at <a href="mailto:THN@transc.com">THN@transc.com</a>. Include home and business phone numbers.&nbsp;THN&nbsp;reserves the right to edit submissions. &#9632;

Why do we accept Suter’s behavior?

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0006-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-011887/7248452-1-eng-US/f0006-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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ELSTON

Faceoff The start of each game and each period was prefaced by a catchy, but ear-shattering pre-recorded chant of &ldquo;Faceoff! Faceoff!&rdquo; ad nauseam. At least it was catchy the first few times you heard it. The betting is at least a half-dozen NHL teams will be playing it by the playoffs.A cast of thousands Not including the two Zamboni drivers, as many 14 workers were on the ice between periods attending to the ice. This included several who meticulously cleaned every pane of glass and another few who, using a bucket of snow and a puck, patched any chips where the boards meet the ice.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-021273/7248483-1-eng-US/f0006-022.jpg" title="f0006-02" width="363" height="572"><figcaption class="caption-body">Bill McCreary</figcaption></div>Something fishy Fine black mesh nets are strung between the roof and the top of the glass at each end, ostensibly to protect fans from pucks leaving the ice surface. They worked extremely well, but the same puck was being used for such long stretches that the frozen discs were thawing out and bouncing. NHL referees such as Bill McCreary, who are used to less lively pucks, started replacing them more often.Time is of the essence Games were over in as short as two hours, 15 minutes and as long as two hours, 30 minutes. No TV timeouts. Fifteen-minute intermissions. No scrums after every whistle. And all this despite the fact referees gave teams inordinate amounts of time to change lines and get set for faceoffs. We could leant something from this.Sayonara hockey Although the Japanese Ice Hockey Federation is lobbying against it the Big Hat arena is scheduled to become a concert hall/sumo wrestling venue and Aqua Wing an international aquatics center. There will be many legacies from the Winter Games to Nagano, but hockey arenas are not likely to be among them. &#9632;

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What you need to know about the 1997-98 season

<div class="byline">By Mark Brender</div>For two weeks the Olympic flame shone so brightly it was easy to forget the looming danger. Now that the boys are back in North America, somebody is about to get burned.It&rsquo;s inevitable-in mid-April some player or executive is going to blame the Olympics for his team&rsquo;s missed playoff or unforeseen first-round collapse. The emotion, the jet lag and the mental and physical fatigue will all take their toll. It&rsquo;s only a matter of time before the victims step forward.&ldquo;For sure,&rdquo; said Montreal Canadiens&rsquo; assistant coach Dave King. &ldquo;It works both ways.&rdquo;One hundred and twenty-four NHL players flew back from Japan over a 14-hour time change to Eastern Standard Time-11 hours to Pacific Standard Time. Door-to-door travel time ranged from 14 to 20 hours depending on connecting flights and final destinations. The jet lag will be brutal-worse than when they went over because it&rsquo;s generally tougher flying east because there are more hours of darkness.The National Aeronautical Space Association (NASA) estimates it can take a day for every hour of time change to get the body clock readjusted. NHLers won&rsquo;t be hit that hard because they fly often and are in excellent physical shape, but it would be unrealistic to expect them to perform at a high level in the first week back. Their body clocks will be thrown by a number of factors-changes in light and day, sleep patterns, meal and exercise times, not to mention the mental roller coaster they&rsquo;ve endured.&ldquo;We probably can&rsquo;t expect these players to be performing at their best for at least five or six days,&rdquo; said New York Rangers&rsquo; sports physiologist Howie Wenger. &ldquo;How many times can you go to the emotional well? Some of the break they&rsquo;re going to need goes beyond what they need to handle jet lag.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-011715/7248521-1-eng-US/f0007-012.jpg" title="f0007-01" width="745" height="1379"><figcaption class="caption-body">Sweden&rsquo;s Peter Forsberg was one of the Colorado Avalanche&rsquo;s nine Olympians. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/BBS)</figcaption></div>There are ways to fight jet lag in the short term-keeping hydrated on the plane, sleeping as much as possible, keeping active while awake-but it can&rsquo;t be eliminated and teams fighting for a playoff spot don&rsquo;t have two weeks to mess around.Eight teams play three games in four nights once the league stars up on Feb. 25. The ones fighting for playoff spots can&rsquo;t afford to let players take nights off or even nurse the colds that often come with prolonged exposure to dry, pressurized air on long flights. Furthermore, plane cabins are de-pressurized to about 8,000 feet, not sea level. That alone can lead to mild forms of altitude sickness, which takes time to overcome.When Washington Capitals&rsquo; star Peter Bondra returned from his stint with Team Slovakia, he spent his first two days in bed with the flu. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s going to be hard for some players. For sure it&rsquo;s going to affect them,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I was thinking about it. If I had to play a game in the next couple of days, I don&rsquo;t think it would be possible.&rdquo;Players who played in the gold medal game weren&rsquo;t scheduled to get back home until the early hours of Feb. 23-fewer than three days before some would play their first games.The Colorado Avalanche had a league-high nine Olympians (plus coach Mark Crawford), but were fortunate to have a comfortable 13-point lead in the Pacific Division. They planned to sit out three or four of the returning players per game according to a rotation schedule drawn up in December. Star center Joe Sakic should be well-rested after injuring his left knee in the quarterfinal game against Kazakhstan. He was expected to be out until at least early March.But teams such as the Edmonton Oilers (eight returning players), Chicago Blackhawks (seven), and Toronto Maple Leafs (four) can&rsquo;t afford such luxuries. Invariably, players selected to play for their Olympic teams are the ones they&rsquo;ll be counting on most to produce during the stretch drive.Leafs&rsquo; coach Mike Murphy said he would look to give Mats Sundin and Mathieu Schneider time off, but not in games.&ldquo;They say that activity and strenuous activity is the thing that leads to recovery the fastest,&rdquo; Murphy said. &ldquo;With Mats,&rdquo; and here Murphy smiled and turned that helpless shade of red of a man who knows his future is in someone else&rsquo;s hands,&rdquo;well, we&rsquo;ll just try to generate some activity.&rdquo;<h2>Jet lag club hits ground</h2>Listed are all NHL players who made the trip to Nagano, even if some, such as Slovakia&rsquo;s Ziggy Palffy (New York Islanders) and Jozef Stumpel (Los Angeles) didn&rsquo;t play. Sergei Fedorov, who signed an offer sheet with Carolina Feb. 18. is listed with Detroit. Also listed are the number of players each team had in the Olympics.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-021144/7248514-1-eng-US/f0007-022.jpg" title="f0007-02" width="706" height="1566"></div> &#9632;

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THN FEATURES

If Olympians return weary, NHL club will take the fall

<div class="byline">By Mike Brophy</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-011780/7248559-1-eng-US/f0008-012.jpg" title="f0008-01" width="378" height="531"></div>Like most GMs, Neil Smith took the easy way out.Oh, the New York Rangers&rsquo; president-GM will tell you it was an agonizing decision and he waited as long as he could before pulling the trigger, but firing coach Colin Campbell was the easiest, most unimaginative move Smith could make.The team&rsquo;s going bad, fire the coach. Now, there&rsquo;s a new twist.&ldquo;This is a move I put a lot of thought and observation into,&rdquo; Smith said. &ldquo;I waited as long as I could for the team to turn a comer. It just never turned. I don&rsquo;t feel it&rsquo;s too late to get our club back into the race although it&rsquo;s going to be quite a difficult challenge.&rdquo;Blah, blah, blah.The Rangers have faced many obstacles this season, not the least of which was adjusting to the post-Mark Messier era.Defenseman Brian Leetch came to training camp with a bum wrist that hadn&rsquo;t healed from last season, then broke a finger and played a month and a half with it frozen every game. Leetch has been among the league&rsquo;s worst in plus-minus players all season. Also, goalie Mike Richter struggled. In the Year of the Shutout, the Rangers were one of only two teams without one. The Calgary Flames were the other.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-021353/7248552-1-eng-US/f0008-022.jpg" title="f0008-02" width="506" height="879"><figcaption class="caption-body">Colin Campbell</figcaption></div>Only the Vancouver Canucks have been bigger underachievers than the Rangers this season. And on Broadway, the curtain comes down quickly when the audience boos.It&rsquo;s worth noting though, even though the season has been a huge disappointment in the standings, the Rangers have been relatively competitive. They were tied with the Colorado Avalanche for the NHL lead in ties with 16. Convert eight of those draws into victories and they would be sitting comfortably in a playoff position. Then there were 16 games they lost by one goal (or by two when the opposition scored into the empty net).In the end, the reason Campbell was able to secure a hefty three-year, $2.4million contract last summer was also the reason he was fired-because the Rangers could afford it. Sometimes having a lot of money can be a bad thing; it can make a GM lazy.What team aside from the Rangers could afford to sign a coach to a lucrative long-term deal and fire him seven months later?At $750,000 this season, Crawford was tied with Marc Crawford of Colorado and Pat Bums of the Boston Bruins as third highest paid coach in the league behind Scotty Bowman of the Detroit Red Wings ($970,000) and Jacques Lemaire of the New Jersey Devils ($850,000). The Rangers are on the hook for $800,000 next year and $850,000 the year after.Campbell, 45, played one season in the World Hockey Association and 11 more in the NHL, never once showing up to training camp assured of a job.He was an assistant coach for five years with the Red Wings and joined the Rangers in 1990 in the same capacity. There was one stopover as head coach of the Binghamton Rangers of the American League before he replaced Mike Keenan in 1994.When he was fired, Campbell said all the right things, being very careful to thank Smith for giving him the opportunity to coach in the first place. Campbell also said he&rsquo;s interested in coaching again, but cautions,&rdquo;I don&rsquo;t just want to coach for the sake of coaching&rsquo; I want to win. I won&rsquo;t just take any job simply to get back into it.&rdquo;So now John Muckier slides in as Campbell&rsquo;s replacement. Muckier, who turns 64 in April, gets top marks as a hockey man in this comer, both as a coach and GM. And he gives the Rangers a new voice in the dressing room.But that&rsquo;s not enough.When the players stepped on the ice, Richter was still a struggling goalie. Leetch was still suffering through his most miserable NHL season. Pat LaFontaine still wasn&rsquo;t Messier. Brian Skrudland was still trying to figure out how to win a defensive-zone faceoff.So what has really changed? Nothing, other than Smith buying some more time for himself. &#9632;

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COLUMNISTS

Firing coach was simply taking easy way out

<div class="byline">By Cammy Clark</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-021169/7248590-1-eng-US/f0009-022.jpg" title="f0009-02" width="310" height="415"><figcaption class="caption-body">Paul Kariya</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-011681/7248597-1-eng-US/f0009-012.jpg" title="f0009-01" width="161" height="160"></div>Eighteen days after receiving the fourth concussion of his life, Mighty Ducks of Anaheim captain Paul Kariya was still experiencing some symptoms of post-concussion syndrome and had been unable to practise with his teammates.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m feeling a little bit better, but not 100 per cent,&rdquo; Kariya said Feb. 17, after a 20-minute skate and light office workout. &ldquo;The headaches are not as severe, but they sort of come and go. I&rsquo;m teetering up and down.&rdquo;Team doctor Craig Milhouse said Kariya was &ldquo;getting better, but it&rsquo;s slow.&rdquo; Milhouse reiterated he &ldquo;absolutely believes Kariya will recover fully.I&rsquo;m not thinking this is the end of Paul&rsquo;s career.&rdquo;But Milhouse added Kariya is at increased risk for concussions because of the previous ones he has endured. Kariya will not be allowed to return to play until he has been asymptomatic for at least seven days. During that time, Kariya must also show he is able to handle sustained activity and be able to endure physical contact without the return of headaches, dizziness and other symptoms.&ldquo;He cannot go back too soon and risk that if he gets another concussion that&rsquo;s so great it will be the last head injury he will be able to have,&rdquo; Milhouse said. &ldquo;Paul is a young guy. And we know repeated concussions can end a guy&rsquo;s career. He has to be completely recovered before he can play again.&rdquo;Kariya will take more precautions, including wearing a mouthpiece for the first time. The team also is looking at getting him a more protective helmet, like the one Pat LaFontaine of the New York Rangers wears because of his battle with post-concussion syndrome.Kariya already had missed the Ducks&rsquo; last two games before the Olympics because of the injury. His dream of playing in the Olympics in his paternal grandparents&rsquo; homeland of Japan also had been shattered.He sustained his fourth concussion Feb. 1, when Chicago Blackhawks&rsquo; defenseman Gary Suter crosschecked him in the jaw.Dr. Robert Gordon, who works with athletes at the Institute of Sports Medicine in Toronto, told the Toronto Star he advises athletes to retire after they&rsquo;ve suffered three &ldquo;serious&rdquo; concussions. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d definitely give (Kariya) all the options,&rdquo; Gordon said. &ldquo;Sometimes professional athletes put their future on the line because of all the money involved.&rdquo;When asked what he thought of Gordon&rsquo;s advice, Kariya said: &ldquo;It depends who you talk to. As long as I can play and can have all my faculties, I can play the game.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: The Ducks were to start the stretch run without left winger Brent Severyn, who was suspended automatically for two games by the NHL after receiving his third instigator penalty within a one-year period Feb. 7, when he fought Los Angeles left winger Matt Johnson&hellip;Ducks&rsquo; GM Jack Ferreira said the team did not exercise its option to extend center Espen Knutsen&rsquo;s contract for another season. The Ducks gambled that Knutsen, a highly skilled playmaker who starred in his native Norway and in Sweden, would be able to adjust to the NHL. They gave him a $600,000 deal. But Knutsen struggled from the start and has not improved while with the Ducks&rsquo; American League farm team in Cincinnati. &ldquo;He doesn&rsquo;t want to compete,&rdquo; Ferreira said&hellip;Ducks&rsquo; coach Pierre Page was impressed with the practice of new addition center Travis Green, acquired in a six-player trade from the New York Islanders Feb. 6. &ldquo;You can see his skills and tell he&rsquo;s excited to be here,&rdquo; Page said. &#9632;

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Post-concussion syndrome keeps Ducks’ captain Kariya on sideline

<div class="byline">By Steve Politi</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-04552/7248628-1-eng-US/f0009-042.jpg" title="f0009-04" width="311" height="413"><figcaption class="caption-body">Sergei Fedorov</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-03717/7248635-1-eng-US/f0009-032.jpg" title="f0009-03" width="160" height="160"></div>Jim Rutherford always said his team was searching for another center. &ldquo;We just didn&rsquo;t say it was going to be as good as this one,&rdquo; said the Carolina Hurricanes&rsquo; GM with a laugh.In a stunning move for a team that is already bleeding red ink, the Humcanes signed restricted free agent Sergei Fedorov to a six-year, $38-million offer sheet. The Detroit Red Wings had until Feb. 25 at 11 p.m. (EST) to match the offer. If the Wings decline to match, the Hurricanes must surrender five first-round draft picks or a trade could be worked out.&ldquo;This is an investment in a player and in a market in building a championship team,&rdquo; Rutherford said.Just $12 million of the $38 million is Fedorov&rsquo;s base salary, which will be paid out evenly during the next six seasons. The rest is a signing bonus, with $14 million of it paid as soon as he joins either the Hurricanes or the Red Wings.The contract calls for the rest of the bonus, $12 million, to be paid over the next four years. But if his team reaches the conference final, it must pay that bonus in one lump sum.For the &lsquo;Canes (21-29-6), that&rsquo;s unlikely to happen anytime soon. For the Wings (31-15-12), it could happen this season. That could make the total bill for Fedorov an unprecedented $26 million, payable by July 1.Still, Fedorov reiterated his wish to leave the Wings. (See pg. 13 for more on Fedorov.)&ldquo;I told (Detroit GM) Ken Holland last month that I&rsquo;d like to play somewhere with a different club,&rdquo; Fedorov said. &ldquo;That hasn&rsquo;t changed.&rdquo;Holland didn&rsquo;t rule out the possibility that Fedorov and the Wings could iron out their differences.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not going to forget what a role he played in our success over the last three years,&rdquo; Holland said. &ldquo;Without Sergei in our lineup, we&rsquo;re a good hockey club. With Sergei in our lineup, we&rsquo;re a much better hockey club.&rdquo;Should things work out in their favor, the Hurricanes are hoping Fedorov can revive their sagging playoff chances. The 28-year-old center has 592 career points in 506 games over seven seasons. In 1993-94, he recorded 56 goals and 120 points and won the Hart Trophy (league MVP) and Selke (best defensive forward). No player had ever won both in the same season.&ldquo;He has brilliant speed, fantastic hands and is capable of making the kind of play to bring you back to the rink,&rdquo; said Hurricanes&rsquo; coach Paul Maurice. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s like that perfectly straight drive you hit once every 18 holes.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: The signing of center Sergei Fedorov to an offer sheet did not stop other trade discussions for the Hurricanes. They still were shopping left winger Gary Roberts, with strong rumors he could end up going to Dallas for gritty right winger Todd Harvey&hellip;Ranger center Wayne Gretzky&rsquo;s take on Fedorov&rsquo;s signing bonus? &ldquo;Come on, $26 million up front? Maybe he signed with the (National Basketball Association&rsquo;s) Charlotte Hornets.&rdquo;&hellip;More than 2,000 fans turned out in downtown Raleigh to catch a glimpse of the Stanley Cup, part of the trophy&rsquo;s Winter Break tour of the NHL. About 700 showed up at a similar event in Greensboro, where the Hurricanes currently play home games&hellip;How can team owner Peter Karmanos afford $16 million for Fedorov this season and $25 million in losses? The stock value of his computer software company, Compuware, has doubled since the team moved to North Carolina from Hartford, Conn., last spring. It is worth $7.7 billion. &#9632;

f0009-04

’Canes make pitch for Fedorov with unprecedented offer sheet

<div class="byline">By Mike Loftus</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-011751/7248666-1-eng-US/f0010-012.jpg" title="f0010-01" width="160" height="162"></div>Byron Dafoe needed just two-thirds of a season in a Boston Bruins&rsquo; uniform to have a career year.He had already won more games (18) than he had in two years with the Los Angeles Kings and left for the winter break just two appearances and 63 minutes from playing more in an NHL season than ever before.Those pre-break numbers established him as a No. 1 NHL goalie. What Dafoe does after the break will go a long way toward determining whether he&rsquo;ll be seen as a big-game netminder and he knows it.&ldquo;I still have a lot to prove,&rdquo; said Dafoe, who played in 46 of Boston&rsquo;s first 56 games. &ldquo;I feel I&rsquo;ve proved I&rsquo;m a No. 1 goalie this season, but I know there&rsquo;s a lot left for me to do.&rdquo;Dafoe, who posted a 18-19-8 record with a 2.24 goals-against average, .913 save percentage and a career-high five shutouts before the break, needed the rest as much as any Bruin. Because of injuries to the only other goalies in Boston&rsquo;s system with NHL experience (Rob Tallas and Jim Carey), the Bruins were forced to use Dafoe in 16 straight games entering the break.&ldquo;I was tired by the end, but I feel great now,&rdquo; Dafoe said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m looking forward to the rest of the season and I feel I&rsquo;m up to it. Other than the playoffs, this stretch drive is the most exciting time of the year. There&rsquo;s a lot of pressure, because so many teams are still in the heat of this battle, but it&rsquo;s still fun.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: The Bmins assigned 23-year-old defenseman Mattias Timander to Providence of the American League one day into mini-camp. &ldquo;We waited and waited, but nothing was produced from his end,&rdquo; said coach Pat Burns of Timander, a healthy scratch in nine straight games before the break. &ldquo;We sent him (down earlier this season) and thought we might see some flashes, but there was nothing. And you&rsquo;ve got to be good down there to be good up here.&rdquo;&hellip;The break came in handy for backup goaltender Rob Tallas (strained left hamstring) and checking right winger Mike Sullivan (strained left wrist). The Bruins&rsquo; only two injured players were practising at the start of mini-camp and were expected to be back in uniform when Boston&rsquo;s schedule resumed. &#9632;

f0010-01

Impressive Dafoe believes he has something to prove

<div class="byline">By Eric Duhatschek</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-03799/7248697-1-eng-US/f0010-032.jpg" title="f0010-03" width="574" height="899"><figcaption class="caption-body">Ron Stern</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-021279/7248704-1-eng-US/f0010-022.jpg" title="f0010-02" width="158" height="157"></div>He hadn&rsquo;t played a game yet this season, but there was a glimmer of hope Ron Stem would return to the Calgary Flames&rsquo; lineup soon after the Olympic break.Stem, who was originally diagnosed as having a knee cartilage problem that would keep him out one-to-six weeks, became so frustrated by the slow pace of his recovery he went to the Steadman clinic in Vail, Colo., for a second opinion. After returning, Stem was finding life considerably more palatable.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s because I asked the doctors if coming back in early March was realistic-and they said yes,&rdquo; Stem said.Stem, who had surgery to clean out cartilage in his knee in October, began skating with the team Feb. 17 for the first time since training camp. He reported no pain and was scheduled to gradually increase his workload before attempting a return.The reason the injury took so long to heal was because the cartilage damage was behind the kneecap, which complicated matters.Stem, 31, has had a number of injuries in the past, including a neck problem that limited him to 52 games two years ago. &ldquo;With my other injuries if I took time off and let it heal, it would heal,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The problem with this injury was, everyone started raising the question, &lsquo;Can you play again? Is your career done?&rsquo;&rdquo;Naturally, he was relieved things were back on track.Said Stem: &ldquo;It&rsquo;s finally nice to see light at the end of the tunnel without a train attached to it.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Coach Brian Sutter doesn&rsquo;t feel any of his players will be burned out from playing in the Olympics. &ldquo;Most of those guys are used to playing 30 minutes a game,&rdquo; Sutter said. &ldquo;Now they are playing 13 or 14. There is no travel (between games) and they are not taking the physical beating they normally do. They will have the mental letdown, but everyone will have to deal with that.&rdquo;&hellip;Two Swedes, defenseman Tommy Albelin and center Michael Nylander, returned from the Olympics early after their team was eliminated from medal contention by Finland. &ldquo;It was fun over there, but when we lost it was over in a second and you wonder what happened,&rdquo; Nylander said. &ldquo;(It&rsquo;s) the greatest disappointment I&rsquo;ve ever had.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0010-03

