Saturday Roundup

Brooks calls Canada's hockey style 'stupid'

By Chris Stevenson, SLAM! Sports

SALT LAKE CITY -- American coach Herb Brooks fired what amounts to the closest thing to a shot across the bow of Team Canada Saturday.

On the eve of the biggest game in Canada since 1972, Brooks called the way Team Canada plays hockey "stupid."

"Playing that [dump and chase] style is their style, their philosophy in Canada," said Brooks. "They like that style. I think the game is a little more profound than that. I think the ability of the players can allow them to do so much more.

"If you look at football, basketball and football, possession is the name of the game. It seems kind of stupid to me to work hard to get the puck and then say, 'I'm going to give it back to you, then try to get it back again.

"That's going to be [Canada's] style on this rink, the small rink or out in the parking lot."

Brooks said his team is capable of playing more creative, stimulating hockey.

"Our team is very adept at playing what I call a hybrid style. I believe in a hybrid system, where you play East-West when necessary and stretch the zones.

"I don't think the Canadian coaches share that. Maybe [head coach] Pat Quinn does a little, but I don't think the others [associates Jacques Martin, Ken Hitchcock and Wayne Fleming] do."

Ouch.

Brooks also pointed out that Canada has zero gold medals over the last 50 years.

While the colourful Brooks made some pretty bold statements there, he's not going to be making any fashion statements.

When Brooks coached the 1980 "Miracle on Ice" USA men's hockey team to the gold medal, he wore a pair of plaid pants behind the bench.

Would he consider breaking them out for Sunday's game?

"No, they don't fit," he said with a laugh, "and they're not in style. I don't think they were ever in style."

He's also been doing some behind the scenes work on Team Canada captain Mario Lemieux, Brooks' ex-boss with the Pittsburgh Penguins.

"I told him I've got a Mario bobblehead doll and I've been sticking pins in his hip," said Brooks.

Magician Brooks turns to voodoo

SALT LAKE CITY (Reuters) -- Herb Brooks has been called a magician and a miracle worker. Now you can add voodoo practitioner to the list.

The U.S. ice hockey coach was behind the bench when a bunch of college students shocked the world and beat the powerful Soviet Union at Lake Placid in 1980, in what has become known as the "Miracle on Ice."

Brooks is once again conjuring up a new legend at the Salt Lake Games as the Americans head into the gold medal game on Sunday against Canada.

Ironically, Brooks's full-time job is now working as a scout for Mario Lemieux, the owner of the Pittsburgh Penguins. Lemieux is also Canada's captain.

"Mario is great, and he's arguably the best player in the game today. I told him I've got a Mario bobblehead doll and I'm sticking pins into it," Brooks said after his team's last practice before the game.

In 1980 Brooks says he was forced to be more of a teacher, taking a group of raw college students and turning them into hockey players capable of making the jump into the pros some day.

At the time, U.S. college hockey was seen as a dead end street to making the NHL -- unlike today where some of the best players choose college over the junior system.

Twenty-two years later, the U.S. is fielding a team of NHL stars top to bottom, with several likely to become members of the hockey Hall of Fame.

"In 1980 I was more of a mentor, a surrogate teacher. This time I'm more of a conductor, trying to play off the players' thoughts. I am giving the game back to the players," he said.

If history is a barometer, the Americans should be in good shape on Sunday.

The U.S. has two Olympic gold medals in men's ice hockey and both times the Games were on home soil: Squaw Valley in 1960 and Lake Placid in 1980.

"I've told my players never underestimate their ability to influence American hockey. My reason for coming back to coach this team has to do with my belief in the future of the American hockey movement," he said.

Quinn advises his team to play like women

By Steve Simmons, SLAM! Sports

SALT LAKE CITY -- Pat Quinn held a meeting Thursday night and told the players on Team Canada something they never figured to hear.

He told them he wanted them to start acting more like women.

To be specific, like the Canadian women's hockey players at the Winter Olympic Games.

