WE’VE PLAYED THESE GAMES BEFORE

Heading into the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Team Canada was a heavy favourite. They had won the Gold in 2002 and many of the best players on that team were coming back alongside very exciting new stars like Joe Thornton and Martin St. Louis. All Canada had to do was make the right choices under the obvious names and they’d surely be a force. Instead, Team Canada brought a very controversial roster. Read the guys they did select and remember Sidney Crosby, Eric Staal and Jason Spezza, who finished with 90+ points each, were not selected. Kris Draper: Purely in a hockey sense, Draper was easily the most controversial choice. A good player, but he was a middle 6 defense-first forward on dominant Red Wings teams and never put up more than 40 points in his career. Todd Bertuzzi: This one will feel familiar. Bertuzzi was a big, tough and notably dirty “playoff performer” who was selected despite being suspended for the entire previous season due to nearly killing Steve Moore. Adam Foote and Jay Boumeester: These baffle me personally. Dion Phaneuf, Dan Boyle and Brian Campbell were all tearing it up in the NHL, but Canada just had to bring a middle pair D-man because he won Cups with the Avs and another slow defense-first guy because they clearly didn’t have enough. There’s more I could list, but you get it. This team was old, slow and prioritizing “clutch factor” and “experience” over genuine talent and ability. It cost them as after a shaky round robin, they lost 2-0 in the Quarterfinals because, wait for it, they lacked firepower and had to rely on their first line alone to generate offense. They finished 7th in the tournament. Which moron picked this team? Wayne Gretzky, seriously. He also wanted to bring 40-year-old Yzerman and Lemieux, but both backed out. That tells me it is a philosophy problem. 20 years later, at another Italy-based Winter Olympics, Canada is still making some of the same mistakes. Hopefully the end-result is MUCH BETTER.