Stern finally on trail back

<div class="byline">By Randy Schultz</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-04545/7248735-1-eng-US/f0010-042.jpg" title="f0010-04" width="160" height="160"></div>If there was one player anxious to get back playing again, it was Buffalo Sabres&rsquo; center Brian Holzinger.During Buffalo&rsquo;s nine-game unbeaten streak prior to the Olympic break, Holzinger was one of the hottest players on the team. During that nine-game unbeaten streak, the 25-year-old 1995 Hobey Baker Award winner had four goals and nine points.But Holzinger will be the first one to tell you that his efforts were part of a much bigger picture.&ldquo;There is no doubt we have struggled at times this season,&rdquo; Holzinger said. &ldquo;But during this streak, it seems as though everyone has been contributing. And when the goal scoring spreads out, we&rsquo;re a tough hockey team to beat.&ldquo;But there is certainly more to our success than that. We&rsquo;ve really started believing in one another again. Everyone is beginning to understand the roles they have to play.&rdquo;Holzinger also admits he had struggled quite a bit himself this season. Despite the frustrations at times, Holzinger played through it.&ldquo;Everyone has had frustrating moments on this team this year,&rdquo; said Sabres&rsquo; coach Lindy Ruff. &ldquo;Brian was no exception. But I know the type of player Brian is. He&rsquo;s one of the fastest, if not the fastest, skaters on this team.&ldquo;But like the rest of the team, Brian is focused right now. Brian seems to have caught fire those last nine games. He seems to have a little more jump out on the ice. I would say he is skating as well now as I&rsquo;ve seen him skate at any time this season. Hopefully, he keeps it up.&rdquo;Holzinger was hoping he could keep the pace up as well.&ldquo;This is a very simple game and that&rsquo;s the way I&rsquo;m trying to play it,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Playing with Donald (Audette) and Miroslav (Satan) has helped. I hope we keep clicking once the season begins again.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: The goal center Brian Holzinger scored against the Canadiens in Montreal in the Sabres&rsquo; 4-1 victory Feb. 7 was the 100th point of his NHL career&hellip;The win against Montreal lifted Buffalo&rsquo;s mark to 22-21-12. It was the first time the team had been above the.500 mark since an opening night win in St. Louis&hellip;With the departure of left winger Brad May, veteran left winger Rob Ray was named an alternate captain&hellip;Veteran left winger Geoff Sanderson, obtained from Vancouver for May, was cleared to play. Sanderson, who had been out of the lineup with a shoulder injury, skated with his new teammates for the first time Feb. 18&hellip;Buffalo&rsquo;s nine-game unbeaten streak was the longest active streak in the league. &#9632;

f0010-04

Holzinger hoping hand remains hot

<div class="byline">By Tim Sassone</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-011574/7248766-1-eng-US/f0011-012.jpg" title="f0011-01" width="160" height="159"></div>After being put on waivers four times in a little more than a month and being claimed four times, Jarrod Skalde is taking a positive approach.&ldquo;I look at it like teams must want me,&rdquo; Skalde said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll stick to that story.&rdquo;When Skalde was claimed by the Chicago Blackhawks from the Dallas Stars Feb. 12, he was back to the place where his odd journey began.It all started Jan. 8 when the Hawks claimed Skalde from the San Jose Sharks after the Sharks tried to send the 26-year-old center to the minors. Skalde then found himself headed back to San Jose when the Sharks claimed him on waivers Jan. 23. Again the Sharks wanted to send Skalde to the minors, but this time Dallas claimed him Jan. 27. Skalde got in one game with the Stars before they waived him. And there were the Hawks to claim him.&ldquo;It has been a little bit crazy, but the main thing is I&rsquo;ve been able to stay in the NHL,&rdquo; Skalde said.&ldquo;He is a skilled kid and he gives us depth,&rdquo; said coach Craig Hartsburg. &ldquo;He seems to have a lot of teams after him.&rdquo;Skalde was able to joke about being on three different teams in a month and six in his eight-year pro career. He has also played for the New Jersey Devils. Mighty Ducks of Anaheim and Calgary Flames. &ldquo;I guess I&rsquo;m on pace for Michel Petit&rsquo;s record,&rdquo; Skalde said.Petit, now with the Phoenix Coyotes, is with his 10th NHL club.NOTEBOOK: Coach Craig Hartsburg was annoyed by the reports from Nagano claiming defenseman Gary Suter deliberately injured Anaheim left winger Paul Kariya with a crosscheck to the jaw Feb. 1 to enhance Team USA&rsquo;s Olympic chances. &ldquo;I know Gary Suter and what he did was not intentional,&rdquo; Hartsburg said. &ldquo;If I thought it was intentional. I&rsquo;d be upset myself.&rdquo;&hellip;Center Brent Sutter returned to practise with his teammates Feb. 17 after being sidelined since Jan. 10 with a severe groin pull&hellip;Goalie Chris Terreri, out with the same kind of groin injury as Sutter, is not expected back anytime soon. Terreri hasn&rsquo;t played since early November, when he broke his finger. He suffered the pulled groin in rehab. &#9632;

f0011-01

Skalde remains positive after riding wild waive

<div class="byline">By Mike Heika</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-021356/7248835-1-eng-US/f0012-022.jpg" title="f0012-02" width="577" height="903"><figcaption class="caption-body">Ed Belfour</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-011707/7248842-1-eng-US/f0012-012.jpg" title="f0012-01" width="161" height="158"></div>Despite leading the NHL in overall record and in several team categories, there might have been no team more in need of a break than the Dallas Stars.&ldquo;The timing couldn&rsquo;t be better,&rdquo; said Stars&rsquo; coach Ken Hitchcock. &ldquo;We need this time off.&rdquo;Goalie Ed Belfour, who has kept his wonky back in check all season, had a flareup just before the break. While teammates visited sunny beaches or went on tropical fishing trips, he stayed in Dallas and rehabbed with Stars&rsquo; trainers to make his back 100 per cent for the stretch run.Left winger Dave Reid had been playing through back pain since December and took two weeks off to get himself in top shape. Center Guy Car-bonneau had been fighting the flu; right winger Todd Harvey had a sprained thumb and left winger Bob Errey was fighting nagging injuries.And there were others.&ldquo;We have some veteran players who will benefit greatly from the break and we have some injured players who will benefit greatly from the break,&rdquo; Hitchcock said. &ldquo;Barring anything unforeseen, we could come back from the break and be 100 per cent healthy. And we haven&rsquo;t been that all season.&rdquo;Defenseman Richard Matvichuk had responded very well to rehabilitation on his injured left knee and was skating well in practice. Matvichuk will attempt to play with a detached anterior cruciate ligament, an injury that teammate Joe Nieuwendyk has played with for seven years.NOTEBOOK: With USA losing early, the Stars benefited from the early returns of center Mike Modano, defenseman Derian Hatcher and left winger Jamie Langen-brunner. Coach Ken Hitchcock said the loss was a mixed blessing. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t call it a good thing. They went over there to try to win and I&rsquo;m sure they&rsquo;re all disappointed. What you hope is they&rsquo;ll put that energy into winning for us now.&rdquo;&hellip;Langenbrunner&rsquo;s wife, Elizabeth, was awaiting the birth of their first child when Langenbrun-ner was a late fill-in for USA. It turns out he didn&rsquo;t miss anything-she had still not delivered by the time he returned&hellip;Hitchcock and announcer Daryl Reaugh spent part of their winter break coaching sides of a charity game sponsored by radio station KTCK. &#9632;

f0012-02

Break came at right time

<div class="byline">By Dan Barnes</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-03876/7248873-1-eng-US/f0012-032.jpg" title="f0012-03" width="159" height="159"></div>The lush to preserve the Edmonton Oilers reached global proportions as the clock ticked away on a March 13 deadline.Michael Largue, who identifier himself as a New York investmeni banker with MAL & Associates, said he had $100 million (U.S.) to spend on a hockey team and he was interested in not only buying the Oilers, but keeping them in Edmonton. He spoke to Economic Development Edmontor past-president Rick LeLacheur, who promised to send Largue pertinent financial details on the team.&ldquo;You send me the numbers and if I like what I see, I&rsquo;ll be up there,&rsquo; Largue said he told LeLacheur.Largue said he is a former professional who played in Switzerland and has the backing of a Swiss banker named Lester Mittendorf.&ldquo;Personally, I&rsquo;d much prefer a local ownership group,&rdquo; LeLacheur said. &ldquo;But it&rsquo;s EDE&rsquo;s responsibility that if there is someone out there, wherever, who wants to buy the team and keep it in Edmonton, then we have to look at that.&rdquo;EDE, the City of Edmonton and Edmonton Northlands have until March 13 to find a buyer or buyers who will pay $70 million (U.S.) and keep the team in the city, as part of a location agreement signed by former owner Peter Pocklington. The agreement was triggered when Houston Rockets&rsquo; owner Les Alexander offered $82.5 million (U.S.) for the team, a bid accepted by Alberta Treasury Branches, which are handling the sale.After Alexander&rsquo;s bid became public, several initiatives began to keep the Oilers in Edmonton. New investors such as Edmonton-area businessmen Al Owen and Barry Weaver have made commitments to join the local group that has been planning a purchase of the team for months. That group numbered 13 in mid-February and sources said they could raise the $51 million (Cdn.) necessary to fund the bid.NOTEBOOK: While most of his nonOlympian teammates went to warm-weather climes during the winter break, defenseman Greg de Vries went to the altar. He married longtime girlfriend Suzie Galloway in her hometown of Stratford, Ont&hellip;The Olympic break came at an opportune time for left wingers Todd Marchant, Bill Huard and Ryan Smyth and defenseman Drake Berehowsky, all of whom were recovering from injuries. Smyth was expected back in early March after knee surgery and Huard was looking at returning in late February after suffering a broken right wrist. Berehowsky wasn&rsquo;t expected to miss a game after suffering a separated shoulder just before the Olympic break. &#9632;

f0012-03

Local owners have time to make move

<div class="byline">By Dave Joseph</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-05365/7248904-1-eng-US/f0012-052.jpg" title="f0012-05" width="574" height="901"><figcaption class="caption-body">Rob Niedermayer</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-04511/7248911-1-eng-US/f0012-042.jpg" title="f0012-04" width="160" height="162"></div>This was supposed to be Rob Niedermayer&rsquo;s breakthrough season. Instead, it had been one bad break after another.From Day 1 of this season-ever since being knocked out with a concussion on a hit by Eric Lindros of the Philadelphia Flyers in the Panthers opening game-Niedermayer has been unlucky.&ldquo;It has been pretty tough&hellip;a rollercoaster,&rdquo; is how Niedermayer described his fifth and most frustrating NHL season.After scoring 40 goals in 142 games the past two seasons, Niedermayer was prepared to step up as the Panthers&rsquo; No. 1 center. Former coach Doug MacLean said before training camp he would be disappointed if the 6-foot-2 center didn&rsquo;t score 30 goals. But as the Panthers prepared for their final 25 games of the season, Niedermayer had just eight goals and 14 points and had suited up for only 24 of the Panthers first 57 games.First, the concussion cost him 10 games. Then a fractured thumb forced him out of another 15. And a tom cartilage in his left knee had Niedermayer watching eight more games from the sidelines.&ldquo;It has been so hard to get anything going,&rdquo; said Niedermayer, 23, one of the Panthers&rsquo; alternate captains. &ldquo;Every player will say you want to stay in the lineup and get some rhythm going. But none of my injuries have been for a game or two here and there. They&rsquo;ve all stretched up to a month and I haven&rsquo;t been able to stay in the lineup.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: GM-coach Bryan Murray held a short mini-camp beginning Feb. 17 in an attempt to build confidence and get his troops moving the puck better before embarking on the final 25 games of the season. Murray, whose Panthers were to restart the season trailing eighth-place Ottawa and Buffalo by eight points, believes his club will have to win as many as 16 of their final games to make the playoffs. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s going to be a huge task, to be honest,&rdquo; Murray said&hellip;The only Panthers not at the mini-camp were goalie John Vanbiesbrouck and winger Esa Tikkanen. playing for their respective countries in the Olympics. Defenseman Robert Svehla. who played for Slovakia, missed only the first day. &#9632;

f0012-05

Can season be saved?

<div class="byline">By Lonnie White</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-06297/7248942-1-eng-US/f0012-062.jpg" title="f0012-06" width="160" height="159"></div>To say center Jozef Stumpel&rsquo;s Olympic experience was a disappointment would be an understatement.After sitting out the Los Angeles Kings&rsquo; final game before the break because he was sick with flu, Stumpel travelled over 14 hours to Nagano to join his Slovakia teammates. Once there, however, Stumpel discovered he was not picked to fill one of the two roster spots left open for the team&rsquo;s NHL players to play in the final preliminary round game.But Slovakia&rsquo;s plan of going with an NHL dominated lineup in the final round fell apart when Kazakhstan pulled off an upset and sent Stumpel and his teammates home early.&ldquo;I really didn&rsquo;t know they had kept only two spots open, I just had heard something, but I didn&rsquo;t know what exactly what was going to happen,&rdquo; said Stumpel, the Kings&rsquo; top scorer this season. &ldquo;Then I believed (I would still play in the Olympics) because I believed we would beat Kazakhstan. But that didn&rsquo;t happen, so I was pretty much disgusted. I flew and got there on a Monday and then left Wednesday afternoon. I was there two days exactly in Japan.&rdquo;Because of Slovakia&rsquo;s premature exit, Stumpel was able to get some rest, but he was bitter for not getting a chance to play in Japan.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s kind of bad because everyone was expecting us to get to the quarterfinal,&rdquo; he said.NOTEBOOK: The Kings planned to get goaltender Frederic Chabot at least three more starts this season because they want to protect Stephane Fiset and Jamie Storr in this summer&rsquo;s expansion draft. Chabot, who is playing with Houston in the International League, had made six starts and was 1-3-2 with the Kings this season. Coach Larry Robinson was impressed with Chabot&rsquo;s skills and said he can see why he was the IHL player of the year last season&hellip;With 27 regular season games remaining after the Olympic break, the Kings hope to make a push at St. Louis for the fourth playoff spot in the Western Conference. The Kings trailed the Blues by seven points, but had played four fewer games. &#9632;

f0012-06

Stumpel travels long way not to get into Olympics

<div class="byline">By Cynthia Lambert</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-021109/7248973-1-eng-US/f0013-022.jpg" title="f0013-02" width="308" height="412"><figcaption class="caption-body">Ken Holland</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-011584/7248980-1-eng-US/f0013-012.jpg" title="f0013-01" width="159" height="159"></div>In a stunning move, the Carolina Hurricanes brought the Detroit Red Wings-Sergei Fedorov contract situation to a head when, on the evening of Feb. 18, they signed the Russian center to a six-year, $38-million offer sheet.Fedorov, a Group II free agent, penned the deal all the while knowing the Red Wings retained the right to match. And despite the front-loaded nature of the contract, the Red Wings seemed ready to do just that. Other options would be to work out a trade with Carolina (nearly impossible) or accept five first round draft picks in return (ditto).According to the offer, Fedorov would make an annual salary of $2 million. He would receive a $14-million bonus upon signing the contract, then would receive an additional $12 million in guaranteed bonus money in $3 million increments over the next four seasons. However, if the team he plays for makes it to the conference final, Fedorov would receive that $12 million-or whatever is left of it-in one lump sum. The structure of the deal means Fedorov could make as much as $28 million this season for playing for less than four months.The Hurricanes structured the deal that way to dissuade Detroit from matching the offer. On top of that, the Hurricanes firmly believe Fedorov would refuse to play for Detroit even if the Wings matched the offer.Wings&rsquo; GM Ken Holland said Feb. 20 that he planned on meeting with team owners Mike and Marian Hitch either Feb. 22 or 23 to discuss all of the repercussions of matching the offer.&ldquo;We&rsquo;re waiting for the league to look at the offer sheet to make sure everything is correct in it,&rdquo; Holland said Feb. 20. &ldquo;Yeah, we&rsquo;re fairly certain we know what direction we&rsquo;re going to head.&rdquo;Assuming the offer will be matched, the question remaining is whether Fedorov would report to Detroit. In an interview with The Detroit News the first week of February, Fedorov said there were too many issues unsettled for him to return to Detroit. But now he has at least $16 million reasons to make that work.&ldquo;Would he report if we matched?&rdquo; Holland said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a question for Sergei. Certainly if we match, I expect Sergei&rsquo;s going to report and that&rsquo;s the way we would preceded here. But that one is the question that has to be asked to Sergei.&rdquo;Fedorov, speaking from the Winter Olympics in Nagano, would not comment on whether he would report to Detroit, saying it&rsquo;s a bridge he would cross later.NOTEBOOK: Should the Wings match the $38million Carolina offer and then make it to the conference final, Detroit would owe center Sergei Fedorov $28 million. That would nearly double the entire Red Wings&rsquo; payroll&hellip;The offer by Carolina set up an interesting situation between Wings&rsquo; owner Mike Hitch and Carolina owner Peter Karmanos. The two have been minor hockey rivals in Detroit for years and until a little over a year ago were on decidedly unfriendly terms. Karmanos, who also owns the Ontario League Plymouth Whalers, with whom Fedorov practised before leaving for the Olympics, said he and Hitch had patched up their problems about a year ago. &ldquo;Mike and I are on good terms,&rdquo; Karmanos said. &ldquo;And I hope we still are.&rdquo;&hellip;Several Wings, including fellow Russian center Igor Larionov, have been critical of Fedorov and his stance. Also in Nagano for the Olympic games. Wings&rsquo; captain Steve Yzerman said he assured Fedorov he would be welcomed back into the dressing room. &#9632;

f0013-02

Fedorov has 16 million reasons to report if Wings match offer

<div class="byline">By Herb Zurkowsky</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-04690/7249011-1-eng-US/f0013-042.jpg" title="f0013-04" width="310" height="414"><figcaption class="caption-body">Brad Brown</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-03819/7249018-1-eng-US/f0013-032.jpg" title="f0013-03" width="161" height="161"></div>Brad Brown is a firm believer in the power of the press.Thirty-six hours after complaining to the Montreal Gazette that the Montreal Canadiens&rsquo; organization hadn&rsquo;t given him a fair opportunity at the NHL level, the 22-year-old defenseman was recalled from the team&rsquo;s American League affiliate, the Fredericton Canadiens.Brown, selected 18th overall by Montreal in the 1994 NHL entry draft, was recalled when the Canadiens resumed practising following a nine-day break for the Olympics. But Montreal doesn&rsquo;t play until Feb. 25, against the Pittsburgh Penguins. With the Canadiens carrying eight defensemen, it was tar from certain that Brown would play or still be with the team when regular-season games resumed.&ldquo;The coaches felt we didn&rsquo;t see what he could do in training camp and this was the perfect time to look at him and evaluate him,&rdquo; said Canadiens&rsquo; coach Alain Vigneault.Brown, an epileptic, missed virtually all of Montreal&rsquo;s training camp after undergoing surgery to correct a minor heart problem. In the final season of a three-year, $2.075-million (U.S.) contract, Brown lashed out at the Canadiens&rsquo; organization after Fredericton played an AHL game at the Molson Centre Feb. 15.Brown, a 6-foot-3, 218-pound physical defenseman, said he was upset when Montreal acquired Igor Ulanov in a mid-January trade from the Tampa Bay Lightning. When Ulanov sustained tom knee ligaments in his first game for the Canadiens, they subsequently traded for Calgary Flames&rsquo; defenseman Zarley Zalapski.&ldquo;They&rsquo;ve made 100 trades for defensemen.That states they don&rsquo;t have confidence in the guys down here,&rdquo; said Brown, whose NHL experience has been limited to eight games during the 199697 season.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m a bit ticked off. I&rsquo;ve been down here two full years now. I&rsquo;m doing all these things for the organization and they still say that I&rsquo;m not ready,&rdquo; he continued. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m disappointed, but I&rsquo;m not the first guy to go through this.&rdquo;In the past 10 years, the Canadiens have drafted three other defensemen-Eric Charron, Brent Bilodeau and David Wilkie-in the first round of the draft. None of them remain with the organization.Brown has worked hard on his defensive play, but must continue improving his agility and skating.&ldquo;You can&rsquo;t make it if you don&rsquo;t get the chance and they haven&rsquo;t given it to me,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t prove myself from down here.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: There were no surprises when the Canadiens returned to the ice following their nine-day Olympic winter break layoff. &lsquo;They were as rusty as I&rsquo;ve ever seen as a team,&rdquo; coach Alain Vigneault said following two 40-minute practice sessions. &ldquo;There were a lot of slow hands and feet out there, but you expect this. It&rsquo;s going to take a couple of days to get back into the groove.&rdquo; With 26 games remaining over a span of just 53 days, Vigneault said the workouts would emphasize conditioning, individual skills and team strategy&hellip;Vigneault said he planned to give Montreal&rsquo;s four Olympic players-Canada left winger Shayne Corson, Canada right winger Mark Recchi, Finland center Saku Koivu and Czech Republic left winger Martin Rucinsky-time off when they returned to North America, but didn&rsquo;t expect them to miss any games. &ldquo;We expect that they will be tired, but the (Olympic) schedule is pretty much the same as if they were playing in the NHL,&rdquo; he said. &#9632;

f0013-04

Farmhand blasts organization, Canadiens respond with recall

<div class="byline">By Rich Chere</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-021273/7249049-1-eng-US/f0014-022.jpg" title="f0014-02" width="574" height="903"><figcaption class="caption-body">Ken Daneyko</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-011694/7249056-1-eng-US/f0014-012.jpg" title="f0014-01" width="161" height="160"></div>After two months of rehabilitation at a California clinic for alcohol abuse and weeks of skating on his own at 5 a.m. to avoid the glare of the media, Ken Daneyko was ready to reclaim his spot with the New Jersey Devils.Daneyko rejoined his teammates five days before the Olympic break for practices, but was anxious to play in his first game since late-October when he voluntarily entered the league&rsquo;s substance abuse and behavioral rehabilitation program.&ldquo;I feel rejuvenated. I feel fresh,&rdquo; Daneyko said. &ldquo;I played a lot of years with this team and things haven&rsquo;t quite gone the way I wanted them to the last few months. Now I look at it as a positive in my life.&ldquo;Hopefully this will prolong my career and I can have a new lease on life and a new lease on the game.&rdquo;An iron man who shook off painful injuries to stay in the lineup, Daneyko thought he could control his drinking problem. He called the decision to enter rehab the toughest of his life.&ldquo;Alcohol was my problem. I was a binge drinker, off and on for the last few years,&rdquo; the popular defenseman said. &ldquo;For years it was what I did, it was part of my lifestyle. I didn&rsquo;t see it as a problem and in the last few years, for me, I developed a problem. It wasn&rsquo;t always when things were bad. It was actually more so when things were good, I wanted them to be better.&ldquo;The last few years I did not feel happy with myself. It had nothing to do with hockey.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: The Devils entered the Olympic break with 74 points, three fewer than the 77 it took to make the playoffs last season. They had the most points (55) and victories (26) against conference opponents and the most points (32) and victories (15) against divisional foes&hellip;Veteran defenseman Scott Stevens collected his 600th career assist in a 3-2 victory over the Islanders Feb. 7&hellip;Going into the Olympic bronze medal game, goalie Martin Brodeur hadn&rsquo;t seen one second of action as Canada&rsquo;s back-up to Patrick Roy&hellip;Defenseman Lyle Odelein said the return of defenseman Ken Daneyko should give the team a lift. &ldquo;We really missed him. His presence will be felt because he is a good defenseman, one who has a lot of character and heart.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0014-02