Quinn was so impressed with the poise shown by the Canadian woman against Team USA in their gold-medal hockey game, with a pro-U.S. crowd and a pro-U.S. referee, that he passed this wisdom on to the men's team the night before its game against Belarus.

Quinn said that controlled emotion may provide the key for Canada's gold-medal game tomorrow against the U.S.

"It can be one of our biggest enemies and one our best friends," Quinn said of Canadian emotion. "I saw in two days how emotion can work for you and against you.

"The Swedish team, in my opinion, the best team here, started to lose concentration [in game against Belarus], they started making defensive mistakes, slamming gates, barking at each other. They lost their focus.

"Then I watched our [women's] team. I thought I've never seem homerism like this in all my life [in hockey]. But they never lost their poise. It was amazing. You lose your poise, you give in to the circumstances, that's what loses it. You lose your focus and we spoke about that in our meeting."

Quinn spoke about that and how much all this means to his players and to Canada.

Quinn has been hearing in the past few days from previous gold-medal winners in hockey. Harry Sinden, the Team Canada '72 coach and a former world champion, called. So did Billy Warwick, one of the central players on the 1952 Edmonton Mercurys team that won the most-recent men's hockey gold for Canada.

"We knew coming in this can be an awful albatross," Quinn said of the Canadian focus on hockey. "We're carrying the hopes of the nation. Somehow in Canada, we expect more.

"I don't know if we'll win [tomorrow] but we're there. We plan on [winning]."

Quinn, meanwhile, has enjoyed his time at the Olympics, even if it doesn't look like it.

"I've been sitting outside smoking my cigars and some young athletes come by just to talk, that's nice," Quinn said. "A young snowboarder who expected to win gold and finished dead last talked to me one night."

When asked what the snowboarder was smoking, Quinn laughed and said: "I would have broken my cigar in half for him, if I'd had a clip."

Theo could be a hero for Canada

By Al Strachan, SLAM! Sports

SALT LAKE CITY -- For 30 years now, Foster Hewitt's call of the final goal in the Summit Series has stirred the hearts of Canadian hockey fans.

Perhaps, decades from now, hockey fans will listen to the recording of Canada's winning goal in the 2002 Olympics and hear, "Fleury! Fleury has scored for Canada!"

Fleury admits to having that dream.

"We're in the game we wanted to be in," the Team Canada winger said yesterday. "[Tomorrow] there's a possibility of a Paul Henderson emerging from any one of us, and that's what it's all about."

And Fleury would like to be the one to emerge?

"Yes," he said, "if my name is called, for sure.

"Your No. 1 dream is to play in the NHL, but probably your second dream is to play in a game like the one we're in [tomorrow] because I remember where I was in 1972 when Paul Henderson scored that goal."

Which was?

"I was at home in front of the TV."

This is something of an achievement. At the time, Fleury was only four years old. But he is sure of that.

"Absolutely," he said with resolution. "It was in Canada. I was from parts unknown."

Parts Unknown, Saskatchewan?

"No. Parts Unknown, Manitoba."

Skepticism is starting to creep in. He remembers Paul Henderson's goal even though he was only four?

"I was smart," Fleury said.

Steve Yzerman, meanwhile, was seven years old during the Summit Series of 1972 and, unlike Fleury, tries not to think of being the hero in a Paul Henderson fashion.

But he is not sure he'll be successful.

"It's like being in the playoffs," Yzerman said yesterday, "and I really try as much as I can not to think about hockey, or to think about the game or what could happen.

"But its hard to keep images like that out of your head.

"I just really want to win, and whatever happens, whoever scores, we're all going to be heroes.I just cross my fingers and try not to think about hockey until Sunday afternoon."

Stopping Hull a team effort

By Al Strachan, SLAM! Sports

SALT LAKE CITY -- There is no shortage of offensive weapons on Team USA, but one of the most dangerous is Canadian Brett Hull.

