Wayne Gretzky's Ghost

by Roy MacGregor

  “European hockey has to be given a lot of respect now,” said Canada’s Steve Yzerman, who probably adapted better than any other North American to the ice surface. It’s too simplistic to keep saying that a lot of Europeans come over to the NHL and fail, Yzerman said. It now goes both ways. “I don’t think a lot of NHL guys would have success over here.”

  It certainly did not work out as the NHL had hoped, though the NHL still says it is delighted with much of what transpired. The idea, however, was to “showcase” the game in markets not yet familiar with the game, including those U.S. markets the league and the Fox Network still wish to penetrate. The ideal situation, obviously, would have been to reach a gold medal game between the United States and Canada. It was not to be so. Russia, with different stars, and the Czech Republic, a non-starter with American hockey fans, played the key game. Wilson stated the obvious: “They didn’t rig this tournament.”

  But some of what took place could not be pre-arranged. How sweet, for example, that Finland’s greatest player, Jari Kurri, should score against Canada in the bronze medal game. It would be his final game for his country. “I’m happy for Jari,” said Gretzky, who had set up so very many of Kurri’s NHL goals, “but disappointed for us.”

  And Gretzky himself, causing a national sensation when he arrived at the Nagano train station. Always saying the right thing, always conducting himself as Canadians like to think of themselves being represented abroad. Gretzky was “devastated” by the loss, and said that he too had probably played his last game for his country. But first, he made sure to pass on, to the next generation of Canadian players, what it means to have the chance. “I love to represent Canada. Every time I’ve put that sweater on, it’s been something special for me.”

  And for us. Win, or lose.

  Dominik Hasek played sixteen seasons in the NHL. He won back-to-back Hart trophies as league MVP in 1997 and 1998, while playing for the Buffalo Sabres. In 2002, with the Detroit Red Wings, he became the first European starting goaltender to win the Stanley Cup. He retired in 2008 but soon returned to play again, first in the Czech league, then for HC Spartak Moscow in the Kontinental Hockey League.

  RYAN SMYTH: CAPTAIN CANADA

  (National Post, September 8, 2001)

  CALGARY, ALBERTA

  Once a rink rat, always a rink rat.

  The final practice of Team Canada’s Olympic orientation week was over, the Zamboni was out of the chute, and still Ryan Smyth was on the ice—more accurately, on his knees, his stick tossed to the side as he quickly shovelled dozens of pucks into a large pail while the regular arena attendant looked on in stunned silence.

  Millionaire hockey players are not supposed to behave this way. The other thirty-three members of this four-day orientation camp were already in their dressing rooms, relaxing between the last practice and a short final-day scrimmage before heading off to their respective homes and teams. Yet Smyth was out there pitching in, still the small-town rink rat from Banff willing to do whatever it takes for an extra few minutes of ice time.

  “I just wish this week would never end,” he said when, finally, it did.

  For Smyth, however, the week was also closing on a good note. For while there remains a profound difference between meaningless shinny and the pressure of a full-contact Olympic medal game, he had shown he had the speed and the skills necessary to be a factor. At twenty-five and one of the younger players in camp, with Nagano missing from his resumé, he was nonetheless being counted among those almost certainly headed for Salt Lake City come next February. “My parents taught me that the first impression is important,” he said.

  This, however, is hardly the first. He is now entering his seventh season of impressing the Edmonton Oilers with his gritty, drive-to-the-net, never-say-die, kamikaze style of play. And this spring, as the stubborn Oilers fell so valiantly to the richer and more experienced Dallas Stars, the high-scoring forward made a profound national impression on television viewers that is today paying dividends as the country looks to players who can accomplish in Salt Lake City what others failed to do in Nagano.

  “I like to get my nose dirty out there,” he says. And, some would add, bloody as well. In Game 4 against Dallas, he took eleven stitches over his left eye. In Game 6, nine more stitches over his left ear. He missed only two shifts, racing back out onto the ice with the stitches barely tied to try to accomplish what would eventually prove impossible.

  “It hurts,” he admitted at the end of Dallas’s deciding victory in Game 6. “It will hurt for quite some time. It may hurt till we play them next year.”