‘I feel fresh’ Daneyko says

<div class="byline">By John Dellapina</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-03877/7249087-1-eng-US/f0014-032.jpg" title="f0014-03" width="164" height="161"></div>On its surface, it makes no sense. Why would the New York Rangers hire a 63-year-old to coach their team during a youth movement?But when you consider the 63-year-old is John Muckier, perhaps, almost in a backward way, it makes a lot of sense. At this point in his successful coaching and managing career, Muckler&rsquo;s legacy is secure.&ldquo;No, I don&rsquo;t think anything could hurt my career at this point,&rdquo; Muckier said at the Feb. 20 news conference that introduced him as the successor to the fired Colin Campbell. (See pg. 8 for more on Campbell).That makes him well-suited for the job of enduring the attendant losses and setbacks that come with rebuilding a team.The circumstances under which Muckier returns to coaching are these: after four years of throwing good money after bad and sacrificing youth for age, the Rangers finally have conceded some sort of rebuildingjob must be done.And Muckier was selected to guide it not just because he&rsquo;s bulletproof, but also because of his track record of success in such situations (see Edmonton Oilers in 1989-90 and Buffalo Sabres in 1996-97), his history of developing young players, his mentor-protege relationship with heir-apparent Craig MacTavish; and an eye for talent that GM Neil Smith needs to help him reshape the Rangers&rsquo; roster.&ldquo;In the immediate future, (Muckier is) a guy who has obviously had success with hockey clubs in the NHL,&rdquo; Smith said. &ldquo;But much more importantly, he has the ability to coach young players, to bring young people along, to tutor other coaches.&rdquo;So much for the Rangers&rsquo; motivation to hire Muckier. What was his to accept?&ldquo;Because I enjoy it,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I guess I&rsquo;ve never feared a challenge and I like what I hear within the organization, about how they&rsquo;re going to go about making the right moves.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Coach John Muckier signed a deal worth approximately $800,000 per season for the next two years (1998-99 and 1999-2000) with annual club options thereafter&hellip;Of the dreaded neutral zone trap, the recent implementation of which caused several players to grumble about former coach Colin Campbell. Muckier said: &ldquo;Nobody likes the word &lsquo;trap,&rsquo; but I don&rsquo;t mind it. You have to play a little bit of both (run-and-gun and trap). That&rsquo;s the era.&rdquo;&hellip;Right winger Alexei Kovalev resumed skating Feb. 21, three weeks after undergoing arthroscopic right knee surgery, and hoped to play in the Rangers&rsquo; first post-Olympic game at Toronto Feb. 26. &#9632;

f0014-03

Mucker hired to help direct rebuilding

<div class="byline">By Lou Friedman</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-05397/7249118-1-eng-US/f0014-052.jpg" title="f0014-05" width="569" height="901"><figcaption class="caption-body">Tommy Salo</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-04595/7249125-1-eng-US/f0014-042.jpg" title="f0014-04" width="162" height="161"></div>New York Islanders&rsquo; GM Mike Milbury&rsquo;s immediate task is to somehow help his team salvage a once-promising season. That wasn&rsquo;t made any easier by the realization Sergei Fedorov will not be part of the rebuilding crew.When Fedorov signed a six-year, $38-million offer sheet with the Carolina Hurricanes, it was clear the Islanders were out of the running. The Detroit Red Wings could match the offer, but if they did, could not trade Fedorov for a year.&ldquo;I&rsquo;d still like to have a very talented center ice man,&rdquo; said Milbury, having already acquired Trevor Linden from the Vancouver Canucks before the break. &ldquo;But frankly, it&rsquo;s all about money, like it always is.&rdquo;Milbury was frustrated to watch his team go from 15-15-5 Dec. 20 into a 113-2 tailspin, including a 10-game losing streak to start the decline. A 4-1-1 turnaround just before the break helped somewhat, but there&rsquo;s still a ways to go if the Islanders are going to make the playoffs for the first time in four years.&ldquo;Tommy Salo has to assert himself as our No.l goalie by the end of the season,&rdquo; Milbury said. &ldquo;If he doesn&rsquo;t do so, we will have to look at some of the free agent goalies.&rdquo;Milbury said he was fairly satisfied with his defenseman,&rdquo;if they turn out the way we project them to.&rdquo;Scoring was the big problem. Only Ziggy Palffy (30), Robert Reichel (20), Bryan Berard (12) and Brian Smolinski (11) had scored more than 10 goals entering the break.NOTEBOOK: The Islanders tentatively plan to wear alternate third jerseys next season, and they will look very much like the original white, orange and blue uniforms that the team wore from its inception in 1972 before switching to the illfated fisherman in 1995&hellip;Since Jan. 12, the pre-game music at Nassau Coliseum has featured a lot of heavy metal and alternative choices. That&rsquo;s because the players took over the selection process, deciding heavier tunes would yield more bounce in their play. The team went 3-1-2 at home after becoming their own disc jockeys&hellip;GM Mike Milbury said 1997 fifthoverall draft pick Eric Brewer could be a top-two defenseman with the Islanders as soon as next season. Brewer plays for Prince George of the Western League. &#9632;

f0014-05

Center hunt to continue

<div class="byline">By Bruce Garrioch</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-06313/7249156-1-eng-US/f0014-062.jpg" title="f0014-06" width="160" height="158"></div>The pain in Ottawa Senator left winger Shawn McEachern&rsquo;s back will go away, but the hurt and disappointment of not being able to compete at the Olympics will take a lot longer to heal.Being named to Team USA in November was McEachern&rsquo;s dream come true. That dream was crushed by a nagging back injury that knocked him out of the lineup just prior to the start of the Games.&ldquo;(It&rsquo;s) the biggest disappointment I&rsquo;ve had in my career so far,&rdquo; McEachern said of being sent home from Japan. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve lost some big games before, but those were different. At least in those losses, I had a chance to compete and win the game.&rdquo;The pain in McEachern&rsquo;s back started in early February, but he tried to play through it. He finally realized it was too much to take and missed the last game-and-a-half before the break. Still, he made the long trip to Japan, feeling the pain would subside. When the injury didn&rsquo;t respond to treatment, the decision was made by Team USA to bring in Dallas Stars&rsquo; right winger Jamie Langenbrunner to take McEachern&rsquo;s place.Will the chance to win gold ever come again?&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll be 33 the next time (the Games are held in 2002 in Salt Lake City),&rdquo; McEachern said. &ldquo;Ray Bourque is 37 and he&rsquo;s playing for Team Canada. Maybe I&rsquo;ll be able to play that long, but I&rsquo;m not Ray Bourque.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Center Vaclav Prospal. acquired from Philadelphia in the Alexandre Daigle deal, skated for the first time since Jan. 3 at the Senators&rsquo; mini-camp. Sidelined with a broken ankle. Prospal wasn&rsquo;t sure when he&rsquo;d return to the lineup, but was happy to get back on skates. &ldquo;It felt good, but I don&rsquo;t want to rush it,&rdquo; Prospal said&hellip;Coach Jacques Martin planned to stick with a two-goalie system in the final 24 games. &ldquo;With the two goalies we&rsquo;ve got (Damian Rhodes and Ron Tugnutt), I think that&rsquo;s the best way to go,&rdquo; Martin said&hellip;Right winger Daniel Alfredsson returned from Nagano Feb. 19 after being eliminated with the rest of Team Sweden, but he was not requested to attend the start of mini-camp. &#9632;

f0014-06

Nagging back injury ruins McEachern’s Games dream

<div class="byline">By Wayne Fish</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-011559/7249187-1-eng-US/f0015-012.jpg" title="f0015-01" width="160" height="162"></div>Even though Eric Lindros was half a world away, he was still the straw the stirs the Philadelphia Flyers&rsquo; drink.Just watching Lindros crash into bodies at the Winter Olympics reminded the Flyers they had gotten away from their physical game in losing six of eight contests before the break.The Flyers are the NHL&rsquo;s biggest team, but weren&rsquo;t using their size to their advantage.Some proof: Last year they wore down opponents in the third period and outscored them by a 108-63 margin. This year, the margin was only 53-41. The 1996-97 Flyers also won seven games when trailing after two periods. This year&rsquo;s club has managed only one victory in similar circumstances.Did some guys trade in their hockey skates for the figure variety?&ldquo;Eric&rsquo;s playing very physical and I think every one of us can take a note from that,&rdquo; agreed Trent Klatt. &ldquo;We have to get our physical game up to where it should be.&rdquo;The Flyers looked like a tired club when they blew a 2-0 lead against the Colorado Avalanche Feb. 7 and stumbled out of Denver with a 3-2 loss.A lack of hitting seemed to have cost the Flyers the most when they played the league&rsquo;s elite teams. They were 0-6-1 against the Avalanche, New Jersey Devils, Dallas Stars and Detroit Red Wings.&ldquo;Maybe if we had the break a few games earlier it would have been better,&rdquo; kidded goalie Garth Snow.NOTEBOOK: Defenseman Paul Coffey used the long break to clear up back and rib injuries that restricted his play and forced him out of the lineup for several games&hellip;The Flyers play 18 games in a 32day stretch in March. One player who doesn&rsquo;t mind the extra work is new Flyer center Mike Sillinger. Acquired from Vancouver just before the Olympic break, Sillinger was inactive from Feb. 1 to Feb. 28. &ldquo;I was one of the few who didn&rsquo;t want off,&rdquo; he said&hellip;A crash-bang style of play has usually caused injuries that have kept center Eric Lindros out for long stretches, but, barring a problem in March, Lindros could play in his 74th consecutive game April 4 against Florida, which would be a career high. &#9632;

f0015-01

Lindros’ Olympic example could bring more top hits

<div class="byline">By Mike Dudurich</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-03774/7249218-1-eng-US/f0015-032.jpg" title="f0015-03" width="571" height="896"><figcaption class="caption-body">Petr Nedved</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-021093/7249225-1-eng-US/f0015-022.jpg" title="f0015-02" width="160" height="159"></div>The Pittsburgh Penguins were scattered for vacations across North America, but there was still major movement back home at the Civic Arena.President Donn Patton, who came to the Pens in 1991 as chief financial officer before being promoted to president in November of 1996, resigned Feb. 10.Co-owners Howard Baldwin and Roger Marino flew to Pittsburgh Feb. 10 to meet with Patton and the president&rsquo;s tenure ended with that meeting. Patton agreed to stay on the job for two weeks before pursuing a career teaching sports administration in college.Penguins&rsquo; attendance this season had dropped to an average of 15,056, 1,902 below capacity. That&rsquo;s 7.3 per cent down from last year. It was expected there would be a drop-off with Mario Lemieux retiring and the team figuring to struggle in the standings, but the Penguins were very competitive, leading the Northeast Division and contending for the top spot in the Eastern Conference.&ldquo;We really need to get somebody in there (as president) who can relate to the community,&rdquo; Baldwin said. &ldquo;Roger doesn&rsquo;t live in Pittsburgh and I don&rsquo;t live there. We need to get certain things done that weren&rsquo;t getting done.&ldquo;We need somebody in there to see the mayor, meet with the county commissioners and get things done at a high level. Get into these corporations and get them to buy luxury boxes. For some reason, it&rsquo;s not happening the way it should be happening.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: The Penguins&rsquo; three consecutive ties before the Olympic break marked the sixth time in franchise history that has happened. They tied four in a row once, from Dec. 8-15, 1979&hellip;Prior to shutting down for the break, the Penguins still had not made a contract offer to free agent center Petr Nedved, who remained in the Czech Republic&hellip;The Penguins reached a management agreement with the East Coast League&rsquo;s Wheeling Nailers under which they will run the day-to-day operations, effective immediately&hellip;Plans are on to honor former stars Bryan Trottier and Joe Mullen. Trottier will be honored prior to a March 2 game against Toronto and Mullen will be feted March 11 prior to a game against Calgary. &#9632;

f0015-03

Fans lie low, prez must go

<div class="byline">By Bob McManaman</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-04569/7249256-1-eng-US/f0015-042.jpg" title="f0015-04" width="160" height="158"></div>While some of his teammates were busy traveling to exotic places during the Olympic break, Phoenix Coyotes&rsquo; defenseman Oleg Tverdovsky spent his eight-day &ldquo;winter vacation&rdquo; in seclusion.The 21-year-old Russian rented ice in Anaheim for a week&rsquo;s worth of private workouts. Not only that, but he flew in two friends who play professionally in Moscow so he wouldn&rsquo;t have to practise alone.Pavel Agarkov, a forward, and Anton Vellenov, a goalie, also lifted weights and rode the stationary bike alongside Tverdovsky, who then flew them to Phoenix where they spent a few more days before heading back home.&ldquo;It wasn&rsquo;t too expensive,&rdquo; Tverdovsky said. &ldquo;I know the guy at the rink and he gave me 50 per cent off for the ice time. And it only cost something like $500 apiece for the two, round-trip tickets for my friends. Russian airlines is pretty cheap to fly.&rdquo;Much like his wallet, Tverdovsky&rsquo;s heart was in the right place. After missing the first 35 games of the season because of a sometimes acrimonious contract dispute, Tverdovsky decided he couldn&rsquo;t afford to miss any more time.&ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;t surprise me with Oleg,&rdquo; said Coyotes&rsquo; GM Bobby Smith. &ldquo;It just shows the commitment he has toward becoming as good as can be. You hope all your players have that type of commitment.Tverdovsky showed flashes of his talent just before the break, going on a three-goal, eight-point tear over six games. This, after going pointless in 14 of his first 15 games after signing a new two-year deal worth $3.1 million.&ldquo;Yeah, it was like, &lsquo;Oh, great. Now I&rsquo;ve got to get it started all over again,&rsquo;&rdquo; Tverdovsky said. &ldquo;But absolutely, I think I can start off right where I left off. I have no doubt about it.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: The Coyotes got a scare when it was feared center Jeremy Roenick may have suffered a tom hamstring during Team USA&rsquo;s Olympic quarterfinal elimination loss to the Czech Republic in Nagano. It turns out Roenick only suffered a slightly strained groin, which wasn&rsquo;t expected to keep him out of the lineup&hellip;The team recalled right winger Shane Doan and rookie left winger Brad Isbister from Springfield of the American League, which, along with the return of right winger Rick Tocchet from a five-game suspension, could force veteran right winger Mike Gartner to keep his promise of asking for a trade. Gartner had said he wants out if he is demoted to fourth-line duty or becomes a frequent healthy scratch. &#9632;

f0015-04

Tverdovsky flies in pals for workout

<div class="byline">By Dave Luecking</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-06322/7249287-1-eng-US/f0015-062.jpg" title="f0015-06" width="563" height="898"><figcaption class="caption-body">Joe Murphy</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-05394/7249294-1-eng-US/f0015-052.jpg" title="f0015-05" width="160" height="161"></div>When play resumed after the Winter Olympics, Joe Murphy expected to be back in the St. Louis Blues&rsquo; lineup.Murphy&rsquo;s left wrist was badly mangled when he crashed into the boards in a game against the Chicago Blackhawks Nov. 6. He underwent surgery a few days later and missed 42 games. The injury put his career in jeopardy.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a lot different than just a fracture,&rdquo; Murphy said. &ldquo;Every single ligament was tom down to the bone. They said the damage was unbelievable, but they said I&rsquo;m healing well and I should be 100 per cent.&rdquo;That was good news to Murphy, who had worked in the off-season to get his career and life back on track. The first pick overall by the Detroit Red Wings in 1986, Murphy has had a star-crossed career. The Red Wings gave up on him after four years and traded him to Edmonton, where Murphy arrived in time to help the Oilers win the 1990 Stanley Cup.He had his best year in 1991-92, scoring 35 goals and 82 points, but held out the most of the next season before being traded to the Chicago Blackhawks. He scored 31 goals and 70 points in his first season with the Blackhawks in 1993-94 and had 23 goals and 41 points in 40 games of the lockout-shortened 1994-95 season.Former Blues&rsquo; coach-GM Mike Keenan signed Murphy to an exorbitant three-year, $10-million contract as a free agent July 8, 1996 and Murphy became the focus of much of the criticism of Keenan&rsquo;s performance as a GM, which led ultimately to Keenan&rsquo;s dismissal Dec. 19, 1996.In 75 games last season, Murphy had only 20 goals and 45 points, his worst full-season performance since 1989-90. The season also was marred by a charge for drunk driving after running several traffic lights in the early morning in Clayton, Mo.The charge served as a wake-up call to Murphy, who felt his off-ice conduct was affecting his career.Murphy focused on fitness, lifting weights and working on his endurance last summer to come to camp in the best shape of his career.Although he had only three goals and seven points, he was one of the Blues&rsquo; best all-around in the first 17 games, with a plus-7 ranking.NOTEBOOK: Center Pavol Demitra&rsquo;s stay in Nagano was short. A member of Team Slovakia, he flew over Feb. 8 and arrived in time to sit in the stands and watch his country fail to reach the final round. After spending a few days as a tourist, he returned to St. Louis&hellip;Rookie defenseman Rory Fitzpatrick returned to Worcester. Mass., to play for the Blues&rsquo; American League affiliate during the break. At least there, he plays. Fitzpatrick had spent 24 days with the Blues this season and was scratched for all 11 games the team had played&hellip;Blues&rsquo; president Mark Sauer liked where the team stood going into the stretch run after the Olympic break. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re still a work in progress, but I feel good,&rdquo; he said. &#9632;

f0015-06

Murphy set for return

<div class="byline">By Dan Wood</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-011480/7249325-1-eng-US/f0016-012.jpg" title="f0016-01" width="161" height="159"></div>The San Jose Sharks began their post-Olympic push for a playoff berth without injury-plagued defenseman Al lafrate.The Sharks went through a four-day mini-camp Feb. 19-22 in Banff, Alta., without lafrate, who remained in San Jose after his surgically repaired left knee did not stand up to a test during the NHL&rsquo;s Olympic break.Iafrate, 31, underwent arthroscopic surgery Dec. 28 after having played in only eight games this year. He missed the season&rsquo;s first 28 games while rehabilitating from March back surgery, which cut short lafrate&rsquo;s campaign after 38 games last year. Before the Sharks acquired him from the Boston Bruins, lafrate missed the entire 199495 and 1995-96 seasons because of knee injuries.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been through this twice before, with both knees,&rdquo; lafrate said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s frustrating. I&rsquo;m sure (it&rsquo;s) frustrating to everyone in the organization. I don&rsquo;t like being a person who frustrates people.&rdquo;The possessor of a booming shot, rare playmaking skills for a defenseman and an imposing physical presence, lafrate is an extremely valuable commodity-when he&rsquo;s on the ice. San Jose, which finished 27-47-8 overall a year ago, went 17-17-4 with lafrate in the lineup. The Sharks were 5-1-2 with him this year.GM Dean Lombardi and coach Darryl Sutter were hopeful lafrate would be back in the lineup by early March.NOTEBOOK: Right winger Tony Granato spent a week in Nagano during the Olympics, where his younger sister. Cammi, captained Team USA to the women&rsquo;s gold medal. Granato missed the final game against Canada because he had to report to San Jose for practice, but caught the championship contest on television&hellip;Defenseman Marcus Ragnarsson. whose Swedish entry lost in the Olympic quarterfinal to Finland, was the only Sharks&rsquo; player not on hand when the club opened a four-day mini-camp in Banff, Alta., Feb. 19. San Jose&rsquo;s only other Olympian, rookie center Marco Sturm, returned from Japan in plenty of time after Germany failed to advance to the final round of the Olympic tournament. &#9632;

f0016-01

lafrate back on sidelines as Sharks re-start season

<div class="byline">By Tim Buckley</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-03854/7249356-1-eng-US/f0016-032.jpg" title="f0016-03" width="577" height="896"><figcaption class="caption-body">Daren Puppa</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-021142/7249363-1-eng-US/f0016-022.jpg" title="f0016-02" width="161" height="156"></div>For most NHL teams, the Olympic break offered an opportunity to heal. But for the Tampa Bay Lightning, the respite served only to confirm what it feared: goalie Daren Puppa is not expected to return this season.Puppa has been out since Dec. 27 due to back spasms, and now-due to inflammation and fingering lower-back soreness-he is not likely to be ready to return until the eve of the playoffs, which for the Lightning is the end of its season.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a biomechanical problem,&rdquo; said Lightning trainer Curtis Bell,&rdquo;and each individual is different.&rdquo;Due to back surgery he underwent last season and back spasms this season, this latest setback means that by the end of 1997-98 Puppa will have missed 132 of the Lightning&rsquo;s past 164 games. He missed 33 of 66 after signing a new deal and had yet to play on back-to-back nights since the surgery. Moreover, this will mark the ninth of Puppa&rsquo;s 13 NHL seasons in which he has failed to play in more than 50 games.Those facts and the news he will not return squashes the likelihood Tampa Bay will move Puppa before the trading deadline and prompted the Lightning to continue using Mark Fitzpatrick as its No. 1 goalie.Usual No. 2 Corey Schwab was sidelined by a sprained right ankle sustained New Year&rsquo;s Eve, so after the break the Lightning recalled Zac Bierk from the Adirondack Red Wings of the American League to back up Fitzpatrick.NOTEBOOK: As the mini-camp got under way, defenseman Bryan Marchment was still awaiting word on the length of his suspension for kneeing Carolina right winger Kevin Dineen in a Feb. 4 game. A hearing with NHL vice-president Brian Burke was tentatively set for Feb. 24&hellip;Atlanta insurance mogul Arthur L. Williams looked into buying the Lightning, but did not seem interested in the for-sale franchise. Atlanta real estate man David Berkman remained a potential buyer, but the St. Petersburg Times recently reported his interest had faded, too. The Maloof family of New Mexico ended its pursuit last summer, leaving Lightning president Steve Oto to say at least one other group may be interested, but a sale was not imminent. &#9632;