Team Canada defenceman Al MacInnis, who has spent years playing with and against Hull, recognizes the danger.

"The thing about Brett is he knows where to find space," MacInnis said. "He's probably one of the smartest players in the game in knowing where to position himself to make a defenceman make a tough choice -- whether to leave the front of the net or not."

Hull, MacInnis said, finds that never-never land where there is no certainty.

"There are a lot of guys who come in front of the net and bang away," MacInnis said, "but he's the guy who knows just where to go to find that space that makes you think: 'Should I go? Shouldn't I go? Could I get a stick on him?'

"And you know that he needs no time at all to get a shot away. That's where he makes it tough for a defenceman.

"Brett is great at finding space and he doesn't need a lot of chances. He can get one chance a game and it's a goal."

Still, with a concerted team effort, Hull can be negated.

"We're going to need help with our forwards coming back hard," MacInnis said, "not just the third guy, but the fourth and fifth guy to eliminate the guy who's carrying the puck, to eliminate his space and not give them opportunities to find guys like Brett or John LeClair and those other guys."

The effort that's needed to play a demanding, intelligent game of that nature should be in evidence. Everyone in that Canadian dressing room knows the importance of this game to this country.

"It's huge for Canada," MacInnis said. "People asked me what can compare to this in the U.S. I've lived in the U.S. for eight years and I can't find anything to compare with what this means to Canada, because sports down there are shared -- football, baseball, basketball.

"I don't think there's one sport that brings the country together the way hockey does in Canada."

As the oldest player on the team, MacInnis is enjoying his status of elder statesman.

"Trying to win a gold medal for your country is pretty unique and you don't get too many cracks at it," he said.

Then he added, deadpan: "I probably only have two more cracks at it."

Stevie Y is flyin' high

By Bruce Garrioch, SLAM! Sports

SALT LAKE CITY -- It was one of the most difficult decisions of Steve Yzerman's career: Should he bow out of the Olympics for the good of his country or report for the same reason?

Coming off arthroscopic knee surgery just two weeks before the tournament began, Team Canada executive director Wayne Gretzky and coach Pat Quinn left the decision up to Yzerman.

"Steve has been marvelous. I always knew him as a great player, but he's more," Quinn said. "He's a tremendous leader, his humility is tremendous. He does everything for his team and that's the mentality we want.

"That's why he's a leader. He's a walking example of things you should do to be successful. You have faith in quality people because of their constants. He's humble, he's proud and he cares. He has great self respect.

"We asked him to disqualify himself if [he felt] he wasn't going to be able to help this team. It was his call. He made a hard decision, but he has been outstanding," Quinn said.

Playing on a line with captain Mario Lemieux and winger Paul Kariya, it's easy to see Yzerman is in pain as he skates toward the bench after every shift.

However, It was Yzerman who opened the scoring for Canada yesterday in its 7-1 win over Belarus. Andrei Mezin tipped the puck right to him and Yzerman made no mistake as he put it home to give his country the lead.

"You try to relax as much as you can in this situation," Yzerman said. "But you really find that you get tied up in it. We just have to do the best that we can do out there.

"The one thing we don't want to do is race around out there trying to create scoring chances. I think what we have to do is play a lot more technical game on the big ice surface. We've got to hold on to the puck and wait for plays to develop. That's one thing we've become better at."

Yzerman has been the key on a line which has a lot of talent and he gets all the credit from Lemieux.

"[Yzerman] is a smart player," Lemieux said. "He controls the puck very well and he sees the ice well. He's able to pick up the open guy and since he came on our line it has been a puck-control kind of game. He creates turnovers and that's why we cashed in on our opportunities."

But Yzerman doesn't like to talk about himself. Instead, he prefers to assign credit in other places.

"It's good for a lot of guys to get on the board," Yzerman said. "We've had a lot of shots that weren't going [in] against the Czechs and Finns so it's good to get some goals. When we're scoring, we can just relax and play."

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