Thanks for everything, Wayne Gretzky.

cincy_ · Feb 22, 2006

When you pick players like Joe "Slow-Mo" Thornton over Sidney Crosby on this large ice surface, and you pick a guy like Quinn to coach, it makes me wonder.

I hope you go to Phoenix and live happily ever after. Just leave the Team Canada stuff to someone else.

I wonder if you would have selected Ovechkin if he were available - probably not.

If you ever get a chance, you might want to check out a guy named Staal who plays hockey. Maybe you should consider picking people like him over your buddies.

maxdemo · Feb 22, 2006

It seemed like Canada was the Fav when the Oly opened...wernt they?

cincy_ · Feb 22, 2006

Of course, but losing is one thing - I can handle losing if there is effort or if they lose because of bad bounces - what sucks is how they put forth such a pathetic performance.

maxdemo · Feb 22, 2006

I have to agree. i have only seen a few games since I work 6 days a week...but it was hard to beleive that Canada was favored with the way they played. It seemed like everytime they fell behind they just gave up....JMO

VIEJODINOSAUR · Feb 22, 2006

Janet Jones had under the 2 and a half total wins for Canada during the Olympics.....And Wayne had no idea!!!!!

TTinCO · Feb 22, 2006

I was only able to catch part of the 3rd period, and they were fighting their asses off to stay in the game. Sounds like the 1st two periods were a little different.

lander · Feb 22, 2006

These other teams have many of their players playing together. It makes a world of difference in team sports -- just ask the dream team.

tooran · Feb 22, 2006

Going to be a LOT of pressure on them at the 2010 Games in Vancouver. Especially after this piss poor performance.

ucking:

cincy_ · Feb 22, 2006

lander said:
These other teams have many of their players playing together. It makes a world of difference in team sports -- just ask the dream team.

Exactly.

Perfect analogy.

If you don't realize how the game will be different, you shouldn't be selecting the teams.

They were playing 5 games in 6 days, and 6 games in 8 days on a larger/wider ice surface. Yet Canada takes 30+ and 35+ year olds - and if Yzerman had been available, they would have taken him too.

The Dream Team, on the other hand, goes into a tournament without 3-point shooters and gets into trouble when teams go into a zone and collapse the middle.

This day has just plain sucked. Damn. To not even make the semi-finals is very painful.

randyrohm · Feb 23, 2006

Please, thats why we gamble. There is no way anybody would have thought this team would not score goals during the Olympics. Just a major drought when it mattered most.

TTinCO · Feb 23, 2006

Costas just worked him over pretty good about the gambling charges. In the end, it's apparently not illegal to place a bet in NJ, and he's saying that it was all her (and there was nothing illegal about it).

WildBill · Feb 23, 2006

Being the man in charge of Team Canada, talk about a no-win situation. Look out here come the second guessers. Amazing though, you badmouth picking out Thornton, he's only second in the league in points this year. I know he isn't Mr. Open Ice, but imagine if he stayed home, they would have said why didn't you take Joe?

Admit it Canada, you guys have no more lock on hockey than the US has on basketball anymore. The rest of the world plays more of the style that is tough to beat in the international game. Two-way players who deliver in the playoffs, no doubt Canada dominates in that. But give players a wide-open rink where the neutral zone trap is benched and its hard to beat teams like Russia, Sweden, and Finland.

Still in a way I love it. How many idiots north of the border made fun of an obviously weak Team USA? No one in this country with a brain thought the US was going to do anything in this tournament and they did not, yet Canadians just love poking fun at the US and asking if the hotel rooms are safe. Go eat your crow Canada, your boys for all their hype did no better...

Vancouverfan · Feb 23, 2006

Cincy , I couldn't disagree more with your comments.. Come on now, we are the defending Gold Medal Champs, and the defending World Cup of Hockey champs from last year (same calibre of hockey as Olympics) That is the last two big International Hockey events.. Wayne Gretzky was the GM of both those teams.. Most of the players on this team all played together on last years World Cup winning team, it made a lot of sense to keep most of those players together..

The thing is , both those tournaments we won were on North American Soil in smaller sized NHL rink.. Moving over to Europe to play on the bigger rinks,, that European NHL stars have grown up playing on, is a great equalizer to those European teams..(NHL players that have played international tournaments will mention this in interviews) In this tourney , there were 7 teams that were basically equal (not including the Swiss), yes I'm including the Americans in that group, 4 short years ago they were in the gold medal game with us and now were two of the first teams out of the medal round on a much bigger ice surface.. Basically, what I'm saying is anybody can beat anybody,, especially when a team has problems jelling in a short tournament like Canada did.. Nobody could foresee that happening,, shutout in 3 games??

This team wasn't really that old like you make it sound: Iginla, LeCavlier, Richards, St.Louis, Gagne, Doan , Thornton, Bertuzzi.. these guys are all in their prime.. Sakic and Blake were the only old ones, and they fully deserved to be there. I would of liked to seen Phaneuf there instead of McCabe, but I had no problems with Staal , Spezza and Crosby not there.. It's easy to look back in hindsight, but most experts had this team picked in the summer and were bang on, there were no surprises, they just didn't deliver and mesh well,, it happens.. I think we really missed Scott Niedermeyer and Ed Jovanovski on the backend more then anything,, those are our 2 big puck moving defencemen..