f0016-03

Puppa gone for season

<div class="byline">By Elliott Pap</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-06388/7249425-1-eng-US/f0016-062.jpg" title="f0016-06" width="573" height="899"><figcaption class="caption-body">Markus Naslund</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-05461/7249432-1-eng-US/f0016-052.jpg" title="f0016-05" width="159" height="160"></div>In his five NHL seasons, Vancouver Canucks&rsquo; left winger Markus Naslund has been up and down more often than an elevator repairman.A top prospect of the Pittsburgh Penguins, Naslund managed just six goals in his first 85 NHL games and was eventually dealt to the Canucks on March 20, 1996 for minor leaguer Alek Stojanov. It took him 10 games to score his first goal as a Canuck, but he scored three that night.That was an indication of the type of player he would become in Vancouver, scoring in small bunches and then slumping in large ones.&ldquo;We know Markus has a great deal of talent, but the ability to work on a consistent basis is a challenge for him,&rdquo; said coach Mike Keenan. &ldquo;He has to push himself.&rdquo;Naslund entered the Olympic hiatus on a mini-high, combining with new linemates Peter Zezel and Alexander Mogilny for 10 points in two games. Naslund scored twice and assisted once to bring his modest totals for the season to 11 goals and 24 points in 54 games. He was sorry to see the break come when it did.&ldquo;I really feel the chemistry on our line is there and we&rsquo;re just starting to learn to play with Peter Zezel,&rdquo; said Naslund, 24. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s the kind of guy who tries to find you every chance he gets and it&rsquo;s really easy to play with those kind of centers. I kind of wish the break wouldn&rsquo;t have come there because I felt good and I had fun again.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: Defenseman Bret Hedican returned from the Olympic break with an injury as he hurt a hip while working out. He was placed on injured reserve&hellip;The Canucks intend on signing Michigan Wolverines&rsquo; senior right winger Bill Muckalt after the college season. Muckalt was drafted 221st overall in 1994&hellip;Coach Mike Keenan. 48, donned full equipment and scrimmaged for an hour with his players in their first workout following the Olympic break. Keenan skated as a defenseman with right winger Gino Odjick as his partner. &ldquo;I tried to bench myself, but they wouldn&rsquo;t hear of it,&rdquo; said Keenan, who suited up to complete a third five-man practice unit. Assistant coach Stan Smyl also took part in the scrimmage. &#9632;

f0016-06

Naslund gets hot for now

<div class="byline">By Dave Fay</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-07356/7249463-1-eng-US/f0016-072.jpg" title="f0016-07" width="160" height="158"></div>Considering the globetrotting thev had done, it would have been understandable if Peter Bondra and Olaf Kolzig had taken advantage of the Washington Capitals&rsquo; offer to show up late for mini-camp.But the right winger and goaltender arrived at the post-break training sessions several days earlier than expected.Both players participated in the AllStar Game in Vancouver in January, then after a short stretch of NHL games, shuffled off to Japan to compete in the preliminary round of the Olympic tournament.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a lot of travel, a lot of activity on their legs,&rdquo; said Capitals&rsquo; assistant coach Tim Army.Bondra got into just one game for Slovakia and Kolzig two for Germany before their teams were upset and failed to advance.A mini-holiday may have been in order, but both players skated with their Capital teammates several days before the Feb. 22 date requested by the club.Right winger Richard Zednik, who was on Slovakia&rsquo;s roster but did not play, also joined the on-ice sessions early. Sergei Gonchar, a defenseman for Team Russia, was the only Capital still playing late into the medal round. The timetable for the team&rsquo;s other Olympians-U.S. coach Ron Wilson and Sweden defenseman Calle Jo-hansson-was uncertain.NOTEBOOK: Left winger Andrew Brunette is no longer the leading scorer for Portland of the American League. Although he was called up by the Capitals Dec. 28, it took until Feb. 17-nearly two months-for somebody in Portland (center Ryan Mulhern) to move ahead of Brunette in the scoring column&hellip;Rookie right winger Yogi Svejkovsky had seven goals and 10 points and was plus-6 in seven games with Portland. The Capitals expected his stay in the AHL to be a short one&hellip;The Pirates&rsquo; franchise is for sale and the asking price is expected to be at least $3 million, the cost for an AHL expansion team. Management acknowledged talks about the sale of the farm club had been going on for some time. &#9632;

f0016-07

Bondra, Kolzig ready to go after long and winding road

<div class="byline">By John Packett</div>By his own admission, Jamey Hicks got off to a terrible start this season, but the Birmingham Bulls&rsquo; center was making up for it.&ldquo;I had one goal in the first 18 games,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It was funny. I played with the same guy, (right winger) Todd Holt, since Day 1 and we started really cold. Since the end of November, everything started coming together.&rdquo;What happened over that time was phenomenal. Hicks was East Coast League player of the month in both December and January and had a 25-game point streak.With 30 goals and 89 points in 54 games, the 5-foot-9, 175-pounder was only two points behind scoring leader Jean-Guy Trudel of the Peoria Rivermen.Hicks&rsquo; other winger is Brad Davisha. That trio helped Birmingham move up the Southwest Division ladder. The Bulls were in third place and trailed the first-place Louisiana IceGators by five points.Despite his production, the 28-year-old Hicks wasn&rsquo;t chosen for the Jan. 20 All-Star Game, but he was more upset teammate Dany Bousquet, who was tied for the league lead in goals with 40, was snubbed.&ldquo;I&rsquo;d love to have been there, but I&rsquo;ve got two young kids and (the allstar break) gave me some time to spend with them,&rdquo; Hicks said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s nice to be recognized, but the goal is to win the Kelly Cup.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-011331/7249494-1-eng-US/f0017-012.jpg" title="f0017-01" width="368" height="388"></div>The most amazing feat during Hicks&rsquo; run was the shorthanded natural hat trick against the Pensacola Ice Pilots Jan. 27. It was only the third time in pro hockey a player had managed a shorthanded hat trick, but the other two weren&rsquo;t natural tricks.&ldquo;If I was 22, my goal would be to go up, but I&rsquo;m happy living in the south and raising my kids in this warm weather,&rdquo; said the Peterborough, Ont., native.PENGUINS TAKE OVER: The Wheeling Nailers have entered into a management consulting agreement with the Pittsburgh Penguins, in which the NHL club will oversee the business operations of the Nailers.Under terms of the five-year agreement, the Nailers will become the Penguins&rsquo; exclusive ECHL affiliate beginning in 1998-99.END OF THE STREAK: Peoria&rsquo;s season-high 10-game winning streak ended Feb. 11 as Wheeling defenseman Matt Garzone had a goal and three assists in the Nailers&rsquo; 5-3 win.Garzone&rsquo;s effort helped earn him player of the week honors for the period ending Feb. 15.COAST LINES: The Greenville Grrrowl, which is scheduled to begin play next season, passed the 3,000 mark in season-ticket sales. The Grrrowl had already sold out its executive suites and club seats in the 16,000-seat BI-LO Center&hellip;The Huntington Blizzard set an ECHL record by playing in its seventh straight shootout in a 6-5 win over the Columbus Chill Feb. 14. That broke the mark of six in a row by the Richmond Renegades in 1995-96. It added to the record Feb. 17 when it defeated Columbus 2-1. The Blizzard went 5-3 in the extra sessions. &#9632;

f0017-01

Starstruck Hicks Bullish on foes after slow start

<div class="byline">By Phil Janack</div>The cold that kept Peter Zezel from visiting his sick niece in a Toronto hospital couldn&rsquo;t stop him from giving her a get-well message.Zezel scored two goals, including the winner, to lead Canada past PlanetUSA 11-10 in the American League All-Star Game Feb. 11 in Syracuse. Making the first all-star appearance in his 14-year career, Zezel was the game&rsquo;s MVP. He dedicated the winning goal to his two-year-old niece, Jilliann Carter, who was recently diagnosed with cancer.&ldquo;She&rsquo;s starting chemotherapy and we hope she pulls out of it,&rdquo; Zezel said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a tough time in Toronto right now with our family, but this was a little bit of a distraction.&ldquo;I write her name on my sticks and make sure she&rsquo;s always in my thoughts. There&rsquo;s a lot of hope for her. We&rsquo;re praying for her all the time.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-021017/7249525-1-eng-US/f0017-022.jpg" title="f0017-02" width="420" height="420"></div>A veteran of 809 NHL games who patiently waited five months for a trade, Zezel was finally dealt by the New Jersey Devils to the Vancouver Canucks a week before the All-Star Game. Before the deal was done, however, Zezel got assurances from the Canucks that he would be allowed to honor his selection as a former member of the Albany River Rats.Zezel missed the previous day&rsquo;s practice and skills competition to be with his niece, who is battling nymphoglastoma, a form of cancer that has spread to her ribs and hips. Because of his cold, however, he could not stay at the hospital.&ldquo;We have to be careful of colds,&rdquo; Zezel said. &ldquo;Not too many people can visit her, but my sister is with her all the time.&rdquo;Most observers were impressed Zezel would show up for the AHL All-Star Game from the NHL, on break for the Olympics, even before they learned of his niece&rsquo;s illness.&ldquo;I am even more impressed to see him over here,&rdquo; said Canadian coach Bob Hartley of the Hershey Bears. &ldquo;With that kind of reason, he could have been excused very easily from participating. He wanted to be here. He deserves a lot of credit for this. I think Peter Zezel is a great example. These young players can learn a lot from him.&rdquo;RECORDS FALL: The fourth All-Star Game since its revival in 1995 broke 11 records, including most goals and shots, by one team and combined. Twenty-one goals were scored on 106 shots, 60 by PlanetUSA.Canada&rsquo;s Jean-Francois Labbe of the Hamilton Bulldogs was the top goalie, PlanetUSA center Michal Handzus of the Worcester IceCats top rookie and Eric Houde (Canada) of the Fredericton Canadiens and Matt Cullen (PlanetUSA) of the Cincinnati Mighty Ducks were voted top players for their respective teams.SHOWING OFF: PlanetUSA won the skills competition by a 13-8 margin, led by Philadelphia Phantoms&rsquo; and PlanetUSA goalie Brian Boucher, who stopped all six breakaways.Barry Richter of the Providence Bruins and PlanetUSA (13.863 seconds) was the fastest skater and Boucher&rsquo;s Philadelphia teammate Jamie Heward of Canada registered the hardest shot (97.3 mph).Handzus won the shooting accuracy contest, needing just five tries to hit all four targets.LOOKING AHEAD: League sources confirmed the 1999 All-Star Game will be held at the CoreStates Spectrum in Philadelphia. The league had hoped to make the announcement during the festivities, but dates have yet to be finalized with the ESPN2 network, which is broadcasting the game.The Hartford Wolf Pack is expected to make a strong bid to bring the 2000 game to the Hartford Civic Center, while Hamilton figures to be a leading candidate in 2001.AHL TIDBITS: Although construction of a new 9,000-seat building, long delayed by a controversial hotel tax, won&rsquo;t get under way until the spring, the Wilkes-Barre, Pa., franchise had already received 3,200 deposits for season tickets, and all 28 of its luxury boxes were sold. Owned by the Pittsburgh Penguins, it isn&rsquo;t expected to begin play until 1999-2000&hellip;With three goals and seven points in two games, Beast of New Haven center Ryan Johnson was named player of the week for the period ending Feb. 15. &#9632;

f0017-02

Zezel dedicates big goal in All-Star Game to niece

<div class="byline">By Kevin lole</div>Goalie Frederic Chabot is on the cover of the Houston Aeros&rsquo; media guide, but it was another goalie who was saving the Aeros&rsquo; season.Second-year pro Ryan Bach joined Houston when the Aeros lost their top three goalies and proceeded to perform as if he was the No. 1 man all along. After being assigned to Houston by the Detroit Red Wings Oct. 29, Bach went out and was named the International League&rsquo;s goalie of the month in November.But he proved that wasn&rsquo;t a fluke by continuing his exceptional play through February. Bach had a league-high five shutouts while placing fourth with a 2.21 goals-against average.Bach&rsquo;s latest display of excellence was stopping 20 shots for the Western Conference in a 12-8 victory over the Eastern Conference in the IHL All-Star Game Feb. 10 in Orlando. Bach did allow four goals in 30 minutes of work, but made many spectacular saves.&ldquo;Pretty much every night, he gives you a chance to win,&rdquo; said Houston veteran Brent Hughes.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-03726/7249556-1-eng-US/f0017-032.jpg" title="f0017-03" width="378" height="428"></div>Houston ran out of goalies in October when the Los Angeles Kings recalled Chabot, who was the league&rsquo;s MVP last season; the Pittsburgh Penguins recalled Peter Skudra; and Larry Dyck was injured.In his first game, Bach beat the Utah Grizzlies in a shootout, stopping all four Grizzlies. Then, in his second outing, he stopped all 35 Las Vegas Thunder shots in a 2-0 win.That, he said, played a big part in a storybook season for him.&ldquo;When you go to a new team, the guys don&rsquo;t know what to expect,&rdquo; Bach said. &ldquo;When I was able to go out and play well those first couple of games, it helped give us confidence.&rdquo;With Chabot down from the Kings, Bach&rsquo;s workload was lightened. But Houston coach Dave Tippett showed his confidence in the 24-year-old Albertan by continuing to throw him out there, even with Chabot around.Bach is grateful because he knows he needs to play a lot this year to convince someone in the NHL to give him a shot. His NHL rights belong to Detroit, but with young goalies such as Chris Osgood, Kevin Hodson and Norm Maracle ahead of him, his best shot might come elsewhere.&ldquo;Things have a way of working themselves out,&rdquo; Bach said. &ldquo;If I keep playing well and getting better, something will happen, whether I&rsquo;m in Detroit&rsquo;s plans or not.&rdquo;STEFAN STARTS FAST: Patrik Stefan, the 17-year-old center from the Czech Republic playing for the Long Beach Ice Dogs during the Olympic break, got off to a quick start.Touted as a potential first overall pick in the 1999 NHL entry draft, the 6-foot-2, 215-pound Stefan had a goal and a strong defensive effort in a Feb. 13 win over Las Vegas, his third game in a Long Beach uniform. Overall, Stefan had two goals and no assists in four games.Stefan scored his first pro goal on a pretty passing play with Long Beach captain Dan Lambert, then hustled to get back late in a one-goal game to break up a potential 3-on-2. In the process, he impressed Long Beach coach-GM John Van Boxmeer.&ldquo;I thought Patrik Stefan was one of the best players,&rdquo; Van Boxmeer said.Stefan, who tentatively plans to play for the Ice Dogs next season in his draft year, said the pace of the game is faster than he was used to, but said he was enjoying himself.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a lot more physical, too,&rdquo; Stefan said. &ldquo;There is a lot more contact and you have to make up your mind to make a play a lot quicker.&rdquo;ALL-STAR AWARDS: Kip Miller of Utah was MVP of the All-Star Game. Miller scored three goals for the Western Conference, including two in a record span of 18 seconds in the first period.The rising star award for most outstanding first-time all-star went to Martin St Louis of the Cleveland Lumberjacks.SKILLED EAST: The Eastern Conference won the skills challenge 19-9, led by Grand Rapids Griffins&rsquo; goalie Ian Gordon, who won the goaltender&rsquo;s competition.John Gruden of the Detroit Vipers (13.738 seconds) was the fastest skater, Shawn Heins of the Kansas City Blades had the hardest shot (99.5 mph). Chris Tancill of the Michigan K-Wings was the most accurate shooter, hitting four targets in six attempts. &#9632;

f0017-03

Aeros’ goaltender Bach making beautiful music

<div class="byline">By Stuart Cowan</div>Mike Bossy, the greatest scorer in Quebec League history, is among four people to be inducted into the league&rsquo;s Hall of Fame March 17.Bossy, who played with the Laval Nationals from 1973-74 to 1976-77, scored a league-record 309 career goals in 264 games. He went on to spend 10 seasons with the NHL&rsquo;s New York Islanders, scoring 573 goals in 752 games, while winning four Stanley Cups.Also inducted in the players&rsquo; category is Stephan Lebeau, whose 580 points in 270 games with the Shawinigan Cataractes from 1984-85 through 1987-88 ranks second on the career list behind former teammate and QMJHL Hall of Famer Patrice Lefebvre, who had 595 points in 276 games. Lebeau, who played 373 NHL games, plays in Switzerland.John Horman and Marcel Robert are to be inducted in the builders&rsquo; category. Horman, 77, has been involved with the QMJHL in a number of capacities since its formation in 1969-70, while Robert was league president from 1977-78 through 1980-81 and was instrumental in developing the league&rsquo;s sports education program.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-021015/7249618-1-eng-US/f0018-022.jpg" title="f0018-02" width="579" height="288"></div>LUONGO GETS LUCKY NO. 7: Val d&rsquo;Or Foreurs&rsquo; goalie Roberto Luongo tied a QMJHL record when he picked up his seventh shutout of the season by making 19 saves in a 2-0 win over Shawinigan Feb. 13.&ldquo;I wasn&rsquo;t really thinking about (the record) because I didn&rsquo;t want it to distract me and bother me more than anything. I just put it aside and if it happened, it happened,&rdquo; said Luongo, who tied the record set by Nick Sanza with the Sherbrooke Castors in 1974-75.Luongo, the fourth overall draft pick of the New York Islanders in 1997, struggled somewhat after returning from the World Junior Championship, but regained his form. He had a 21-18-4 record with a 2.93 goals-against average and.904 save percentage.&ldquo;When I was at the World Juniors, I was at an emotional peak,&rdquo; Luongo said. &ldquo;So when I came back I was playing without emotion and I&rsquo;m just getting it back now.&rdquo;Meanwhile, Foreurs&rsquo; right winger Jean-Pierre Dumont, who had been on fire after returning from the WJC, broke his left thumb at practice Feb. 14 when he was hit with a shot.Dumont, who led the team in scoring with 45 goals and 79 points in 46 games, is out of action until mid-March. He had five hat tricks this season.DRAKKAR ON A ROLL: A 7-0 whipping from the Laval Titan Feb. 18 dropped the expansion Baie Comeau Drakkar back to earth, but things were still looking up for a playoff spot.Before that loss, the Drakkar had set a teamrecord winning streak of four games. More importantly, the run gave it a three-point lead over the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles for the sixth and final playoff spot in the Dilio Division with 11 games remaining.&ldquo;Everything is starting to fall in place for us,&rdquo; said coach Daniel Bissonnette.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve been talking about defense all season and the players are starting to respond. The last five games (before Laval) we have only one loss and we haven&rsquo;t allowed more than three goals.&rdquo;Rookie goalie Nicolas Chabot became the first Drakkar to win a player-of-the-week award when he was named the top defensive player for the period ending Feb. 16. He won three games while allowing only eight goals.&ldquo;If you watched a game in September or October,&rdquo; Bissonnette said,&rdquo;you&rsquo;d see that this isn&rsquo;t the same team now.&rdquo;So, how about those playoffs?&ldquo;If we keep playing like this, we&rsquo;ll be there.&rdquo;DEVILISH DUO: Rouyn-Noranda Huskies&rsquo; left winger Pierre Dagenais became the second player to hit the 50-goal mark this season when he scored once Feb. 13. It took Dagenais 47 games to reach the mark, while Mathieu Benoit of the Chicoutimi Sagueneens did it in 46 games.Dagenais and Benoit were both drafted by the New Jersey Devils-Dagenais 47th overall in 1996 and Benoit 188th overall last year. &#9632;

f0018-02

QMJHL Hall opens doors to legends Bossy, Lebeau

<div class="byline">By Rob Vanstone</div>Quinn Hancock is enjoying life as one of the Western League&rsquo;s most prolific scorers.He understands, better than anybody, that it hasn&rsquo;t always been this way.&ldquo;It definitely is satisfying,&rdquo; said Hancock, a 20-year-old Prince George Cougars&rsquo; right winger. &ldquo;As an 18-year-old, it looked like I was going nowhere. I thought I&rsquo;d play as a 19-year-old and be done.&rdquo;Instead, Hancock was excelling in his final season of major junior eligibility. As of midFebruary, he was the WHL&rsquo;s fifth-leading scorer.The Rock Creek, B.C., product had 47 goals and 96 points in 59 games. His run of success included a 20-game point streak.Hancock began his WHL career with the 1994-95 Tacoma (now Kelowna) Rockets. The Rockets dealt him to the Calgary Hitmen early in 1995-96. Calgary shipped him to Prince George after one game. His 1995-96 totals: 10 goals and 19 points in 49 games.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-03711/7249649-1-eng-US/f0018-032.jpg" title="f0018-03" width="355" height="360"></div>&ldquo;I worked hard after that season and it paid off,&rdquo; Hancock said. &ldquo;I realized I only had two years left and I wanted to do my best.&rdquo;Hancock notched 33 goals and 68 points in 70 games last season.&ldquo;I had a good 19-year-old season, which is exactly what I had to do,&rdquo; Hancock said. &ldquo;Everything went well. I finally turned some heads and got some people interested in me.&rdquo;Even so, the 6-foot-1, 175-pounder was passed over in the NHL&rsquo;s 1997 draft. Obviously, there were still doubters.&ldquo;In the newspaper, they said I wouldn&rsquo;t make the team as a 20-year-old,&rdquo; Hancock said. &ldquo;That lit a fire under my butt and made me play harder.&rdquo;Hancock&rsquo;s improved play has paralleled that of his team. As of mid-February, Prince George was tied for second in the West Division with a 38-20-4 record.&ldquo;If I was on a last-place team,&rdquo; Hancock said,&rdquo;it would be hard to have the kind of success I&rsquo;m having.&rdquo;He hopes that success will translate into a pro contract.&ldquo;My plans are to sign a contract at the end of the season,&rdquo; Hancock said. &ldquo;To do that, I&rsquo;ll have to have a good finish and a good playoffs. There are a lot of 20-year-old right wingers out there.&rdquo;MR. CLEAN: Penalty-box attendants are barely acquainted with Swift Current Broncos&rsquo; center Jeff Kirwan.Kirwan had 40 penalty minutes after 306 career WHL games, dating back to 1993-94. The 20-year-old Kirwan had 24 goals, 65 points and 10 penalty minutes in 54 games this season.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s why he&rsquo;s the best penalty killer on the team,&rdquo; said Swift Current coach-GM Todd McLellan. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s never in the penalty box.&rdquo;In his previous four WHL seasons, Kirwan had penalty-minute totals of four, 12, 10 and four.&ldquo;It never really occurs to me that I might get a penalty,&rdquo; Kirwan said. &ldquo;I had a coach in bantam who said, &lsquo;If you hook a guy, you&rsquo;re not going to catch him. You might as well skate with the guy.&rsquo; I try to use my speed to my advantage.&rdquo;That approach has been successful.&ldquo;I love the game,&rdquo; Kirwan said. &ldquo;I take pride in playing the game. I like being out there.&rdquo;THE HAPPY WANDLER: The Edmonton Ice, a second-year franchise, recorded its first shutout in franchise history Feb. 16.Led by 28 saves from Bryce Wandler. Edmonton blanked host Calgary 4-0. The shutout came in the Ice&rsquo;s 130th game.En route to his shutout, Wandler stopped Calgary&rsquo;s Boris Protsenko on a penalty shot.MILESTONES: Mark Parrish of the Seattle Thunderbirds was attempting to become the second WHL player to score 50 goals in his (not his team&rsquo;s) first 50 games of the season. Parrish had 43 goals after 41 games.Sergei Varlamov of Swift Current scored his 49th and 50th goals in his 50th game this year.On Feb. 14, Varlamov became the first WHL player to hit 100 points this season. He reached the century mark in his 58th game of the season. &#9632;

f0018-03

Overage Cougar saving his best for final season

<div class="byline">By Chris Miller</div>Mike Peluso has always been a streaky scorer and, like most snipers of that description, is at a loss to explain it.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;m doing much differently,&rdquo; said the Minnesota-Duluth winger after scoring 10 goals in six games. &ldquo;The puck is starting to go in more. I wish I could tell you why.&rdquo;The Bulldogs weren&rsquo;t asking any questions after Peluso&rsquo;s blitz left them looking solid in their quest for a home playoff berth in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association.Peluso has been an all-WCHA selection the past two years, but was slumping early in the season with only eight goals in 24 games. Part of the problem was a sore lower back.&ldquo;If his back feels good, he&rsquo;s a different player,&rdquo; said Minnesota-Duluth coach Mike Sertich, who himself has undergone two major spinal surgeries. &ldquo;Anyone who has a bad back knows how much of a problem it can be.&rdquo;In December, Sertich moved Peluso from center to right winger on a line with fellow seniors Ken Dzikowski and Joe Rybar. There was no secret to the success of the trio-Peluso shoots and the other two try to feed him.&ldquo;Mike has a great shot,&rdquo; said Rybar, the line&rsquo;s center. &ldquo;We just try to go to the net and get the rebounds and tip-ins.&rdquo;A 10th round draft selection of the Calgary Flames in 1994, Peluso added muscle to his 6-foot-1, 200-pound frame over the summer and is hard to check off the puck. He averaged more than 10 shot attempts per game in a shoot-first, ask-questions-later style.&ldquo;I probably hit 10 pipes in the first half of the season,&rdquo; Peluso said. &ldquo;I was beginning to wonder if my luck would ever change.&rdquo;PENALTY SHOT SPECIALIST: Denver&rsquo;s Paul Comrie scored on a penalty shot for the second straight game as the Pioneers edged Wisconsin 3-2 Feb. 14.Comrie got the penalty shot after a Badger defenseman covered a puck in the crease. The night before, Comrie scored on a penalty shot after the Wisconsin goalie intentionally pushed the net off its posts late in the Badgers&rsquo; 7-4 win.BY GEORGE: St. Cloud State&rsquo;s George Awada became the second player in WCHA history to score three shorthanded goals in a game, and he did it in dramatic style.Awada&rsquo;s third goal came in overtime of a 4-3 win over Michigan Tech Feb. 14. Only Wisconsin&rsquo;s Norm Cherrey (1973) had scored three shorthanders in one game before.MR. ZERO: Doug Teskey of Alaska-Anchorage obtained the dubious distinction of being the first goalie to post two career shutouts without winning when the Seawolves tied Minnesota-Duluth 0-0 Feb. 14.The scoreless draw at Minnesota-Duluth was only the third in league annals. It was Teskey&rsquo;s school-record sixth career shutout. &#9632;