  He is what is known in hockey circles as a throwback. While most of today’s pampered and rich players form close friendships off the ice with players from other teams, the quiet, self-effacing Smyth came to Calgary and said he had no interest in getting to know goaltenders like Dallas’s Eddie Belfour and Colorado’s Patrick Roy. In a few weeks he would have to be playing against them, and he had no interest in seeing possible friendship come between him and literally driving an opposing goaltender through his own net.

  Canadians have always played the composite hockey player game, imagining a mythical perfect Canadian player who might bear, say, the shot of a Bobby Hull, the stickhandling of a Jean Béliveau, the hands of a Mike Bossy, the legs (but not knees) of a Bobby Orr and the eyes of a Wayne Gretzky. If such a player had been built here this week, Mario Lemieux would supply the hands, Eric Lindros the muscle, Paul Kariya the head—but the heart, that most sacred of all Canadian hockey qualities, would more likely come from Ryan Smyth, among the least known of the stars gathered here at Father David Bauer Arena.

  What he found hardest this week was simply overcoming the “awe” he felt by being in the presence of so many of hockey’s household names, particularly that of his lifelong idol, Wayne Gretzky, who will have the task of deciding whether Smyth is part of the final Team Canada or not. It is a worship that goes back to 1987, when a former edition of Team Canada was preparing for the upcoming Canada Cup by spending a few days practising in Banff. An eleven-year-old rink rat named Ryan Smyth was asked if he’d like to run water and handle the sticks for the Canadian squad and, from that moment on, his dream has been to follow the likes of Gretzky and Lemieux and play for his country.

  Even as a youngster, he did everything he could to help. When the 1987 team held a golf tournament, he loaded and unloaded their clubs, only to have former Oiler Glenn Anderson accidentally back a golf cart over Smyth and badly twist his ankle. No problem, he told the players, just drop me off at the hospital and get back to your golf games.

  He is, in the age of whiners, one who never complains about anything. They can cut him, they can try and break his knees—as happened a few years ago in a game against the Phoenix Coyotes—and he might go down, and he might need medical attention, but he never says a word and he comes right back with the best answer his skates and stick are capable of delivering.

  “I’m just a guy,” he says, “who likes to stay on the ice.”

  Ryan Smyth did make the team and won a gold medal for Canada at Salt Lake City. The fan favourite left the Edmonton Oilers in 2007 and currently, at age thirty-five, plays for the Los Angeles Kings. He holds the record for the number of games played, 78, in a Team Canada uniform.

  “THE WHOLE WORLD WANTS US TO LOSE”

  (National Post, February 19, 2002)

  SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH

  In three stunning hours last night, two of Canadian hockey’s greatest icons—The Magnificent One and The Great One—served notice that Team Canada is for real, and ready to take on all comers. Including international public opinion.

  Mario Lemieux, The Magnificent One, scored the key goals in Canada’s feisty 3–3 tie with the defending Olympic champion Czech Republic. And Wayne Gretzky, The Great One, went one-on-one with the rest of the hockey world later in an emotional press conference in which the executive director of Team Canada claimed, “The whole world wants us to lose.”

 
Both Gretzky and Team Canada coach Pat Quinn accused the Czechs of dirty hockey—in particular a Roman Hamrlik cross-check on Canada’s Theoren Fleury late in the third period—and promised there will be “payback” later in the National Hockey League season that resumes once the Olympics are over. Gretzky further blamed the U.S. media for spreading rumours about disenchantment on the team over Quinn’s coaching during a humiliating 5–2 loss to Sweden and an equally embarrassing 3–2 win over lowly Germany. Having taken on American hockey, Gretzky then moved on to the rest of world hockey, claiming that European players do not return the same respect afforded them by Canadian players.

  “I’ll tell you what it is,” the former NHL superstar said. “They don’t like us. They love beating us.”

  Gretzky’s outburst was similar to one by former player Phil Esposito halfway through the 1972 Summit Series. Esposito’s Vancouver plea was widely embraced by Canadian hockey fans at the time; how Gretzky’s will be taken is yet to be seen. Certainly many Canadian fans will love it, while many fans outside Canada will see his outburst as Canadian whining.

