My take on the 2005 WJC

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Big Phil

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Nov 2, 2003
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This tournament was like no other one since '95. There were all the best players in the world here and because of the NHL lockout Canada benefitted the most. To me it shows what we can do with our talent when it truly IS available to us (ex. '02 Olympics) or even if there's most of our best players (ex. 2004 World Cup). See, this crisis we had with the WJC in not winning was all in or heads.

Since '97 when we last won I can think of many years when we either should have won or we were within a whisker of it ('99, '00, '02, '03, '04 come to mind). In '98 in our eigth place finish we didnt have Thornton, Marleau, Phillips, Devereaux. In '99 may have been the worst time when we didnt have Thornton, Marleau, Lecavalier, Malhotra, Brewer. In '00 we were missing Gagne, Fisher, Lecavalier, Fata, Regehr, Biron, Girard. In '01 we were missing Pyatt, Hartnell and Justin Williams. In '02 we were only missing Hartnell and Blackburn so there wasnt a real excuse except if Blackburn had played better than Leclair in net. In '03 we missed Nash, Spezza, Bouwmeester, Blackburn. And then in '04 we were missing Horton, Staal, Nash, Bouchard.

So you see all of those players were still young enough to play for us. Are you telling me that if in '99 we had all of those guys that the Russians wouldnt have lost 6-1 in the Gold medal game as well? Let's just say they wouldnt have won, and the '99 Russians were pretty good too.

So to me it shows what we can really do when all of our guys are available. So lets not worry anymore if we lose in a year or two and we're missing guys like Crosby or Brule. We have shown what we can do when our truly best are there. 41-7 in goal differential? Dominant.
 

Zine

Registered User
Feb 28, 2002
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Rostov-on-Don
You're not mentioning that other countries have missed their best players as well. If I had time I could make a list a mile long.

Just because this past WJC team was so dominant, do not assume that all Canadian teams would have been this good even with available NHL talent. Fact is - this '85 born group is an anomoly. This much talent for an age group is rediculously rare.
 

BuppY

xGoodwillx
Dec 24, 2003
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relatednews.net
Zine said:
You're not mentioning that other countries have missed their best players as well. If I had time I could make a list a mile long.

Just because this past WJC team was so dominant, do not assume that all Canadian teams would have been this good even with available NHL talent. Fact is - this '85 born group is an anomoly. This much talent for an age group is rediculously rare.

I agree other countries have missed there top end players but they miss like 1 or 2 guys while Canada misses like 4 or 5 everu year.
 

Jason MacIsaac

Registered User
Jan 13, 2004
22,221
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Halifax, NS
I think Canada's 85's were so strong that they could have sent a 2nd team that would have gotten the bonze.

Bernier-Zajac-Wolski
Bolland-Stone-Fehr
Bourret-Brule-Picard
Meyer-Pouliot-Bertram

Green-Quincey
Schultz-Wharton
Picard-O'Neill

Houle
Dubnyk

With Houle in nets this team also has the potential to upset Canada A also IMO. Houle steals games.
 
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