Peluso doesn’t ask why, just keeps scoring goals

<div class="byline">By Paul Harris</div>Columbus, Ohio hasn&rsquo;t traditionally been a hockey hotbed, but John Markell and his Ohio State squad are trying their best to change that.A 10-game unbeaten streak (9-0-1) moved the Buckeyes into third place in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association (15-10-1). And despite a 4-1 loss to Michigan State Feb. 14 that brought their winning streak to an end, Markell has seen a difference in the way the Buckeyes are perceived.&ldquo;Since we&rsquo;ve been on this run there has been a certain amount of respect come with it,&rdquo; Markell said. &ldquo;Going into the new building (a 10,000-seat facility for next season), we have to create an awareness for hockey and capitalize on it.&rdquo;In Columbus, football and, to a lesser extent, basketball have always been kings. But timing couldn&rsquo;t be better for the Buckeyes to return to prominence in the CCHA. The last time they finished as high as third was 1983-84 when they were second with a 21-9-0 record.Respect nationally has come slowly-the nation&rsquo;s longest unbeaten streak couldn&rsquo;t get Ohio State into any of the national polls-but things have been different at home.Markell said the main reasons for the improvement over last year&rsquo;s 9-16-2 record was role players, the goaltending tandem of freshman Jeff Maund and sophomore Ray Aho (they each had a.912 save percentage) and the outstanding play of forwards Hugo Boisvert (17 goals and 42 points in 43 games), Eric Meloche (20-16-36 in 31 games) and Chris Richards (13-19-32 in 30 games).GOAL NO. 100: Michigan senior right winger Bill Muckalt scored the 100th goal of his college career in a 3-1 victory over Miami Feb. 13. It was his 27th of the season and came into an empty net with 17.4 seconds left. &ldquo;They don&rsquo;t ask how, they just ask how many,&rdquo; Muckalt joked.It also came on a rebound of a shot by fellow senior Matt Herr, who had hit the goal post. &ldquo;Pretty nice pass by Matty off the post, I thought,&rdquo; Muckalt said. &ldquo;I was going to pick the top comer, but after Matt hit the post, I decided to just put it in the middle.&rdquo;A ninth round draft pick of the Vancouver Canucks in 1994, Muckalt led CCHA scorers with 28 goals and 53 points in 32 games.NOTEBOOK: Michigan State freshman right winger Rustyn Dolyny had three goals and six points in wins over Western Michigan and Ohio Feb. 13-14 and was named offensive player of the week for the period ending Feb. 14. Dolyny, 21, had a goal and three assists in the 4-2 win over Western Michigan and two goals in a 4-1 win over the Buckeyes&hellip;Defensive player of the week was Michigan senior goalie Marty Turco, who stopped 34 of 37 shots in the 3-1 win over Miami and a 4-2 win over Northern Michigan Feb. 14. &#9632;

Buckeyes opening eyes with deft 10-game surge

<div class="byline">By Tom Boggle</div>As the season winds down, it&rsquo;s not uncommon for coaches to lobby to get their players in the running for the Hobey Baker Award.Princeton coach Don Cahoon is no exception, but his timing seems to be a bit off. He&rsquo;s already lobbying for junior Jeff Halpern as a candidate for the 1999 award.&ldquo;Jeff is one of the premier players in college,&rdquo; Cahoon said. &ldquo;Our program is improving, but until we start to gamer more attention, it&rsquo;s going to be hard for him to get the recognition he deserves. But he&rsquo;s a legitimate all-America candidate and next year he&rsquo;ll be a legitimate candidate for the Hobey Baker Award.&rdquo;Halpern, a native of Potomac, Md., is the center of the Tigers&rsquo; Orange Line, one of the most productive units in the country. Halpern, classmate Scott Bertoli and senior Casson Masters had 36 goals and 77 points to keep the Tigers (6-7-3) in the hunt for home ice in the Eastern College Athletic Conference playoffs.Halpern was the Tigers&rsquo; leading scorer with 18 goals and 34 points in 23 games. He had a 14-game scoring streak snapped Feb. 14.&ldquo;Halpern is like the quarterback out there,&rdquo; Cahoon said. &ldquo;He always seems to make intelligent decisions.&rdquo;Masters provides the speed, while Bertoli&rsquo;s job is distributing the puck to his linemates.The Orange Line has been together for two years now and is difficult to stop.&ldquo;When we put them together, we knew they all had individual skills, but we also knew if they could get comfortable together, they would complement each other,&rdquo; Cahoon said.&ldquo;Teams are using blanket coverage to deal with them, but the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. We&rsquo;ve tried to develop other fines and sporadically we&rsquo;ve been getting good performances from other players. But that line has done so much for us, it just makes sense to keep them together.&rdquo;GREAT SAINT: RPI was glad to have junior center Alain St-Hilaire back in the lineup.St-Hilaire missed six games with a broken bone in his hand, but returned to the lineup to lead the Engineers to three wins in four games in the first two weeks of February.He had nine points Feb. 13-14 to lead the Engineers to a sweep of Clarkson (6-2) and St. Lawrence (7-4). He had a goal and four points against the Golden Knights and a goal and five points against the Saints.NOTEBOOK: Yale became the first team to clinch home ice for the playoffs as the Bulldogs swept Brown and Harvard by back-to-back scores of 3-1 Feb. 13-14. The win over Harvard was Yale&rsquo;s 19th of the season, putting the Bulldogs in position for their first 20-win season since 1985-86&hellip;Union senior goalie Trevor Koenig set a school record with 55 saves in a 31 loss to Clarkson Feb. 14. &#9632;

Halpern helps bum foes with Tigers’ Orange Line

<div class="byline">By Larry Mahoney</div>Merrimack coach Ron Anderson will not have his contract renewed beyond this season.&ldquo;This was a difficult decision for the institution to make. But, after careful review and consideration, it is time for a change,&rdquo; said Merrimack director of athletics Bob DeGregorio Jr. &ldquo;I personally thanked Ron for his dedication and loyalty to his student-athletes and Merrimack College. I consider Ron to be a true professional, a teacher and a friend.&rdquo;The 49-year-old Anderson will coach the Warriors&rsquo; remaining five games this season. He said he wasn&rsquo;t surprised by the decision.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m disappointed. I made commitments to people and I&rsquo;m disappointed I won&rsquo;t be back (to coach them),&rdquo; said Anderson. &ldquo;But it&rsquo;s a business. This happens to people every day.&rdquo;Anderson is reportedly a finalist for the vacancy with the Lowell Lock Monsters, who will debut in the American League next season.Anderson is Merrimack&rsquo;s all-time winningest coach with a 253-242-24 record. He led the Warriors to the 1983-84 NCAA title game in Division II and won three straight ECAC Division 11 titles (1987-89).Merrimack joined Hockey East in 1989-90 but hadn&rsquo;t finished higher than sixth until last season, when the Warriors finished fifth.Anderson was chosen the New England College Hockey Writer&rsquo;s Division I top coach last season when the Warriors went 11-11-2.Merrimack has struggled with inexperience in goal and on defense. The Warriors were in eighth place with a 4-15-0 record, including one win in a recent eight-game stretch.DeGregorio hopes to name a new coach before the end of the spring semester.NO RETURN: The much-anticipated return of former Maine star Tim Lovell never came to fruition because he was suspended by UMass coach Joe Mailen just before the Feb. 13-14 series against Maine for violating a team policy.Lovell, who had 108 points in 115 games spanning three years for the Black Bears, transferred to Massachusetts two years ago in the wake of Maine&rsquo;s NCAA investigation.The speedy center, always a fan favorite in Maine, was UMass&rsquo; captain and leading scorer.&ldquo;When I came here five years ago, I wanted to start a program based on integrity and class and discipline,&rdquo; Mallen said. &ldquo;Tim Lovell hasn&rsquo;t lived up to that. I think the guys on the team are satisfied the right move was made.&rdquo;NOTEBOOK: New Hampshire goalie Sean Matile was player of the week for the period ending Feb. 14 for his 48 saves in 4-2 and 5-0 wins over Providence Feb. 13-14. Matile&rsquo;s shutout was his third of the season and set the league career shutout mark with six&hellip;Boston College rookie of the year frontrunner Brian Gionta was the rookie of the week for his three goals and three assists in the Eagles&rsquo; three-victory week. &#9632;

Warriors make Anderson a lame-duck bench boss

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0021-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-01915/7249797-1-eng-US/f0021-012.jpg"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-011043/7249790-1-eng-US/f0022-012.jpg" title="f0022-01" width="3077" height="3532"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-01935/7249783-1-eng-US/f0023-012.jpg" title="f0023-01" width="3067" height="3512"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-011009/7249776-1-eng-US/f0024-012.jpg" title="f0024-01" width="3105" height="3532"></div> &#9632;

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NHL STATISTICAL REPORT

Transactions include NHL personnel moves from Feb. 13-20. Rosters and injuries are as of Feb. 20. Players in roster are listed in sequence of line combinations and defense pairings (i.e. first center plays on line with first left winger and first right winger). Injured players status is either day-to-day (returning within the next few games), indefinite (extended period) or projected return date.<h2>ANAHEIM</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C-Steve Rucchin, Travis Green, Sean Pronger. LW-Scott Young, Warren Rychel. Jeremy Stevenson. RW-Teemu Selanne, Tomas Sandstrom, Ted Drury, Brent Severyn. LD-Dmitri Mironov, Ruslan Salei, Drew Bannister. RD-David Karpa, Jason Marshall, Dan Trebil, Doug Houda. G-Guy Hebert, Mikhail Shtalenkov.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Shawn Antoski. LW, orbital fracture, indefinite. Paul Kariya. LW, concussion, day-to-day. Jeff Nielsen, RW, broken left leg, early March.<h2>BOSTON</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Feb. 18: Mattias Timander, D. assigned to Providence (AHL).<h3>ROSTER</h3>C-Jason Allison, Dimitri Khristich, Tim Taylor, Joe Thornton. LW-Ted Donato, Sergei Samsonov, P.J. Axelsson, Ken Baumgartner RW-Steve Heinze. Anson Carter, Rob DiMaio, Mike Sullivan. LD-Hal Gill, Don Sweeney, Dave Ellett, Dean Malkoc. RD-Ray Bourque, Kyle McLaren, Darren Van Impe. G-Byron Dafoe, Rob Tallas.<h3>INJURIES</h3>None.<h2>BUFFALO</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C-Derek Plante. Michael Peca, Brian Holzinger, Wayne Primeau. LW-Miroslav Satan, Geoff Sanderson, Curtis Brown, Randy Burridge, Rob Ray. RW-Donald Audette, Jason Dawe, Michal Grosek, Dixon Ward, Matthew Barnaby, Vaclav Varada. LD-Darryl Shannon, Alexei Zhitnik, Jason Woolley, Jay McKee. RD-Mike Wilson, Bob Boughner, Richard Smehlik. G-Dominik Hasek, Steve Shields.<h3>INJURIES</h3>None.<h2>CALGARY</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Feb. 17: Martin St. Louis, RW, signed contract as free agent. Feb. 18: Jamie Allison, D, assigned to Saint John (AHL). Feb. 19: St. Louis assigned to Saint John. Burke Murphy, RW, reassigned to Cleveland (IHL).<h3>ROSTER</h3>C-Cory Stillman, Andrew Cassels, Michael Nylan-der. LW-Chris Dingman, German Titov, Marty McInnis, Ed Ward. RW-Valeri Bure, Theo Fleury, Sandy McCarthy. LD-James Patrick, Tommy Albelin, Joel Bouchard. RD-Derek Morris, Cale Hulse, Todd Simpson. G-Dwayne Roloson, Rick Tabaracci.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Jarome Iginla, RW, broken rght wrist. mid-March. Ron Stern, RW, knee surgery, indefinite.<h2>CAROLINA</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Feb. 17: Tripp Tracy, G, reassigned from Richmond (ECHL) to New Haven (AHL). Feb. 19: Sergei Fedorov. C, signed offer sheet.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C-Keith Primeau, Jeff O&rsquo;Neill, Kent Manderville. LW-Gary Roberts, Robert Kron, Martin Gelinas, Paul Ranheim, Stu Grimson. RW-Sami Kapanen, Nelson Emerson, Kevin Dineen, Steve Leacn Steve Rice. LD-Glen Wesley, Curtis Leschyshyn, Adam Burt. RD-Steve Chiasson, Sean Hill, Kevin Haller. G-Trevor Kidd, Kirk McLean.<h3>INJURIES</h3>None.<h2>CHICAGO</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Feb. 12: Dmitri Nabokov, LW. assigned to Indianapolis (IHL).<h3>ROSTER</h3>C-Alex Zhamnov, Greg Johnson, Steve Dubinsky, Jeff Shantz, Jarrod Skalde. LW-Sergei Krivokrasov, Ethan Moreau. Jean-Yves Leroux, Reid Simpson, James Black. RW-Tony Amonte, Eric Daze. Kevin Miller, Jim Cummins. LD-Keith Carney, Gary Suter, Trent Yawney, Michal Sykora. RD-Chris Chelios, Eric Weinrich, Christian Laflamme, Cam Russell. G-Jeff Hackett, Andrei Trefilov.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Bob Probert, LW, torn rotator cuff in right shoulder, indefinite. Brent Sutter, C, strained groin, indefinite. Chris Terrerl. G, strained groin, indefinite.<h2>COLORADO</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C-Peter Forsberg, Stephane Yelle, Jari Kurri. LW-Valeri Kamensky, Eric Lacroix, Rene Corbet, Francois Leroux. RW-Claude Lemieux. Adam Deadmarsh, Keith Jones. Shean Donovan. Jeff Odgers. LD-Sylvain Lefebvre. Sandis Ozolinsh, Jon Klemm, Aaron Miller. RD-Adam Foote, Alexei Gusarov. Uwe Krupp, Eric Messier. G-Patrick Roy, Craig Billington.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Joe Sakic, C, sprained left knee ligament, March 6.<h2>DALLAS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C-Mike Modano, Joe Nieuwendyk, Guy Carbon-neau, Benoit Hogue. LW-Jamie Langenbrunner, Juha Lind. Dave Reid. Bob Errey, Greg Adams. RW-Jere Lehtinen, Pat Verbeek, Todd Harvey, Grant Marshall. LD-Derian Hatcher, Darryl Sydor, Craig Ludwig, Richard Matvichuk. RD-Shawn Chambers, Sergei Zubov. Craig Muni. G-Ed Belfour, Roman Turek.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Bob Bassen LW. sprained left knee, early March. Patrick Cote. LW. left shoulder surgery, indefinite.<h2>DETROIT</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Feb. 18: David Arsenault. G. reassigned to Adirondack (AHL).<h3>ROSTER</h3>C-lgor Larionov, Steve Yzerman, Brent Gilchrist, Kris Draper, Doug Brown. LW-Brendan Shanahan, Tomas Holmstrom. Kirk Maltby, Vyacheslav Kozlov. RW-Martin Lapointe, Darren McCarty, Mike Knuble, Joe Kocur, Mathieu Dandenault. LD-Anders Eriksson, Nicklas Lidstrom, Slava Fetisov. RD-Larry Murphy, Bob Rouse, Aaron Ward, Jamie Pushor. G-Chris Osgood. Kevin Hodson.<h3>INJURIES</h3>None.<h2>EDMONTON</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C-Ooug Weight, Mats Lindgren, Tony Hrkac, Rem Murray. LW-Dean McAmmond, Todd Marchant, Valeri Zelepukin, Dennis Bonvie, Bill Huard. RW-Bill Guerin, Kelly Buchberger, Mike Grier, Andrei Kovalenko. LD-Roman Hamrlik, Bobby Dollas, Greg de Vries. RD-Boris Mironov, Dan McGillis, Drake Berehowsky. G-Curtis Joseph, Bob Essensa.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Bill Huard. LW, broken right wrist, early March. Kevin Lowe, D, inner ear virus, indefinite. Ryan Smyth, LW, knee surgery, early March.<h2>FLORIDA</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Feb. 16: Todd MacDonald. G, recalled from New Haven (AHL).<h3>ROSTER</h3>C-Rob Niedermayer, Ray Whitney, Dave Gagner, Steve Washburn, Chris Wells. LW-Viktor Kozlov, Kirk Muller, Bill Lindsay, Esa Tikkanen. Johan Garpenlov. RW-Ray Sheppard, Scott Mellanby, Dino Ciccarelli, Radek Dvorak, Tom Fitzgerald. LD-Ed Jovanovski. Jeff Norton, Rhett Warrener, Terry Carkner. RD-Gord Murphy, Paul Laus. Robert Svehla, Dallas Eakins. G-John Vanbiesbrouck, Kevin Weekes, Todd McDonald.<h3>INJURIES</h3>None.<h2>LOS ANGELES</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Feb. 19: Ruslan Batyrshin, D. reassigned to Grand Rapids (IHL).<h3>ROSTER</h3>C-Jozef Stumpel, Ray Ferraro, Nathan LaFayette, Yanic Perreault, Ian Laperriere. LW-Vladimir Tsyplakov, Craig Johnson. Matt Johnson, Steve McKenna. RW-Glen Murray, Sandy Moger, Russ Courtnail. Dan Bylsma. LD-Mattias Norstrom, Aki Berg, Doug Zmolek. RD-Rob Blake, Sean O&rsquo;Donnell, Jan Vopat. G-Stephane Fiset, Jamie Storr.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Philippe Boucher. D, thyroiditis, indefinite. Garry Galley. D, bruised knee, day-to-day. Luc Robitaille. LW, strained groin, indefinite.<h2>MONTREAL</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Feb. 16: Brett Clark, D, assigned to Fredericton (AHL). Brad Brown, D, recalled from Fredericton.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C-Saku Koivu, Vincent Damphousse, Marc Bureau, Benoit Brunet. Sebastien Bordeleau. LW-Shayne Corson, Martin Rucinsky, Patrick Poulin. RW-Mark Recchi, Brian Savage, Mick Vukota. Turner Stevenson, Jonas Hoglund. LD-Vladimir Malakhov, Peter Popovic, Zarley Zalapski. RD-Craig Rivet, Patrice Brisebois, Brad Brown. G-Andy Moog, Jocelyn Thibault.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Dave Manson, D. hip flexor, day-to-day. Stephane Quintal. D. hip flexor, day-to-day Scott Thornton, LW, neck spasms, day-to-day. Igor Ulanov, D, tom left knee ligaments, out for season.<h2>NEW JERSEY</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C-Doug Gilmour, Bobby Holik, Denis Pederson. LW-Petr Sykora, Patrik Elias, Dave Andreychuk, Brian Rolston, Krzysztof Oliwa. RW-Jason Arnott, Randy McKay, Steve Thomas, Scott Daniels. LD-Scott Stevens. Doug Bodger, Kevin Dean, Brad Bombardir. RD-Lyle Odelein, Scott Niedermayer, Sheldon Souray. G-Martin Brodeur, Mike Dunham.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Bobby Carpenter, C. broken left foot, indefinite. Ken Daneyko, D, entered substance abuse program, day-to-day.<h2>NY ISLANDERS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Feb. 17: Steve Webb. RW. Jason Holland, D. Vladimir Orszagh, LW, and Jason Strudwick, D. recalled from Kentucky (AHL).<h3>ROSTER</h3>C-Robert Reichel, Bryan Smolinski, Mark Janssens, Claude Lapointe. LW-Tom Chorske, Sergei Nemchinov, Paul Kruse. Mike Hough, Joe Sacco. RW-Trevor Linden, Ziggy Palffy, Mariusz Czerkawski, Steve Webb, Vladimir Orszagh. LD-Scott Lachance. Kenny Jonsson, J.J. Daigneault. RD-Bryan Berard, Rich Pilon, Jason Strudwick, Jason Holland. G-Tommy Salo, Wade Flaherty.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Ken Belanger. LW, left thumb surgery, out for season. Eric Fichaud, G. left shoulder surgery, out for season. Claude Lapointe. C, broken toe. day-to-day. Dennis Vaske, D, post-concussion syndrome, out for season.<h2>NY RANGERS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Feb. 17: Colin Campbell, coach, fired. Feb. 19: John Muckier hired as coach.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C-Wayne Gretzky, Pat LaFontaine, Brian Skrud-land, P.J. Stock, Mike Eastwood. LW-Niklas Sund-strom, Kevin Stevens, Bill Berg. Darren Langdon. RW-Adam Graves. Tim Sweeney. Mike Keane, Johan Lindbom. Peter Ferraro. LD-Brian Leetch, Ulf Samuelsson, Jeff Finley, Eric Cairns. RD-Jeff Beuke-boom. Bruce Driver, Doug Lidster. G-Mike Richter, Dan Cloutier.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Shane Churla, RW, knee surgery, March. Alexander Karpovtsev. D, sore wrist, late February. Alexei Kovalev, RW. knee surgery, late February. Ryan Van-denBussche, RW, torn knee cartilage, day-to-day.<h2>OTTAWA</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Jan. 29: Dennis Vial, LW, assigned to Chicago (IHL).<h3>ROSTER</h3>C-Alexei Yashin, Radek Bonk, Shaun Van Allen. Sergei Zholtok. LW-Magnus Arvedson, Shawn McEachern, Randy Cunneyworth, Denny Lambert. RW-Pat Falloon, Daniel Alfredsson, Andreas Dackell, Chris Murray. LD-Wade Redden. Janne Laukkanen, Chris Phillips, Jason York. RD-Lance Pitlick, Stan Neckar, Igor Kravchuk. G-Damian Rhodes, Ron Tugnutt.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Bruce Gardiner. RW, torn left knee ligament, day-to-day. Vaclav Prospal, C. broken left leg. early March.<h2>PHILADELPHIA</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C-Eric Lindros, Chris Gratton, Dainius Zubrus, Joel Otto, Daniel Lacroix. LW-John LeClair, Rod Brind&rsquo;Amour, Shjon Podein, Dan Kordic. RW-Alexandre Daigle, Trent Klatt, Colin Forbes, Mike Sillinger, Brantt Myhres. LD-Chris Therien, Luke Richardson, Paul Coffey, Chris Joseph. RD-Eric Desjardins, Janne Niinimaa, Petr Svoboda, Kjell Samuelsson. G-Ron Hextall. Garth Snow.<h3>INJURIES</h3>None.<h2>PHOENIX</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Feb. 8: Chad Kilger, C, Jason Doig, D, and Scott Langkow, G, assigned to Springfield (AHL) Feb. 19: Shane Doan, RW, and Brad Isbister, LW, recalled from Springfield.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C-Craig Janney, Jeremy Roenick, Bob Corkum, Mike Stapleton. LW-Keith Tkachuk. Cliff Ronning, Darrin Shannon, Jim McKenzie, Brad Isbister. RW-Rick Tocchet, Dallas Drake, Mike Gartner, Juha Ylonen, Jocelyn Lemieux, Shane Doan. LD-Teppo Numminen, Murray Baron, Jay More, Deron Quint. RD-Gerald Diduck, Oleg Tverdovsky, Michel Petit, Norm Maciver. G-Nikolai Khabibulin, Jimmy Waite.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Jim Johnson, D, post-concussion syndrome, indefinite. John Slaney, D, broken left thumb, day-to-day Darcy Wakaluk, G, right knee surgery, indefinite.<h2>PITTSBURGH</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C-Ron Francis, Robert Lang. Tyler Wright. LW-Stu Barnes, Martin Straka, Alexei Morozov, Chris Ferraro, Alex Hicks. RW-Jaromir Jagr. Rob Brown, Garry Valk, Ed Olczyk. LD-Darius Kasparaitis, Chris Tamer, Jiri Slegr, Brad Werenka. RD-Kevin Hatcher, Fredrik Olausson. G-Tom Barrasso, Ken Wregget.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Ian Moran D. concussion, day-to-day Neil Wilkinson. D, strained abdominal muscle, day-to-day.<h2>ST. LOUIS</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C-Pierre Turgeon, Pavol Demitra, Darren Turcotte. Harry York. Terry Yake. LW-Brett Hull. Geoff Courtnail. Scott Pellerin. Tony Twist. Pascal Rheaume. RW-Craig Conroy. Jim Campbell, Blair Atcheynum. Kelly Chase. LD-Marc Bergevin, Chris Pronger. Jamie Rivers. RD-Al Maclnnis, Steve Duchesne, Chris McAlpine. G-Grant Fuhr, Jamie McLennan.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Joe Murphy. RW. left wrist surgery, late February. Rudy Poeschek D, herniated disc, mid-April.<h2>SAN JOSE</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C-Mike Ricci, Patrick Marleau, Marco Sturm, Bernie Nicholls. LW-Shawn Burr, Stephane Matteau, Jeff Friesen, Murray Craven, Dave Lowry. RW-Owen Nolan, John MacLean, Tony Granato, Ron Sutter, Andrei Nazarov. LD-Mike Rathje, Bill Houlder, Marcus Ragnarsson. RD-Marty McSorley, Andrei Zyuzin, Ken Sutton, Todd Gill, Rich Brennan. G-Mike Vernon. Kelly Hrudey.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Todd Ewen, RW. knee surgery, out for season. Al lafrate. D. arthroscopic knee surgery, March 5.<h2>TAMPA BAY</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>Feb. 17: Zac Bierk. G, recalled from Adirondack (AHL).<h3>ROSTER</h3>C-Paul Ysebaert, Daymond Langkow, Darcy Tucker, Mikael Andersson, Jason Bonsignore. LW-Rob Zamuner, Jason Wiemer. Steve Kelly, Louie DeBrusk. RW-Mikael Renberg, Alex Selivanov, Stephane Richer, Jody Hull. LD-Jassen Cullimore. Karl Dykhuis, Mike McBain. RD-Cory Cross, David Wilkie, Yves Racine, Bryan Marchment, Jamie Huscroft. G-Mark Fitzpatrick. Zac Bierk.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Brian Bradley, C, torn wrist ligament and postconcussion syndrome, indefinite. Troy Mallette LW. herniated disc, indefinite. Daren Puppa, G, back spasms, indefinite. Corey Schwab, G. sprained right ankle, day-to-day Vladimir Vujtek, C, pericarditis, indefinite.<h2>TORONTO</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C-Mats Sundin, Steve Sullivan, Darby Hendrickson, Alyn McCauley. LW-lgor Korolev, Fredrik Modin, Derek King, Kris King. RW-Sergei Berezin, Mike Johnson. Tie Domi, Todd Warriner, Martin Prochazka. LD-Jamie Macoun, Mathieu Schneider, Rob Zettler. RD-Jason Smith. Dimitri Yushkevich. Jeff Brown, Yannick Tremblay. G-Felix Potvin, Glenn Healy.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Wendel Clark, LW, strained groin, indefinite. Nick Kypreos LW, post-concussion syndrome, indefinite. Craig Wolanin, D, torn right knee ligaments, out for season.<h2>VANCOUVER</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C-Mark Messier. Peter Zezel, Dave Scatchard, Scott Walker. LW-Brad May, Markus Naslund. Todd Bertuzzi, Donald Brashear. Gino Odjick. RW-Pavel Bure. Alexander Mogilny, Brian Noonan. Steve Staios LD-Bryan McCabe. Dave Babych, Grant Ledyard, Enrico Ciccone. RD-Jyrki Lumme, Mattias Ohlund, Adrian Aucoin. G-Sean Burke, Arturs Irbe.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Larry Courville. LW, dislocated left wrist, out for season Bret Hedican. D, hip flexor, indefinite. Dana Murzyn, D, right knee surgery, out for season.<h2>WASHINGTON</h2><h3>TRANSACTIONS</h3>None.<h3>ROSTER</h3>C-Adam Oates, Michal Pivonka, Andrei Nikolishin, Dale Hunter, Jan Bulis. LW-Andrew Brunette. Steve Konowalchuk, Joe Juneau, Craig Berube, Todd Krygi-er. RW-Peter Bondra, Richard Zednik, Jeff Toms, Kelly Miller. LD-Joe Reekie. Brendan Witt, Phil Housley. RD-Sergei Gonchar, Ken Klee, Calle Johansson. G-Olie Kolzig, Bill Ranford.<h3>INJURIES</h3>Sylvain Cote, D. bruised shoulder, day-to-day. Mike Eagles. C, broken right foot, indefinite. Pat Peake. RW. heel surgery, indefinite. Chris Simon, LW, shoulder surgery, indefinite. Mark Tinordi. D, pulled stomach muscle, indefinite.<h2>THE WEEK THAT WAS</h2>A weekly compendium of significant events and developments (Feb. 13-20).Feb. 14: In their first meeting since World Cup final in 1996. Canada beats USA 4-1.Feb. 16: Ulf Samuelsson of Sweden kicked out of Olympics because it is discovered he is dual citizen of USA and Sweden. Sweden does not recognize dual citizenships.Feb. 17: USA beats Canada 3-1 to win first-ever gold medal in Olympic women&rsquo;s hockey. Finland beats China 4-1 to capture bronze medal.Canadian Sports Hall of Fame announces former NHL Players&rsquo; Association head Alan Eagleson&rsquo;s membership is revoked.Feb. 18: Carolina Hurricanes sign restricted free agent Sergei Fedorov to offer sheet of $38 million over six years.Coiin Campbell fired as coach of New York Rangers.Czech Republic upsets USA 4-1 in Olympic quarterfinal. In other quarterfinal action, Canada beats Kazakhstan 4-1, Russia defeats Belarus 4-1 and Finland beats Sweden 2-1 to advance to semifinals.Feb. 19: John Muckier signs three-year (with an option for a fourth year) contract to coach Rangers.NHL announces San Jose Sharks and Calgary Flames will open 1998-99 season with two games in Japan.Feb. 20: Czech Republic beats Canada 2-1 in a shootout to advance to gold medal game of Olympic men&rsquo;s hockey tournament. Pavel Bure fires five goals to lead Russia to 7-4 win over Finland in other semifinal. &#9632;