  “It sickens my stomach to turn the TV on,” Gretzky said. “It makes me ill to hear what’s being said about Canadian hockey. If a Canadian player had done what [happened to Fleury], he would have been suspended. We have to eliminate this from the game. He was speared and cross-checked on the same play.”

  “Am I hot?” Gretzky said. “Yeah—I’m tired of people taking shots at Canadian hockey. If we do something like that, we’re hooligans. Americans love our poor start. Nobody wants us to win but our players and our loyal fans. We’re very proud—I guarantee you we’ll be standing at the end. They should remember that there’s payback in this game, and it won’t be pretty.” The heated outburst threatened to distract from what should have been a welcome result in what had, so far, been a rocky start for the team that has repeatedly said it wants only the gold medal out of these Games.

  “We were a better team tonight,” Quinn admitted after he had let off considerable steam concerning the rough play of the Czechs. It was Lemieux, the team captain, who led the Canadian effort with two goals, despite still being bothered by a bad hip—or, more likely, back—that had kept him out of Sunday’s game against Germany. There will be no more sitting out, Lemieux vowed at game’s end. “I’m ready to go,” he said. The win, added Lemieux, “means a lot to everybody who is here trying to win the gold medal. There is certainly a lot of pressure out there. It means a lot just to play well.”

  The Canadians now head into the playoff round, which begins Wednesday against Finland. Any single loss from now on would exclude Canada from the gold medal round they have said they must reach this year. “It’s going to get tough from here on in,” said Joe Nieuwendyk, who batted a Fleury pass out of the air late in the third period to give Canada the tie. “But we feel good heading into the next round.”

  The game marked the first meeting since the famous Olympic shootout four years ago in Nagano, Japan, a Czech victory that dashed the dreams of the first Canadian gold medal in Olympic hockey since 1952.

  This time, however, there was no shootout for Canadian fans to wring their hands over, as overtime and shootouts will only decide games from here on out. Martin Brodeur, who had played the German game, was back in goal, only this time backed by No. 3 Canadian goaltender, Ed Belfour. Curtis Joseph, the Toronto Maple Leafs goaltender who had been expected to carry the net-minding load in Salt Lake City, was scratched and sat in the stands looking on. Brodeur played well, highlighted by a spectacular third-period glove save off Czech forward Jan Hrdina. His play virtually guarantees him the start in the playoff round, though Quinn was adamant that all three goalies remain in the mix.

  Lemieux, who had played terribly Friday and not at all Sunday, answered his doubters by scoring twice on his first three shots, the second goal somewhat dubious as it seemed inconclusive from replays as to whether it had gone in—which in NHL games results in no goal, but was deemed a goal by Olympic standards. The puck was smothered by Czech netminder Dominik Hasek, but his body appeared to cross the line and, after considerable review, a goal was counted. “The only thing that I was afraid of was that they could not see the puck from above,” said Lemieux. “But it was clearly over the line.”

  Martin Havlat, the twenty-year-old sophomore with the Ottawa Senators, scored twice for the powerful Czech team, Jiri Dopita scored the other Czech goal on a rebound in the third period, briefly giving the Czech Republic a lead which the unexpected Nieuwendyk goal soon negated. “We made a mistake in our end,” said Czech defenceman Richard Smehlik, “and it ended up in our net.”

  Quinn and his coaching staff had clearly made adjustments for this third game. No more “pretending” there was a red line. No more endless dump and chase. No more acting like the stultifying NHL game was by some mysterious cant transferrable to the vastly superior international game. The inspired play soon paid off, with first Kariya hitting Lemieux for an excellent chance that Hasek, the Human Gumby, managed to get a pad on, then Lemieux again coming in on the off wing and slipping a soft shot between Hasek’s pads for a 1–0 Canada lead. With less than two minutes to go in the opening period, the slight Havlat physically knocked big Eric Lindros off the puck, scooped it up, danced in and ripped a shot past the glove of Brodeur to tie the game.

  Havlat then put the Czech Republic ahead 2–1 early in the second, when he was set up all alone in the slot and slipped the puck under a diving Brodeur. Lemieux’s controversial second goal—the puck was deemed to cross the goal line when Hasek went down to smother it—tied the match and gave the Canadians renewed confidence for the third period.