ElBrutto · Feb 23, 2006

well ... last year Canada lost the finals of the world championships to Czech Republic - so you are not the defending champion: but Canada did quite well on the big rink last year.

I believe the problem is, that many Canadians still believe, that you are going to win everytime, because you invented the game ... fact is, that there are 5 to 6 teams capable of winning the World Cup and the Olympics ... backing Canada at Even odds was just crazy ...

I do not want to aftertime in my post, therefore I´ll tell you something that people should think of in may... any team that is under +200 for the World Cup must be opposed ... whoever is chosen (and available) to play

cincy_ · Feb 23, 2006

WildBill said:
Being the man in charge of Team Canada, talk about a no-win situation. Look out here come the second guessers. Amazing though, you badmouth picking out Thornton, he's only second in the league in points this year. I know he isn't Mr. Open Ice, but imagine if he stayed home, they would have said why didn't you take Joe?

Admit it Canada, you guys have no more lock on hockey than the US has on basketball anymore. The rest of the world plays more of the style that is tough to beat in the international game. Two-way players who deliver in the playoffs, no doubt Canada dominates in that. But give players a wide-open rink where the neutral zone trap is benched and its hard to beat teams like Russia, Sweden, and Finland.

Still in a way I love it. How many idiots north of the border made fun of an obviously weak Team USA? No one in this country with a brain thought the US was going to do anything in this tournament and they did not, yet Canadians just love poking fun at the US and asking if the hotel rooms are safe. Go eat your crow Canada, your boys for all their hype did no better...

You really need to GROW UP.

"Idiots north of the border"

"Go eat your crow Canada"

... and this in reply to something to what? Did I bad mouth your American team?

cincy_ · Feb 23, 2006

Vancouver fan said:
This team wasn't really that old like you make it sound: Iginla, LeCavlier, Richards, St.Louis, Gagne, Doan , Thornton, Bertuzzi.. these guys are all in their prime.. Sakic and Blake were the only old ones, and they fully deserved to be there. I would of liked to seen Phaneuf there instead of McCabe, but I had no problems with Staal , Spezza and Crosby not there.. It's easy to look back in hindsight, but most experts had this team picked in the summer and were bang on, there were no surprises, they just didn't deliver and mesh well,, it happens.. I think we really missed Scott Niedermeyer and Ed Jovanovski on the backend more then anything,, those are our 2 big puck moving defencemen..

I had a HUGE problem with Bertuzzi, Thornton and Blake but my bigger beef was in allowing a person who is just removed from the game pick the team. He has too many personal relationships with people to be objective.

Would Gretzky have chosen Kovalchuk and Ovechkin if he were in Bure's shoes? I doubt it. The Crosby and Staal omissions were what got on my nerves.

As for expecting to win gold and all that stuff - that is not what irritates me. This was not a team that had a bad game. This is a team that played 4 bad games in a row (or at least 3 of the last 4). When a team does so poorly, you have to admit that we have a BAD TEAM but I cannot conclude that we had a bad pool of players to choose from.

Going with "names" and "history" would have been fine and dandy if the team was on a smaller ice surface and on normal NHL rest - but they didn't seem to take everything into account and that is what gets on my nerves.

cincy_ · Feb 23, 2006

ElBrutto said:
I believe the problem is, that many Canadians still believe, that you are going to win everytime, because you invented the game ... fact is, that there are 5 to 6 teams capable of winning the World Cup and the Olympics ... backing Canada at Even odds was just crazy ...

It's not that they lost this one game - it's how they played their last 4 games that bothers most Canadians.

WVU · Feb 23, 2006

why would you even think for a second that a guy who is focused on getting his make-up on correctly can choose and manage an international hockey team?

yeah the guy wears eye liner and blush. doesn't sound very hockey to me

Vancouverfan · Feb 23, 2006

El Brutto, I said we are the defending "World Cup Champions".. much different from the World Championships that take place every year.. The World Cup tournament took place in fall of 2004 before the lockout,, that is pretty much the same teams you see in these Olympics, chalk full of the top NHL players.. Nobody in North America gives a damn about the World Championships that take place each year.. They take place during the same time as NHL playoffs so many of the top players aren't there, it is basically teams thrown together last minute as players get eliminated from playoffs al;ong with pros we've never heard of from Europe that can't crack the NHL...

WVU, this guy named Gretzky who is so focused on putting on his make up correctly somehow managed the team that beat your American team for the Gold in 2002, as well as the next biggest thing, The World Cup in 2004.. Apparently he knows a little something about hockey despite the eye liner and blush.

Vancouverfan · Feb 23, 2006

El Brutto, you are definitely right about the futures picks for the olympics,, I posted my future picks before the tournament started, and warned people not to take Canada at +100 as their was no value in that play,, anybody could beat anybody in this tourney..

The ones I posted were Czechs 3 units +350, Russia 2 units +630, and Slovaks 1 unit +1800 (was hoping they'd pull it out) , also picked up Finland for 1 unit at +1000 halfway through the tourney.. I've got 3 of the 4 teams left so as long as Sweden doesn't win it all I should make a little profit... I'm pulling for the Czechs tomorrow,,should be a great game..