NHL ROSTERS AND TRANSACTIONS

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0027-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-01951/7249883-1-eng-US/f0027-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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SCOREBOARD

<div class="byline">By Bob McKenzie Associate Editor</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="S0001-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0001-018/7250049-1-eng-US/s0001-012.jpg"></div>NAGANO&ndash;It was the Sunday when NHL players gathered to begin their Olympic odyssey.The Americans, all decked out in their Team USA garb, took off from San Francisco on then-private charter, out to defend their unofficial title as world champions. At the same time, up the coast in Vancouver amid much fanfare and hoopla, Team Canada trooped the colors as it boarded its own luxury charter aircraft, in search of redemption.The European NHLers-the Swedes, Finns, Czechs and Russians-had no central rallying point, no team yet to call their own. Some left from Los Angeles. Others from Vancouver. Still others from Detroit and many points in between.Well, a funny thing happened on the way to Nagano. The Czechs came together to become a team in the truest sense of the word. So did the Russians and the Finns, too. And they have the gold, silver and bronze medals to prove it.Surprised? Shocked would be a more appropriate description.Canada, the United States and Sweden, three of the four teams in one pool, were supposed to dominate the 1998 Winter Games. Canada finished fourth. The Americans and Swedes never made it as far as the semifinals. The supposedly weaker pool, with the Czechs, Russians and Finns, was expected to be nothing more than fodder. Instead, they all went home with medals.&ldquo;This is the greatest day ever in Czech hockey,&rdquo; said forward Martin Straka after his team scored a 1-0 win over Russia in the gold medal game at Big Hat Arena on Feb. 22. &ldquo;Nothing else compares.&rdquo;Eight hours after their win, at midnight in Nagano, coach Ivan Hlinka&rsquo;s team boarded a charter flight bound for Prague, where a national celebration was in full swing. The Czech team was to be honored Feb. 23 at a ceremony in Prague&rsquo;s Old Town Square.&ldquo;We will go home,&rdquo; an elated Dominik Hasek said immediately after the game.Win or lose, once the Czechs were in the gold medal game, the trip had been planned and Hasek thrilled at the thought of hundreds of thousand of Czechs sharing in the moment.When that was over, the 10 NHLers on the 23-man Czech roster would again take separate paths back to their NHL clubs, but are now linked forever as 1998 Olympic champions.It is the Czechs&rsquo; first-ever Olympic gold in the first-ever Winter Games with full-scale NHL participation.The record will show that netminder Hasek, &lsquo;The Dominator,&rsquo; led this improbable Czech team to victory, posting a pair of shutouts (against Finland and Russia) and a dramatic shootout victory (over Canada) en route to a 5-1-0 record and the gold.Hasek was good. At times he was great, especially in the 4-1 quarterfinal win that eliminated the U.S. and during the late stages and shootout of the semifinal win over Canada. The Czechs likely wouldn&rsquo;t have won gold without him. But as good as the Buffalo Sabre goalie was, he was not the focal point for this story.That honor goes to the entire Czech team, notably a much-maligned defensive crew that emerged as the tourney&rsquo;s most valiant defenders.It was a group far greater than the sum of its parts. Jiri Slegr and Richard Smehlik, regarded as two fair-to-middling NHLers, were towers of defensive strength. So, too, were Frantisek Kucera, a failed NHLer, and Jaroslav Spacek, a virtual unknown. The third pair was Roman Hamrlik and Petr Svoboda, who scored the only goal of the gold medal game when he rifled a point shot past Russian goalie Mikhail Shtalenkov at 8:08 of the third period.&ldquo;I read in a lot of places that we had the worst defense,&rdquo; Svoboda said. &ldquo;I read that we wouldn&rsquo;t be good enough. I don&rsquo;t mean to sound cocky, but we were out to prove people wrong. That was our approach.&rdquo;One of those places Svoboda read that was in The Hockey News. In the THN Olympic preview, analyst Dave King wrote:&ldquo;The (Czech) defense is marginally improved (from the World Cup)&hellip;but it&rsquo;s still not good enough&hellip;Defense is the weak link because the Czech&rsquo;s non-NHL blueliners just aren&rsquo;t good enough and the forwards aren&rsquo;t much help defensively.&rdquo;To King&rsquo;s credit, though, he raised the possibility of the Czechs making noise at the Olympics. He wrote: &ldquo;For all their shortcomings, the Czechs must be feared,&rdquo; because they can be a force &ldquo;when they are inclined to play the left wing lock, a system they pioneered and, at times, have perfected.&rdquo;That is precisely what happened. The Czechs&rsquo;-offensive stars sacrificed their offensive instincts to play the team game. Jaromir Jagr, arguably the most dangerous offensive player in the world, scored one goal in six games.&ldquo;We built up in this tournament a great team around Hasek,&rdquo; said Czech assistant coach Slava Lener.Overall, it was a magnificent team effort and an exercise in uncharacteristic defense-first hockey. The Czechs never gave up more than two goals in a game. One was an 8-2 win over Kazakhstan; the other a 2-1 round-robin loss to the Russians, where Hasek gave up two goals in 10 seconds. The Finns were blanked in the round-robin. Canada and the U.S. managed but one goal apiece and the Russians, even with nine-goal man Pavel Bure on a mission, couldn&rsquo;t score in the finale.And it&rsquo;s not as if the Czechs had an easy path. They had to knock off the highly touted Canadians and Americans in elimination games. The only hockey power they didn&rsquo;t beat, or meet, in the tourney was Sweden.&ldquo;That&rsquo;s what make it&rsquo;s so special,&rdquo; Straka said. &ldquo;We beat all the teams that were supposed to be the best.&rdquo;It was the diametric opposite of Czech fortunes during the 1996 World Cup, when they were humiliated, losing every game they played. Hasek didn&rsquo;t play in that tournament, but, again, the big difference wasn&rsquo;t so much on the ice as it was behind the bench and in the minds of the Czech players.&ldquo;We all thought we were superstars in that tournament,&rdquo; Straka said. &ldquo;But the truth is we have only two superstars, Hasek and Jagr. This time, we played like a team.&rdquo;Much of the credit for that must go to head coach Ivan Hlinka. the former Czech national great who played briefly in the NHL with the Vancouver Canucks in the early 1980s.Hlinka and Lener decided after the World Cup that if they were going to be successful in the Olympics, they had to adjust the players&rsquo; attitudes. The best way to do that, they concluded, was to use Czech players playing in European leagues as the basis on which to build the team. As crucial as Hasek, Jagr, Robert Reichel, who scored three key goals in the Olympics, Martin Rucinsky and the other NHLers would be, Hlinka wanted to reward Czech players who have great pride in Czech hockey. So, Pavel Patera, a center who plays in Sweden, keyed one line with Milan Hejduk and Martin Prochazka. Former NHLer Vladimir Ruzicka, regarded as a soft floater in his NHL days, centered Straka and Jagr and scored three goals.One line, Jiri Dopita between ex-NHLer Josef Beranek and David Moravec, consisted entirely of players from the Czech League.&ldquo;Something many people in the NHL and North America may not realize is that after you get past the first seven or eight Czechs in the NHL, many of the Czechs playing in Europe are as good as the others in the NHL,&rdquo; Lener said. &ldquo;So we learned from the World Cup disaster. Ivan and myself, we met individually with each player over the summer and laid out the plan. The players went for it. Still, we were not a team when we first came here, but we grew into a team.&rdquo;The two teams most inspired not to duplicate World Cup disasters were the Czechs and Russians, whose bad chemistry in 1996 was a major problem. It&rsquo;s no coincidence they were the final two teams playing in the Olympics.Much was made of the differences between European hockey and the North American brand, except the philosophy embraced by the Czechs and Russians is universal-the best team, not the team with the best players, usually wins outHlinka gets full credit for putting it all together. &ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t have been here if he wasn&rsquo;t coaching,&rdquo; said Svoboda, who defected from communist Czechoslovakia in 1984. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t play in the World Cup because they didn&rsquo;t have the right people in charge. Ivan knows how to treat hockey players.&rdquo;It was emotional for all the Czechs, but for none more than Svoboda. After he defected, his family&rsquo;s life became a living hell. His father, a coach in the Czech League, lost his job. His brother wasn&rsquo;t permitted to travel abroad. After watching the Czech flag being raised and the national anthem played. Svoboda said, &ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t heard that in a long time.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0002-0219/7250042-1-eng-US/s0002-022.jpg" title="S0002-02" width="1255" height="1866"><figcaption class="caption-body">Olympic tournament standout Dominik Hasek shows off his gold medal. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/BBS)</figcaption></div>The Russians were disappointed not to win the gold, but still thrilled with the silver medal. So many of the top Russian stars, from netminder Nikolai Khabibulin to defensemen Vladimir Malakhov and Sergei Zubov to forward Alexander Mogilny, opted not to make themselves available to the team.GM Alexei Kasatonov, like Hlinka. focused on getting players who cared about restoring Russian hockey pride on the world stage. The plan paid off-the gold medal game loss was Russia&rsquo;s only blemish in six games, though they never got the chance to meet Canada, Sweden or the U.S.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m grateful to my team and my players,&rdquo; said Russian coach Vladimir Yurzinov said. &ldquo;Our team represented our country very well.&rdquo;MEN&rsquo;S MEDALISTSGOLD: CZECHTriumph of defense & &lsquo;Dominator&rsquo;SILVER: RUSSIAWonderful return to gloryBRONZE: FINLANDFinns complete European hat-trick<h2>ROAD TO FINAL</h2>When the Czechs were attempting to use the boardroom and the Ulf Samuelsson controversy in a bid to gain an easier route to the gold medal game, Wayne Gretzky admonished them.&ldquo;The Czechs should just go out and play hockey,&rdquo; Gretzky said. &ldquo;If they don&rsquo;t like (the Samuelsson ruling), go home. If they can&rsquo;t beat (the opposition) on the ice, they don&rsquo;t deserve to be here.&rdquo;To the surprise of many, the Czechs went out and played hockey.After going 2-1-0 in the roundrobin-including a 3-0 shutout win over Finland Feb. 13, an 8-2 walkover of Kazakhstan Feb. 15 and a 2-1 loss to Russia Feb. 16&ndash;the Czechs used the stellar netminding of Dominik Hasek to post a surprising 4-1 win over the United States in the quarterfinal playoff Feb. 18. Hasek stopped 38 of 39 shots in a game largely controlled by the U.S.The Czechs came up with a much better team effort in the semifinal, scoring a dramatic 2-1 shootout win over Canada Feb. 20. In the 60 minutes of regulation time and 10-minute overtime period, the Czechs forced Canadian goalie Patrick Roy to be at the top of his game. Hasek was brilliant in the shootout, stopping all five Canadian shooters. Robert Reichel scored for the Czechs.The Russians, meanwhile, had a somewhat easier path to the gold medal game, but to their credit never lost a game. They blew away Kazakhstan 9-2 to open the tournament Feb. 13, rallied from a 3-1 deficit to beat Finland 4-3 Feb. 15 and scored two goals in 10 seconds to erase a 1-0 Czech lead Feb. 16 for a 30-0 round-robin record.Coach Vladimir Yurzinov&rsquo;s team beat Belarus 4-1 in the quarterfinal Feb. 18. Led by team captain Pavel Bure&rsquo;s five-goal effort, Russia beat Finland 7-4 in the other semifinal Feb. 20.<h2>GOLDEN GAME</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0002-0137/7250035-1-eng-US/s0002-012.jpg" title="S0002-01" width="476" height="485"></div>Sum greater than parts &#9632;

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OLYMPIC FEATURES

Czeching game key to historic gold

<div class="byline">&#x2014;Bob McKenzie</div>NAGANO&ndash;Critics of Canadian hockey have long said the country&rsquo;s young players aren&rsquo;t taught the skills of the game as much as they&rsquo;re taught how to win it.So where does that leave the state of the game north of the 49th parallel today?It was all well and good to have critics take their shots at Canadian skill level because the bottom line was the bottom line. That is, Canada won more meaningful international games and tournaments than it lost.But Canada&rsquo;s fourth-place finish at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano is the second consecutive major failure on the world stage. The first was losing the 1996 World Cup to the United States.Canada&rsquo;s semifinal shootout loss to Dominik Hasek and the Czechs in Nagano was perhaps more palatable than losing the World Cup to the Americans. Defeat came in a shootout, not a real game.There&rsquo;s no question Canada&rsquo;s 1998 Olympic experience was more aesthetically pleasing than the World Cup debacle. But Canadians have always maintained the bottom line is winning. And now they&rsquo;re not.Not the World Cup. Not the Olympic gold, silver or even bronze, thanks to a 3-2 loss to Finland to close out the topsy-turvy Olympic tourney.&ldquo;It has been a rough couple of years for Canadian hockey,&rdquo; Wayne Gretzky saidCanada had to work far too hard for its goals in this tournament. Going into the gold medal game, Pave! Bure had nine goals for Russia. Teemu Selanne had four for Finland, as did Jere Lehtinen.Canada had a solid team-five players scored two goals each and two, Eric Lindros and Joe Nieuwendyk, led the way with five points each-but no individual was capable of being that dynamic scoring force.Well, there was one, but Paul Kariya was at home nursing the concussion that kept him out of the tournament.&ldquo;There are a lot of heartbroken people in Canada because we didn&rsquo;t do well here,&rdquo; said Team Canada coach Marc Crawford.&ldquo;We know that. All I can say is that we won as a team, we lost as a team and now we face the music as a team. We wanted to be No. 1, that&rsquo;s what makes (Canadians) special. But we didn&rsquo;t win and now we must accept the scrutiny.&rdquo;Czech assistant coach Slava Lener said Canadians must come to terms with the new world order in international hockey.&ldquo;I am a great fan of Canadian hockey and I do not believe it is in trouble, as some people suggest,&rdquo; Lener said,&rdquo;but there are now six teams in the world, maybe seven because of the Slovaks, who are tough to beat. Hockey is getting like soccer. At the World Cup of soccer, there are 15 teams who can win it. Now, in hockey, there are maybe seven teams that can win. It&rsquo;s not just Canada&rsquo;s game now, it&rsquo;s the world&rsquo;s game.&rdquo; &#9632;

