Much of the talk this week has focused on how Canada's 2010 men's Olympic team would look. That's understandable, given that play will open in the tournament exactly a year from yesterday and Canada is fascinated by international hockey competition this far out.
Even Steve Yzerman, the team's executive director, confirmed as much. When asked about the scrutiny and attention, even a year away, he said he's been monitoring the coverage on television and the Internet and doesn't mind it at all.
“It's a good thing that people are interested,” said Yzerman. “I love sitting and listening to people's opinions on who should be there and who should be coaching and this and that. More information is good.”
That's just as well, since the discussion will continue right up until the team is selected – early December is the projection, which would give the organizers enough time to do accreditation, security checks, drug tests and deal with all the minutiae in terms of protocols that come into play when preparing for a competition of this magnitude.
Of all the questions percolating about the roster selections, the most intriguing may revolve around the availability of Scott Niedermayer. The smooth-skating Anaheim defenceman the 2006 Olympics in Turin and if you remember how difficult it was for that team to get untracked offensively on the big ice, you realized how much his absence meant to the final result. Sort of like Joe Sakic getting injured mid-stream in the Nagano Olympics in 1998 – they just couldn't quite overcome his loss, or that of Paul Kariya, with the available replacements, too many of whom were selected from the ranks of the NHL's role players.
Niedermayer is only 35 and is back playing full-time this season after skipping the first half of last year as he pondered retirement. That he is playing a high level again has gone mostly unnoticed, given how the Ducks have struggled this year and are in a heated battle with a half-dozen other teams just to qualify for the playoffs in the Western Conference. The NHL did pick Niedermayer as its second star for the month of January – he led the league in assists in January (with 16) and was tied for third overall in scoring (1-16=17). He was also first in scoring in January among defencemen – the Capitals' Mike Green was next at 13 – and is clearly playing like the Niedermayer of old. Against Calgary on Thursday night, he scored twice, including the overtime winner, the 11th of his career, most ever by a defenceman.
On an Olympic team that can draw on up to six of the top young defensive stars in the league (Green, Shea Weber, Dion Phaneuf, Jay Bouwmeester, Duncan Keith, Brent Burns), Canada will almost certainly try to balance youth and talent with some necessary experience. Even though these Olympics are being played on the North American ice, it's hard to imagine that they wouldn't choose Niedermayer, if he decides to return for one more NHL season next year.
But will he?
When he was in town the other day, I put the question to him and his answer was decidedly non-committal: “There is no question that it would be a great honour to be a part of that team - a lot of fun and a great challenge,” said Niedermayer, who was born in Edmonton but raised in the interior of B.C., and thus would be a hometown Olympics for him. “It would be everything everybody knows that it would - and I look at it exactly the same way. But it's just not something that you could show up at the Olympics and say, ‘I'm here and I'm ready to go.' There are other things involved – and that's where my decision lies.”
Translation: Niedermayer would need to commit to another pro season with the Ducks in order to play in the Olympics as well. There was some thought that if Niedermayer didn't want to go through the grind of another NHL season next year, he might decide to play in Europe instead, in order to stay in game shape. That came up in the conversation with Yzerman as well. When asked if someone not in the NHL might qualify to play for Canada, he answered: “Unless an NHL player were to go and play in one of the European leagues next year, I don't see anyone making the Canadian team from outside the NHL.”
