The_Eck said:
Well, Mr. Gretzky you say that the younger players on team canada have to play better??? Perhaps if you had chosen Canada's best young players (ie: Phaneuf, Spezza, Staal, Crosby), the team wouldn't be in their current predicament.
But once again, you had to play politics when choosing the players. You choose players based solely on reputation and what they have done in the past, rather than choosing canadian players would were dominating during the first half of the regular season.
Along with the players, you will be blamed if Canada does not bring the gold home Mr.Gretzky.
I agree with Wayne. It's time for our young players, the guys who will have to be stars in 2010 - Thornton, Nash, Gagne, Lecavalier and Richards, Heatley - have to elevate their play. Their lack of production in this tournament has been a head-scratcher. These guys are stars in the NHL, but they haven't shown it in this tournament. The problem isn't that the talent isn't there, it's that they're not playing well together as a team, and they aren't making sufficient adjustments to the international rules. It's something that Canada goes through every tournament. They've rebounded before, and I'm confident they can rebound again. 10 players were there for the gold medal in Salt Lake. Several more (Bouwmeester, Heatley, Luongo) have won World Championships for us since Salt Lake. If they can start playing like a cohesive unit and make the necessary adjustments by Wednesday (coaching will play a big part in that), and follow through on that throughout the medal round, this team will not lose a game in the medal round.
This team is 2-2 with 12 goals for with all of the players you just mentioned. They don't change this team's failure to play like a team or adjust to international play.
I think a better idea is to start using at least one Canadian-born forward and one defenceman from Europe whenever the Olympics are held outside of North America. It might also be a good idea to start using a Canadian-born, European-based coach (Dave King, perhaps) at the Olympics.