Hockey more than Canada’s game now

<div class="image-hero"><img title="S0003-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0003-0128/7250361-1-eng-US/s0003-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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THE HOCKEY NEWS REPORT CARD

<div class="byline">By Jay Greenberg</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0004-0134/7250392-1-eng-US/s0004-012.jpg" title="S0004-01" width="382" height="539"></div>NAGANO&ndash;The U.S. Olympic hockey team ran into more than just a hot bartender and two even hotter goalies. The Americans hit a short tournament that they attacked with an attention span apparently far shorter than their nights.They played like trash, then some of them trashed the village like the village idiots before returning to NHL teams who can make them far more accountable for their behavior than could Lou Lamoriello and Ron Wilson. They had nothing to hold over these extended adolescents but their pride, which obviously was in short supply when they got off the bus in Nagano.College kids binging on a weekend, street punks looking for trouble on street comers, couldn&rsquo;t have behaved any more poorly than star professionals performing in an Olympics for the first time.Never mind how poorly the Americans played. Any expectation that they were automatic for a final against Canada were held only by the misinformed who didn&rsquo;t understand the larger ice surfaces, how many superstars played on European teams and the crapshoot nature of a one-game elimination tournament.The U.S. representatives owed America nothing but to represent it with class and dignity. And they couldn&rsquo;t, wouldn&rsquo;t do it.Not all of them behaved badly, of course. Some were mortified by the approach of their teammates, Even Chris Chelios, who has used beer for fuel for 14 NHL seasons, complained privately about how little pride his teammates were taking in their work. As usual, he set a great example on the ice and a bad one on the town.While some Americans were out boozing, even on nights before afternoon games, the Canadians held nightly ice cream parties at the village. Alas, loaded with expectations, talent, and, as it turns out, carbohydrates, Canada didn&rsquo;t win a medal either, but at least left with its dignity.The Americans came here to take a mid-season vacation. They looked at three games that couldn&rsquo;t eliminate them and failed to realize they were in a tournament where you had to hit the ground running. &ldquo;We didn&rsquo;t have to win those games,&rdquo; said goalie Mike Richter. &ldquo;But we had to play better than we did. We never hit stride like at the World Cup, never got to the same level of confidence.&rdquo;Some of them never got out of the bars. All of them got out of the first period of the quarterfinal game against the Czechs leading 1-0, which put them in position to dictate the style of game. Instead, Wilson said his team became uptight when, after dominating the period, it didn&rsquo;t have any more than a 1-0 lead. How much more than that would you need at that point of the game?Turns out, a lot more, especially since Richter and Brian Leetch were playing like they had been most of the year for the New York Rangers. Dominik Hasek, every team&rsquo;s worst nightmare in a one-game elimination test, made some good stops, but not as many as the Americans chose to believe. The only time they made the goalie come across to make a save was on Mike Modano&rsquo;s first period goal.Chelios was the only U.S. player who was strong throughout the four games. Brett Hull was productive until the final one. Keith Tkachuk made some hits and put a sizzler on Hasek that the goalie sticked away when a goal could have made a difference.Otherwise, the American effort ranged from the mediocre (Modano, Doug Weight, Adam Deadmarsh, Pat LaFontaine, Tony Amonte) to terrible (John LeClair, Jeremy Roenick, Mathieu Schneider) to overmatched on the big ice (Joel Otto, Kevin Hatcher).Wilson called the team to the bench for a dressing down during an early second-game power play, benched counter-productive players (Bryan Berard), tried the old motivational video trick before the Czech game and changed the game plan to allow a more aggressive approach.The response improved somewhat, but the well-timed goal and big-time save never came, so the team&rsquo;s confidence never grew, unlike the sense of disgust over the $3,000 damage left behind. That, and some bitter parting words from Tkachuk was the legacy of the first American hockey millionaires to come to the Winter Olympics.&ldquo;It was a waste of time coming here without winning a gold medal,&rdquo; Tkachuk said. He meant it in the sense of how you can never be satisfied with just showing up, but it was still a stupid, easily-taken-out-of-con-text remark. Americans don&rsquo;t get any uglier than when they don&rsquo;t win and want to take their toys home.In this case, they threw an opportunity almost all of us would die for out the window, along with chairs, a fire extinguisher and any respect they had gained in winning the World Cup. &#9632;

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American Olympians were uglier than ever

<div class="byline">By Bob McKenzie Associate Editor</div>NAGANO&ndash;This was supposed to be an analysis of what went wrong on the ice for the U.S. Olympic hockey team in Nagano. Unfortunately for all involved, the on-ice woes became almost moot after an embarrassing incident that was more in keeping with a frat house keg party than the Olympic Games.In the wee hours of Feb. 19, a dozen hours or so after the Americans were eliminated in the quarterfinal by the Czech Republic, an unknown number of U.S. players caused about $3,000 (U.S.) damage to three fifth-floor apartments in the athletes&rsquo; village. Ten chairs were broken and the apartments were damaged by fire extinguishers that were activated. The chairs and one fire extinguisher were tossed off the balconies to a common area below. The incident occurred at roughly 4 a.m.Both USA Hockey and the NHL offered to pay for the damages. USA Hockey also issued a formal apology to the US Olympic Committee.The NHL also issued a statement, suggesting NHL security will work with all involved governing bodies to investigate the incident. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, who said he has wide-ranging powers regarding conduct unbecoming of the game, was non-committal on whether NHL disciplinary action is a possibility.Not surprisingly, with thousands of media members on hand to cover the Games, the incident took on a life of its own, including inaccurate stories of physical harm being caused to Olympic athlete(s) because of the U.S. players&rsquo; actions and wild speculation of which players were involved.Whatever the case, it was a nasty black eye for the NHL in its first fullscale participation at the Olympics. If nothing else, the incident added credence to the widely-held belief that a number of American players didn&rsquo;t take their jobs seriously as some were seen in bars late at night or early in the morning.Coach Ron Wilson and the players, prior to the incident, downplayed that notion and suggested the U.S. was beaten primarily by a couple of hot goaltenders-Patrick Roy of Canada and, ultimately, Dominik Hasek of the Czech Republic. While Team USA&rsquo;s play did improve over the course of the tournament and hot goalies were a factor, there were a number of shortcomings that proved fatal.Start with that inability to score goals. What do John LeClair, Keith Tkachuk, Tony Amonte, Jeremy Roenick, Bill Guerin and Doug Weight have in common? All six of them failed to score a goal in four Olympic games.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0004-0215/7250423-1-eng-US/s0004-022.jpg" title="S0004-02" width="811" height="1632"><figcaption class="caption-body">Heavy hitter John LeClair failed to score in four Olympic games. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/BBS)</figcaption></div>&ldquo;We got frustrated when we couldn&rsquo;t score,&rdquo; Wilson said. &ldquo;That led to breakdowns in other areas.&rdquo;Even in a 5-2 win over Belarus Feb. 14, the Americans failed to score an even-strength goal until the final two minutes of the game and scored two goals that game with 5-on-3 advantages.&ldquo;You can&rsquo;t say we didn&rsquo;t give it our all,&rdquo; said Tkachuk, who didn&rsquo;t have a good game in the tournament. &ldquo;We just couldn&rsquo;t pull the trigger when we had to.&rdquo;Perhaps, but the U.S. party line that the team showed steady improvement and would have been in gold medal contention if not for Hasek and Roy was a little too neat and tidy. And Mike Modano knew it.&ldquo;We know we&rsquo;ve got great offensive players on this team and, sure, it was frustrating to not score the goals,&rdquo; Modano said,&rdquo;but you have to play great defense, too, and we didn&rsquo;t do that.&rdquo;The U.S. had a 2-1 lead on Sweden in the tourney-opening game Feb. 13 and surrendered three consecutive goals to lose 4-2. In the second game against Belarus, the U.S. team defense repeatedly broke down, allowing the inferior Belarussians to remain in the game until the final eight minutes. It was more of the same against Canada and a horrendous second period against the Czechs effectively put them on the sidelines.Mostly, though, it boiled down to players who were struggling in the NHL struggling in the Olympics. The defensive pairing of Brian Leetch and Derian Hatcher was the U.S.&rsquo;s best in the 1996 World Cup, but failed mightily here. Leetch was a minus-4 and was victimized on a key turnover against the Czechs. Derian Hatcher was only minus-1, but didn&rsquo;t assert himself the way he has for the Dallas Stars. The worst pairing was Kevin Hatcher (minus-5) and Mathieu Schneider (minus-1). In fact, Kevin Hatcher played so poorly he was benched in the Czech game and never got on the ice.Complicating matters was the play of netminder Mike Richter. He was the MVP of the World Cup, stealing the title away from Canada. This time, he was merely average. Not horrendous by any stretch, just average, behind a well below-average defensive unit.&ldquo;I&rsquo;m proud of our effort even though it doesn&rsquo;t look good on paper,&rdquo; Wilson said.Wilson&rsquo;s protestations to the contrary, at no time in the Olympic tournament did the Americans play with the swagger and confidence they had in the World Cup. They were on a roll there; they were in a rut here.&ldquo;I just can&rsquo;t believe a team from the USA could come all this way and end up with nothing,&rdquo; Tkachuk said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m a big believer that if you don&rsquo;t win the gold, it doesn&rsquo;t mean anything. If you don&rsquo;t win the gold, it&rsquo;s a waste of time.&rdquo;A nightmare, actually. The U.S. Nightmare in Nagano. &#9632;

S0004-02

Nightmare in Nagano

<div class="image-hero"><img title="S0005-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0005-0133/7250454-1-eng-US/s0005-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

S0005-01

<div class="byline">By Damien Cox</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0006-0139/7250492-1-eng-US/s0006-012.jpg" title="S0006-01" width="380" height="538"></div>NAGANO&ndash;Live by the sword of the shootout, die by it. Canada had twice survived in major international competitions by winning shootouts-the 1992 Olympics against Germany, the final of the 1994 World Championship-and only been vanquished once by that same process, that at the 1994 Winter Games in Norway.In Nagano at the 1998 Olympics, the shootout was the sword that destroyed Canada&rsquo;s gold medal aspirations.But why did it have to go through Brendan Shanahan&rsquo;s heart? There was, after all, a strange kind of symbolism to each of the five Canadian shooters who fell victim to Dominik Hasek&rsquo;s wicked magic.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0006-0223/7250485-1-eng-US/s0006-022.jpg" title="S0006-02" width="554" height="898"></div>Theo Fleury, hounded by his stature all his life, just couldn&rsquo;t get the puck up high enough when Hasek flopped.Ray Bourque, who had repeatedly turned his back on playing for his country, couldn&rsquo;t deliver when he finally agreed to join the cause.Eric Lindros&rsquo; perfect backhand move fooled Hasek, but the puck hit the post. Just barely off the mark, but tantalizingly close, which sums up Lindros&rsquo; pro career to date.Joe Nieuwendyk couldn&rsquo;t quite control the puck, just as he his international hockey experiences have so frequently been destroyed by forces out of his control.Last of al! came Shanahan, but there was no symbolism or poetry here. If there was, the 29-year-old would have roofed a beauty to at least extend the shootout, nailed a shot to express the sense of pure Canadian love for the sport.In a 12-year career played entirely in the United States, Shanahan has never lost one speck of the sense that he is Canadian through and through, and fiercely proud of his country&rsquo;s hockey heritage. He has been part of a Stanley Cup champion, participated with distinction internationally and he has always answered the call.That puck should have gone in.&ldquo;You feel like you let your team down and you let your country down,&rdquo; said a choked-up Shanahan afterwards. &ldquo;The Olympics are playing for your country, especially when you come over here so far away. You know it was such an effort made by the entire league to shut the league down. It is a crushing feeling.&rdquo;In the run-up to the Olympics, Shanahan had been front and center, combining with straight man Rob Blake to star in a series of Canadian television commercials that were hilarious. In one, Shanahan and Blake sit on the bench rolling their eyes as Bob Clarke re-tells yams from the 1972 Summit Series. In another, the two hold glasses to the wall and against their ears while trying to eavesdrop on a Russian meeting before acknowledging that neither understands the Russian language.But once in Nagano. Shanahan&rsquo;s game disappeared. He started on a line with Joe Sakic, was bumped to a unit with Wayne Gretzky, but never found his confidence or his shooting eye. Shanahan scored two goals in the toumament-nobody on the Canadian team scored more than that-but more was expected.When he scored his first goal of the tournament in the quarterfinal against Kazakhstan, it seemed like coach Marc Crawford breathed a sigh of relief, knowing one of his most reliable workers was back in the hunt. Except there was no subsequent score, no follow-up brilliance, just a fellow who always seemed caught going in the wrong direction.Why Shanahan&rsquo;s confidence vanished is unclear, for he is among the most consistently confident of NHL players. Perhaps that is his appeal, that he is a flawed character on the hockey stage, not a brilliant skater, but a tough cookie, not a end-to-end scorer, but one who gets them when it matters most.He is a sportsman and when he couldn&rsquo;t beat Hasek in that shootout, he didn&rsquo;t run and hide. Instead he sought out those who he knew would ask him tough questions. True grit.That puck should have gone in, even if Canada had still gone on to lose. Fair is fair, and Shanahan has always given at least as much as he has received from the game he loves. &#9632;

S0006-01

Shanahan deserved better fate in shootout

<div class="byline">By Steve Keating</div>NAGANO&ndash;When the NHL arrived in Nagano the Olympic motto was faster, higher, stronger.By the time some of the players-notably the Americans-left, it was partying, trashing, apologizing.The appearance of NHL players in the Olympic Games was designed to bring unprecedented exposure to a sport. It achieved that goal, but partly for the wrong reasons.It was citizenship, not Sudafed, that resulted in a player being banned and a drunken act, not a victory celebration, that grabbed the headlines in the buildup to the gold medal final between Russia and the Czech Republic.For North American hockey fans, the Games reached a premature climax when Canada lost a semifinal shootout 2-1 to the Czech Republic. At that point the sound of television converters clicking to Baywatch could be heard echoing through the Japanese Alps.&ldquo;We never had the belief the U.S. going to the gold medal game would be the justification of going to the Olympics,&rdquo; said NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, putting a positive spin on a hard-to-sell all-Eastem European gold medal game. &ldquo;There have been a couple of upsets, which is what we promised going in. Any of the six teams really could have won.&rdquo;It was Bettman&rsquo;s assertion the addition of NHL players created a Dream Tournament, not just a Dream Team and a series of one-sided blowouts, but a real competition.But such hyperbole did little to convince a cynical world media they were seeing the best the sport had to offer. In four games, the United States&rsquo; star-studded NHL lineup produced a single win, a modest 5-2 victory over Belarus. And when the puck was dropped for the gold medal final, the three medal favorites-Canada, Sweden and the United States-were out.While the Americans&rsquo; performance on the ice did nothing to enhance the NHL&rsquo;s image, the some of the players&rsquo; un-Olympian behavior away from the rink-culminating in the 4 a.m. trashing of rooms in the athletes&rsquo; village after their 4-1 quarterfinal loss to the Czechs-tumed the Dream Tournament into a public relations nightmare.The day before a much anticipated quarterfinal clash between Nordic rivals Sweden and Finland, the tournament found itself mired in its first controversy when Ulf Samuelsson had his Olympic credentials taken away because of citizenship dispute.The International Ice Hockey Federation ruled the New York Rangers&rsquo; defenseman is no longer a Swede, having effectively waived his Swedish citizenship by obtaining a U.S. passport. Swedish law prohibits dual citizenship.Under IIHF rules, a team using an ineligible must forfeit any games in which that player has participated-which should have resulted in the Swedes having their two wins taken away and dropping to the bottom of the Group C standings.The Czechs filed the protest, believing it would result in an easier quarterfinal matchup against Belarus. Russia immediately filed a counter-protest, claiming it would be penalized for finishing first by having to face a tougher opponent.In the end, the decision was left to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which ruled Samuelsson would be banned from the Games, but Sweden would retain its points. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s very sad for hockey,&rdquo; said IIHF president Rene Fasel.Canada&rsquo;s 3-2 loss to Finland in the bronze medal final likely marked the last international appearance by former-Edmonton Ollers teammates Wayne Gretzky and Jari Kurri for their respective countries. While Kurri left the international stage with the medal he coveted, Gretzky will finish his career without the one title he desperately wanted-Olympic champion. &#9632;

NHL plays to mixed reviews in Olympic debut

<div class="byline">By Bob McKenzie Associate Editor</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="S0008-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0008-0129/7250561-1-eng-US/s0008-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Shelly Looney scores the gold medal-winning goal against Canada&rsquo;s Manon Rheaume.</figcaption></div>NAGANO-The first woman to wear an Olympic gold medal for hockey was talking about what it meant to be an Olympian or, more to the point, what it would mean to no longer be one.&ldquo;What it means is that I&rsquo;m going to have to get a job,&rdquo; said Team USA captain Cammi Granato.But not before she joined her teammates for a trip to Hawaii to celebrate the Americans&rsquo; 3-1 victory over Canada Feb. 17 that clinched the gold medal in the 1998 Winter Olympics. After that, though, Granato, like the game she plays, will be sailing into some uncharted waters.Marriage? Perhaps. Kids? Ditto. A job? Well, woman cannot live on gold medal alone, though one suspects the personable 26-year-old sister of NHL player Tony Granato could parlay it as far as anyone. She reportedly has a number of job offers, including one with the public relations department of the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim.But there is the issue of hockey. Her hockey. Where and for whom she&rsquo;ll play. Like most of the women who made history as 1998 Olympic pioneers, Granato left Nagano looking for a game.&ldquo;This has been a great experience, a dream come true,&rdquo; Granato said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve always wanted to be able to have a lifestyle like my brother and this season I got the opportunity to be a real hockey player, day in and day out. And to win the gold medal, I can&rsquo;t put into words how I feel. It&rsquo;s overwhelming.&ldquo;But I still want to play hockey.The Olympics are over. The younger kids on the team have college teams to go back to. I don&rsquo;t. Neither do a lot of others. I&rsquo;ve thought about moving to Toronto because that&rsquo;s where the best (women&rsquo;s) hockey is being played. But what do I do for a job? I&rsquo;m an American, can I work there? My boyfriend is a Canadian (from Montreal). I think I&rsquo;m going to have to get him to marry me so I can live there. So many of us are wondering, &lsquo;Where are we going to go to play hockey?&rsquo;&rdquo;It&rsquo;ll be another four years until the next Winter Games. There&rsquo;ll be World Championships every year, tournaments here and training camps there. But nothing quite like this Olympic year has been for the 40 women on the U.S. and Canadian Olympic teams who waged war while advancing the cause for their sport and living out dreams as full-time hockey players.The gold medal game at the Big Hat arena was the 15th meeting this season between the arch-rivals. The U.S. won eight, Canada seven. But it was the Americans who won when it counted most-when gold was on the line-and it was the Americans who won five of the last seven meetings, including a win at the Three Nations Cup in Lake Placid in December and a bitterly contested 7-4 win in the round-robin portion of the Olympic tourney.That game, which Canada led 4-1 in the third period, was marred by a post-game incident involving Canada&rsquo;s Danielle Goyette, who was playing with a heavy heart because of the death of her father a week earlier. The Canadian team alleged an American player, believed to be Sandra Whyte, made a reference to that during the handshake. Goyette stormed off the ice in tears. Though the Americans vehemently denied making any comments about Goyette&rsquo;s father, Whyte did admit she said something to Goyette she regretted.After the gold medal game, Whyte accused Team Canada coach Shannon Miller of manufacturing the controversy.&ldquo;I think it&rsquo;s sad that a coach would use a player&rsquo;s grief as a motivational tool,&rdquo; Whyte said.Miller said the incident was in the past and at no time did she publicly suggest which player said what.In the final game, though, there was little bad blood, just an entertaining, fast-paced match played within the rules.Including the gold-medal game, Team USA was a perfect 6-0-0 in the Olympics. Canada finished 4-2-0, with both losses coming to the U.S.Entering the Olympics, Miller referred to her team as &ldquo;a dry field on fire,&rdquo; but in the end, it simply burned out, beaten by a better team that peaked at the right moment.Though the game came down to an empty-net goal, scored by Whyte, with the Americans life and death to hang on to a 2-1 lead in the third period, the better team won.Canada, riddled with injuries to key players, played a gritty, determined game and if not for the goaltending heroics of Sarah Tueting in the U.S. net just as easily could have won a gold medal to go with four consecutive World Championship titles, all of which came at the expense of the Americans.But the Americans were bigger, stronger, faster and seemingly more athletic than their Canadian counterparts. Their overall team play and sense of organization was superior, too.Tara Mounsey, Angela Ruggiero and Chris Bailey anchored the U.S. defense, using their size, speed and strength to advantage. Up front, Karyn Bye, Laurie Baker, Whyte, A.J. Mleczko and Tricia Dunn, among others, cycled the puck with great success and forechecked relentlessly.Canada&rsquo;s only clear edge was experience, the pressure-treated ability to rise to the occasion, often on great individual efforts on rink-length dashes.The first period ended goalless with both Tueting and Canada&rsquo;s Manon Rheaume coming up with some excellent saves. Gretchen Ulion scored a power play goal early in the second period to give the U.S. a 1-0 lead. Canada couldn&rsquo;t convert on its own power plays in that period, largely because of the Americans&rsquo; high-pressure tactics.Canada came out flying in the third period, red wave after red wave going to the American net without success. When Goyette was called for bodychecking midway through the third, Shelley Looney scored another power play goal to make it 2-0.It was Looney who suffered a broken jaw when she blocked a shot in overtime at the World Championship last year in Kitchener. The feisty winger was about to get herself back in the game that night when Canada&rsquo;s Nancy Drolet scored the overtime winner.&ldquo;It was hard for me to take that,&rdquo; Looney said amid the victorious U.S. throng. &ldquo;This is sweet, so sweet. To score the winning goal, to win the gold medal, it&rsquo;s all too much.&rdquo;Canada finally responded with a power play goal of its own. by Goyette, late in the third, setting up the dramatic final moments. Canadian captain Stacy Wilson almost tied it with 70 seconds remaining. With 54 seconds left. Miller pulled Rheaume for an extra attacker. The bid failed when Whyte scored the empty-netter.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0009-0120/7250554-1-eng-US/s0009-012.jpg" title="S0009-01" width="2135" height="1207"><figcaption class="caption-body">Once their golden dream was shattered, Canada couldn&rsquo;t hide the anguish of going home with silver. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/BBS)</figcaption></div>Let the celebrations begin.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve coached hockey at a lot of different levels,&rdquo; said U.S. coach Ben Smith, a former collegian player and men&rsquo;s coach who had previously been an assistant at the Olympics (1988), World Championships (1987, 1990) and World Junior Championships (1985, &rsquo;86, &rsquo;87). &ldquo;I can honestly say I&rsquo;ve never been more moved by the effort and dedication of the players on any team.&rdquo;Where does it rank, he was asked.He put up one finger and said nothing. When asked to elaborate, he put the finger up again and shook it.It was the crowning achievement for a burgeoning U.S. women&rsquo;s hockey program.The American women whooped it up in a scene not dissimilar to the men&rsquo;s 1980 Miracle on Ice in Lake Placid.Six-year veteran Bye (whose first name is pronounced KAR-in) draped herself in a big American flag a la Jim Craig, a move she had planned long ago.&ldquo;Yeah, I guess it was to emulate Jim Craig, but that flag was from my bedroom and I brought it to the team at Christmas for that moment,&rdquo; Bye said. &ldquo;To tell you the truth, I don&rsquo;t watch that much NHL hockey. I was nine when they won the gold in 1980. That was such an inspiration to me. I remember playing hockey in the basement with my brother and I would say, &lsquo;The puck goes to Bill Baker, No. 6, with the puck, the shot from the point.&rsquo; The funny thing is Bill Baker read that story somewhere and he sent me an email before this game wishing us luck. It&rsquo;s funny, now I&rsquo;m No. 6, I play the point on the power play. Maybe there&rsquo;s a little girl out there saying, &lsquo;The puck goes to Karyn Bye, No. 6, with the puck, the shot from the point.&rsquo; It&rsquo;s neat to think maybe I&rsquo;ll be someone else&rsquo;s inspiration.&rdquo;The Canadian team was inconsolable in defeat, awaiting the medal ceremony. Team USA left the ice briefly, composed itself in its dressing room and returned, each player with her own miniature flag. They stood holding hands until it was time for the medal presentation, the first one going around the neck of captain Granato.Tears flooded out of her eyes as the crowd roared. The American flag was hoisted and the players sang the national anthem proudly.&ldquo;Karyn (Bye) said to me, &lsquo;You&rsquo;re the first woman (hockey player) to wear an Olympic gold medal, the first woman ever,&rdquo; Granato said. &ldquo;That was a most amazing feeling. I was struck by the emotion of it. It&rsquo;s for us, for our team, but it&rsquo;s also for all of women&rsquo;s hockey.&rdquo;WOMEN&rsquo;S MEDALISTS GOLD: USAMakes history with victorySILVER: CANADALoses first major championshipBRONZE: FINLANDFifth 3rd-place world finish<h2>GOLDEN GAME</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0009-027/7250547-1-eng-US/s0009-022.jpg" title="S0009-02" width="492" height="588"></div><div class="sidebar">U.S. savors gold rush &#9632;</div>