  Hasek was, as always, brilliant, preventing several excellent Canadian scoring chances. “When you play against Dominik Hasek,” said Canadian forward Owen Nolan, “you have to put everything aside because he doesn’t give up on a single play.”

  A loss or tie by the Canadians would ensure that they would be playing the Finns, who earlier had surprised the Olympic tournament with a 3–1 victory over the powerful Russians. The Czechs now go on to meet the Russians in the next round, while the Swedes, winners of the group Canada found itself in, will meet Belarus and the surprising USA squad, winners of the other grouping, will meet Germany.

  “This was an important game for us,” said Brodeur. “We played hard and we have a big rivalry with the Czechs. We didn’t win—but in our hearts, the way we played we felt like we won.”

  SALT LAKE CITY GOLD

  (National Post, February 25, 2002)

  SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH

  Fifty years ago today. Maybe some things are meant to be.

  —Canadian defenceman Al MacInnis

  Four minutes left in the biggest hockey game in the thirty years of his life—biggest in the last fifty years of Canada’s—and Owen Nolan suddenly bolted from the bench to the dressing room.

  Nothing to do with injury, but an equipment problem. He wanted his camera. Sixty seconds to go in the final match at the 2002 Winter Games and Nolan, like his teammates, was on his feet at the Team Canada bench. The big Canadian forward, however, was the only one not holding his stick. Gloves off and stick down, he was recording the final seconds so he would never forget. As if he will ever be allowed.

  All around him, the crowd was singing “O Canada”; behind him, coach Pat Quinn was dealing with the first of many tears, so perhaps he didn’t notice. Nor would it have mattered if Quinn had and tapped the player to take the next shift. “I wasn’t going on!” a smiling Nolan said when it was all over. “I was too busy.”

  His camera lens had captured what all Canada had been dreaming about for four long, torturous, soul-searching and at times panic-inducing years: the first Olympic gold medal in hockey in fifty years, to the very day. Canada’s perfect golden anniversary. “Words can’t describe what was going on,” said Nolan.

  They can try: The horn went and the scoreboard said Canada 5, USA 2. Sticks and gloves and helmets were in the air. Goaltender
Martin Brodeur—he of the endless doubts—was being mobbed by those who now believed they had believed in him forever. Quinn used the back of his sleeve to wipe away a tear. They rushed Brodeur and someone tossed a Canadian flag to Team Canada captain Mario Lemieux and he thought about wearing it and then thought it would be too much and carried it to the bench. Paul Kariya blew kisses up to his mother and girlfriend in the stands. Lemieux then led his team in a handshake with the Americans that ended, charmingly, with Brodeur hugging American goaltender Mike Richter.

  Such a modest, gracious, classy celebration—the moment the horn blew the Canadians ceased to be fierce, driven hockey players and suddenly turned back into the shy and humble men who have taken their lead from the likes of Gordie Howe and Bobby Orr and, yes, the one who put this team together: Wayne Gretzky.

  They shook hands and the American team saluted the crowd that cheered for them all over again, and they gave out the medals—the classless Russians not even bothering to show up for their bronze—and the Canadian flag rose highest in the E Center for the second time this week. And Quinn wiped away a tear, just as he had when the Canadian women took the gold medal Thursday night.

  “A big monkey is lifted off Canada’s back,” said U.S. forward Jeremy Roenick, who played his junior hockey in Hull, Quebec, and knows what this day meant to Canada. “Today was their day.”

  “This,” said Quinn, “is a legacy for Canadian hockey we want to pass on.”

  “Fifty years ago today,” mused Canadian defenceman Al MacInnis. “Maybe some things are meant to be.”

  Asked what he thought the reaction might be back home, MacInnis smiled and suggested, “They’re having a cold one on us—and well deserved.”

  The Canadian team, assembled over this past year by Gretzky and his Team Canada brain trust, was widely held to be the greatest hockey team ever iced by the country that invented the sport—and yet it had been plagued by questions. Patrick Roy, the best goaltender, had elected not to play. Other key players—Lemieux, Nolan, Steve Yzerman—were injured coming in. The team collapsed against Sweden, struggled against Germany, but seemed to find itself against the Czech Republic. They then beat Finland and Belarus to reach the final, which they won in convincing fashion.