S0008-01

U.S. A-Plus

<div class="byline">By Bob McKenzie Associate Editor</div>NAGANO&ndash;It would be easy to blame the woman in black for Canada&rsquo;s loss to USA in the sport&rsquo;s first Olympic gold medal game. Too easy.That is not to say Canadian coach Shannon Miller, who wears all black behind the bench, is without fault. But neither is it to say Canada was merely the victim of a bad bounce or two in a critical game.True, the 15-game series between the two teams this season was close, 8-7-0 in favor of the Americans. But the Americans decisively won the Three Nations Cup in Lake Placid before Christmas and twice beat Canada in the Olympics. Of the last seven meetings, Canada won two.After years of playing second fiddle to the Canadians, the Americans haven&rsquo;t drawn even with them. They&rsquo;ve passed them. Ben Smith&rsquo;s team isn&rsquo;t invincible, but it is the better team. Here&rsquo;s why Canada lost the gold medal:COACHING: The U.S. advantage behind the bench is not as vast as Miller&rsquo;s harshest critics would have you believe, but there is an advantage and one only has to compare the teams&rsquo; two styles to see it.The Americans&rsquo; system of team play at the Olympics, on everything from breakouts to forechecking to power play and penalty killing, was more refined than Canada&rsquo;s. Canada relied more on individual effort than team play.Smith&rsquo;s experience is impressive. He&rsquo;s a career U.S. men&rsquo;s college coach who has been an assistant on U.S. men&rsquo;s entries in the Olympics, World Championships and World Junior Championships. He&rsquo;s pressure-treated and he glided through the Games without missing a beat.Miller&rsquo;s experience within the women&rsquo;s game is vast, but she has never been to an event the scope of the Olympics and seemed out of her element in terms of dealing with the spotlight, specifically the media.Mind you, Canadian Hockey&rsquo;s successful program of excellence would not permit a national team to enter the Olympics if it didn&rsquo;t believe all bases were covered. If Miller&rsquo;s strength is as a motivator, the technical end of the game is covered off by her staff. It is, however, a matter of emphasis and the Americans&rsquo; emphasis on team play and systems was greater than Canada&rsquo;s.Still, the core of the team is solidly behind the Calgary cop, who was a candidate for a lucrative coaching position with the University of Minnesota-Duluth women&rsquo;s program.&ldquo;She&rsquo;s the best coach I&rsquo;ve ever had and I hope she stays with the program,&rdquo; said veteran Canadian forward Karen Nystrom. &ldquo;I like her because she&rsquo;s right out front about everything. Black is black, white is white and with Shannon you know it.&rdquo;Be that as it may. Miller&rsquo;s explanation for having the team&rsquo;s top Olympic scorer, Danielle Goyette (eight goals in six games, including Canada&rsquo;s only marker in that game) on the bench in the final minute with the goaltender pulled was unsatisfactory. Miller said. &ldquo;These are the players who have practised our six-on-five play.&rdquo; A coach has to make adjustments and not having the team&rsquo;s most dangerous scorer on the ice in the final minute simply makes no sense.BETTER YOUNGER ATHLETES: Canada has some excellent young talent, including Hayley Wickenheiser, Jennifer Botterill and Jayna Hefford, but the Americans are turning out more young players who are bigger, stronger and faster. The U.S. twin towers on defense-Tara Mounsey, 19, and Angela Ruggiero, 18-play a pro-style, physically dominating game in a sport that, technically, doesn&rsquo;t permit bodychecking.Up front, the emergence of players such as Katie King, a 22-year-old, 5-foot-8, 165-pound power forward, provides another physical edge. King&rsquo;s first appearance on the U.S. team was at the World Championship last spring in Kitchener. Less than a year later, she&rsquo;s an impact player.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s the U.S. college system,&rdquo; Miller said. &ldquo;It encourages young girls to train as high-performance athletes and gives them an opportunity to be on the ice every day. I&rsquo;m going to tell any young Canadian girl who has the chance to go south and play college hockey to do it.&rdquo;In the final minute, Canada&rsquo;s six players averaged 26, including three players in their 30s. The five U.S. skaters, meanwhile, averaged 23 and the oldest player was 27.INJURIES: Canada&rsquo;s top player Wickenheiser was badly hobbled with knee and elbow injuries. Laura Schuler was gamely playing without any anterior cruciate ligament in her knee. There were others playing hurt, too, and because Canada&rsquo;s depth players weren&rsquo;t as strong as the Americans&rsquo; depth players, it was a factor.PSYCHOLOGY: The U.S. was always the hunter, never the hunted. For Canada, being the team to beat, the standard by which others judge themselves, caused great emotional fatigue. As favorites, the pressure was always on Canada and the weight of those expectations was heavy indeed. Starting now, the roles are reversed.<div class="sidebar">Roles now reversed &#9632;</div>

How Canada lost grip on supremacy

<div class="byline">By Alan Adams</div>NAGANO&ndash;The first Olympic women&rsquo;s hockey tournament ended as expected, with no miracle on ice, just a magical moment for the Americans.But way before the Americans went 6-0-0 and outscored their opponents 36-8, the debate was raging whether the sport is mature enough to compete in the Winter Olympics.The gold medal final showcased the sport at its best. But too many of the 16 other games didn&rsquo;t, including the 4I win by Finland over China for the bronze medal which exposed the gap between the haves and have-nots.The number of teams who can play at an elite level can be counted on three fingers-Canada, the U.S. and Finland.With talk about a pro league heard on a regular basis, it has been suggested the women should pause before they leap because if the pro league fails, it could cause a lot of harm to the sport.It was a historic day for the sport Feb. 8 when Finnish goalie Tuula Pup-utti skated out on the ice at the Aqua Wing arena for the first-ever women&rsquo;s game against Sweden under the Olympic rings. &ldquo;It came to mind that this was a very special game,&rdquo; she said afterward.However, back in Stockholm, Rickard Fagerlund, president of the Swedish Ice Hockey Federation, only watched the game on tape delay because he had to.&ldquo;They aren&rsquo;t good enough to be in the Olympics,&rdquo; Fagerlund said about the women.In a nutshell, that&rsquo;s the fight the women have to fight on the road to respect. As the tournament continued, the world media adopted the women&rsquo;s game, making the hockey players the toast of the Nagano. The gold medal game was excellent.After falling four times to Canada in World Championship games since 1990, the U.S. won 3-1. Sticks and gloves flew skyward as the U.S. team emptied the bench and mobbed goalie Sarah Tueting. &ldquo;We were talking about who was going to be on the Wheaties box,&rdquo; said U.S. forward Alana Blahoski. &ldquo;We were told it was going to be (skier) Picabo Street or us. Why not us?&rdquo;Now the focus switches to the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City.It looks certain that women&rsquo;s hockey will remain an Olympic sport. The women don&rsquo;t have an NHL and for the time being, the Olympics is the top. (The next World Championship is scheduled for 1999 in Finland.)Canadian Hockey will not have an on-going national team next season and will develop players the way it did before the Olympic year. &ldquo;We feel we can develop our players and put them back in club situations to make clubs stronger to get more elite players,&rdquo; said Canadian Hockey president-elect Bob Nicholson.The Americans are keeping coach Ben Smith on staff for one more year. After that, they aren&rsquo;t sure.Disappointed Canadian coach Shannon Miller was thinking of the struggle to the top as she stood on her bench and watched the Americans get their gold medals.&ldquo;When they showed Cammi Granato&rsquo;s face on the big screen and the Olympic gold medal going around her neck, my feelings changed very quickly inside me,&rdquo; Miller said. &ldquo;And I had a feeling of joy going through my body because what I realized was that an Olympic gold medal is being hung around a female hockey player. And I couldn&rsquo;t believe the impact it had on me.&rdquo; &#9632;

Focus switches to 2002

<div class="byline">By Jim Kelley</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0013-0121/7250111-1-eng-US/s0013-012.jpg" title="S0013-01" width="379" height="533"></div>NAGANO&mdash;It was beautiful. It was touching. It was virtually everything an American hockey fan could ask for.But it wasn&rsquo;t a miracle.In the long history of &ldquo;Olympic moments&rdquo; it will be hard to top the last seconds of the USA&rsquo;s tension-packed 3-1 victory over Canada and the gold-medal ceremony that followed Feb. 17 at the Big Hat Ice Arena.There was the tension of a close game that really wasn&rsquo;t decided until Sandra Whyte scored into an empty net with just eight seconds remaining. There was the magic of seeing captain Cammi Granato accept the first Olympic medal ever awarded to a women&rsquo;s hockey player. There was the emotional drama of watching goaltender Sarah Tueting, a near perfect performer, being bowled over by her teammates when the final seconds finally ticked off the clock.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0013-027/7250104-1-eng-US/s0013-022.jpg" title="S0013-02" width="508" height="883"><figcaption class="caption-body">Gretchen Ulion</figcaption></div>There was the unforgettable memory of seeing a group of young women waving flowers and flags as their nation&rsquo;s flag rose to the rooftop in a medal ceremony that had the entire building, including most of the members of the Canadian&rsquo;s men&rsquo;s team, standing and applauding the feat.But when the flag waving is over, the emotions finally spent, there will be the lasting recognition of one singular fact: Team USA deserved this medal.Hockey may be Canada&rsquo;s game, but the U.S. was the team to beat and in this tournament not Canada, nor any other team, even came close.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s just unbelievable,&rdquo; said forward Gretchen Ulion, who scored America&rsquo;s first goal and set up Shelley Looney for what proved to be the game winner. &ldquo;I think our hard work paid off. My goal helped our team, gave us more confidence. I think after that we knew it could be possible that we would win.&rdquo;The numbers had been saying it almost forever.Team USA came to the championship game as the only undefeated team in the women&rsquo;s tournament. They beat the Canadians in the preliminary round 7-4 and beat them again with the medal on the line to run their Olympic record to 6-0-0.If that was hard for Canada and the rest of the hockey playing world to understand, they needed only to look at the Americans&rsquo; achievement before the tournament. In games leading up to this, Team USA had outscored Canada, 44-41. It had registered victories against Canada in three of the final five pre-Olympic meetings. The seven goals scored by Team USA in the preliminary round game were the most ever scored by any women&rsquo;s team against the Canadians.Simply put, the U.S. was out front and pulling away in every way. It was their medal to lose.&ldquo;We were patient, we played our game,&rdquo; Looney said. &ldquo;That was the key to winning. We needed to play our game.&rdquo;&ldquo;If you look at the history of these two teams, the games are close,&rdquo; said U.S. coach Ben Smith. &ldquo;We knew what they were capable of. We&rsquo;ve always known. The important thing was for us to play our game. We&rsquo;ve had success with that in the past and that gives you confidence.&rdquo;America&rsquo;s game was a relatively basic one. They played good defense, forechecked hard in the otner team&rsquo;s zone and moved the puck quickly and smartly out of their end.Midway through the third, the only thing left to decide was whether or not Tueting would get a gold-medal shutout. Danielle Goyette, the focus of a mini-controversy earlier in the week, spoiled that, but Team USA kept Canada at bay the rest of the way.The ramifications of that can only be good for women&rsquo;s hockey and especially for Team USA. In virtually every way, they were overshadowed by the men in this tournament and by the fact that NHL players were here for the first time.I suspect the lasting memory of this game will be the sheer joy expressed by a team of U.S. women who came together a year ago with the stated goal of being not just first in the standings, but the best on the ice.They did that. The result wasn&rsquo;t a miracle, it was what they deserved. &#9632;

S0013-01

American women’s victory no miracle

<div class="byline">John Davidson Inside the Olympics</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="S0015-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0015-0119/7250149-1-eng-US/s0015-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Frantisek Kucera was a solid physical force on the Czech blueline. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/BBS)</figcaption></div>NAGANO&ndash;Here&rsquo;s one thing to remember about a group of players-Jaromir Jagr excepted-who have been collectively stereotyped as less-than-fearless when they&rsquo;ve ventured over to the NHL. The only thing soft about the Czech Republic Olympic team was the landing players would receive when they returned home as national heroes.Don&rsquo;t be misled into thinking it was only the brilliance of goalie Dominik Hasek that allowed the Czechs to exceed all pre-toumament expectations. In the semifinal, they allowed Canada just 22 shots in regulation time and they couldn&rsquo;t have done that without strong play from players who have been cast as bit parts in the NHL or never even been given a chance to get there.Vladimir &lsquo;Rosie&rsquo; Ruzicka, a 34-year-old with 233 games of NHL experience, skated and fought like he was trying to make it back instead of only make it through one more season in the Czech League. In the first intermission of the quarterfinal against the U.S., with the Americans ahead 1-0, it was captain Ruzicka who stood up and told his nervous team to relax. There&rsquo;s no need to feel intimidated just because the Americans all play in the NHL, he said. From then on, the Czechs&rsquo; pride came to the fore.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0015-0211/7250142-1-eng-US/s0015-022.jpg" title="S0015-02" width="385" height="547"></div>Former Boston Bruin prospect Jiri Dopita, a 6-foot-3,207-pound center, proved to be strong and powerful and extremely difficult to knock off the puck down low. An outstanding handball player-his brother is a profession-al-Dopita once turned down a contract offer from the Bruins because they would only give him a two-way deal. Then and now, Dopita proved he can play hardball when the heat is on.So did lithe forward Pavel Patera, a lethal sniper who led the Czech League in scoring in 1993-94 and &rsquo;94-95, but has always been considered too weak at just 172 pounds to play in North America. He didn&rsquo;t hurt his team defensively here. He did, however, win a huge faceoff in the semifinal against Canada&rsquo;s Theo Fleury that led to a goal by defenseman Jiri Slegr.Scoring from the defense? Wasn&rsquo;t the blueline supposed to be one of the Czechs&rsquo; primary weaknesses, especially after the top four of Richard Smehlik, Petr Svoboda, Slegr and Roman Hamrlik?It was, but NHL castoff Frantisek Kucera and unheralded banger Jaroslav Spacek turned out to be rock-solid. Czech assistant coach Slava Lener is Kucera&rsquo;s coach with Sparta Prague in the Czech League and while he knows it would be a loss for him if Kucera resurfaces in the NHL, it would be an equal shame if no one realized how well he was playing.Of course, Hasek will receive a lion&rsquo;s share of the credit, and rightly so. Had any other goalie been in net to face 39 shots in the quarterfinal, the much-maligned Americans would have waltzed through to the semis instead of bowing out as 4-1 losers.But don&rsquo;t discount the role of the lesser-known lights. These Czechs can check. And when it&rsquo;s national pride on the line, don&rsquo;t ever call them soft. &#9632;

S0015-01

Tough Czechs bring success

<div class="image-hero"><img title="S0016-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0016-0116/7250306-1-eng-US/s0016-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Finland&rsquo;s Saku Koivu puts the squeeze on Russia&rsquo;s Sergei Fedorov in semifinal action.Spectacular play by the Czech Republic&rsquo;s Dominik Hasek eliminated Keith Tkachuk and the United States.</figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0017-0115/7250299-1-eng-US/s0017-012.jpg" title="S0017-01" width="3087" height="2495"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0017-029/7250292-1-eng-US/s0017-022.jpg" title="S0017-02" width="3079" height="1042"></div><h2>SATURDAY, FEB. 14</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0018-0117/7250285-1-eng-US/s0018-012.jpg" title="S0018-01" width="492" height="1425"></div><h2>SUNDAY, FEB. 15</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0018-029/7250278-1-eng-US/s0018-022.jpg" title="S0018-02" width="493" height="1646"></div><h2>MONDAY, FEB. 16</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0018-036/7250271-1-eng-US/s0018-032.jpg" title="S0018-03" width="494" height="239"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0018-045/7250264-1-eng-US/s0018-042.jpg" title="S0018-04" width="1524" height="1713"><figcaption class="caption-body">Keith Primeau and Canada high stepped around the United States in their 4-1 win Feb. 16.</figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0018-05/7250257-1-eng-US/s0018-052.jpg" title="S0018-05" width="503" height="1757"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0018-06/7250250-1-eng-US/s0018-062.jpg" title="S0018-06" width="499" height="898"></div><h2>WEDNESDAY, FEB. 18</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0018-07/7250243-1-eng-US/s0018-072.jpg" title="S0018-07" width="497" height="788"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0018-08/7250236-1-eng-US/s0018-082.jpg" title="S0018-08" width="499" height="1759"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0018-09/7250229-1-eng-US/s0018-092.jpg" title="S0018-09" width="500" height="79"></div><h2>FRIDAY, FEB. 20</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0018-10/7250222-1-eng-US/s0018-102.jpg" title="S0018-10" width="507" height="1501"></div><h2>SATURDAY, FEB. 21</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0018-11/7250215-1-eng-US/s0018-112.jpg" title="S0018-11" width="509" height="689"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0018-12/7250208-1-eng-US/s0018-122.jpg" title="S0018-12" width="499" height="1111"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0018-13/7250201-1-eng-US/s0018-132.jpg" title="S0018-13" width="502" height="1369"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0018-14/7250194-1-eng-US/s0018-142.jpg" title="S0018-14" width="493" height="2148"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0019-0115/7250187-1-eng-US/s0019-012.jpg" title="S0019-01" width="3089" height="3518"><figcaption class="caption-body">Shelley Looney (15) and Laurie Baker (8) of USA try their best to get one past Lesley Reddon and Becky Kellar of Canada in a 7-4 U.S. win.Aki Tsuchida and the Japanese team had a rough Olympic ride.Lisa Brown-Miller and Karyn Bye are stars in stripes after taking gold.</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0020-0111/7250180-1-eng-US/s0020-012.jpg" title="S0020-01" width="3071" height="1193"></div> &#9632;

S0016-01

NAGANO OLYMPICS ’98

<h2>SATURDAY, FEB. 14</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0020-027/7249942-1-eng-US/s0020-022.jpg" title="S0020-02" width="496" height="1004"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0020-037/7249935-1-eng-US/s0020-032.jpg" title="S0020-03" width="1509" height="1042"><figcaption class="caption-body">Jenny Schmidgall celebrates Gretchen Ulion&rsquo;s crucial goal in the gold medal game.</figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0020-047/7249928-1-eng-US/s0020-042.jpg" title="S0020-04" width="500" height="1092"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0020-053/7249921-1-eng-US/s0020-052.jpg" title="S0020-05" width="496" height="408"></div><h2>TUESDAY, FEB. 17</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0020-063/7249914-1-eng-US/s0020-062.jpg" title="S0020-06" width="490" height="612"></div> &#9632;

S0020-02

1998 WINTER GAMES SUMMARIES

<div class="image-hero"><img title="S0020-07" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/s0020-073/7249973-1-eng-US/s0020-072.jpg"></div>Listed is each American and Canadian player&rsquo;s goals, assists and plus-minus for each game and tournament goal, assist, point and plus-minus totals &#9632;

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March 6, 1998

Ailing Clark may be done for season

NHL GOALTENDING STATISTICS

Sakic gets forced rest

Nasato’s steadying influence keeps Colts running