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Four years ago, the United States Men’s Hockey team finished a disappointing eighth in Torino, Italy. This year in Vancouver, there is much hype surrounding USA Hockey, along with expectations of not just winning a medal, but a coveted gold medal.
The United States hasn’t won the gold medal since pulling off arguably the greatest sports upset in 1980, when they beat the Soviet Union in Lake Placid.
Brian Burke, general manager of Team USA, feels that his management selection committee did a great job with this year’s club. Burke left a statement on the USA Hockey website, “Our management group has worked hard to put together a group of players that will give us the best chance to win the gold medal in Vancouver and we feel like we’ve done that.”
In 2006, USA Hockey flopped at the Winter Olympics posting a 1-3-1 record and losing their quarterfinal game against Finland. The only win came against Kazakhstan, who failed to make it past the round-robin stage. That year, scoring was scarce for the United States, as Scott Gomez and Craig Conroy lead the team, only registering three points each.
The IIHF (International Ice Hockey Federation) ranks the United States sixth in the world going into Vancouver. This team has a much different look to it than in the past as the likes of strong veteran leadership from Mike Modano, Chris Chelios, and Bill Guerin aren’t walking through the locker room door. It’s a much younger team now with fresh new faces; the average age being only 26.5 years.
Only three players have actual Olympic game experience to their credit: Chris Drury (New York Rangers), Brian Rafalski (Detroit Red Wings), and Jamie Langenbrunner (New Jersey Devils) who was named as team captain. Burke left another statement on the USA Hockey website defending their personnel decisions: “We had some difficult decisions to make, but that’s a credit to USA Hockey and depth of the player pool in our country.”
Three local players made the squad: Patrick Kane (Buffalo, NY/Chicago Blackhawks), Dustin Brown (Ithaca, NY/Los Angeles Kings), and Ryan Callahan (Rochester, NY/New York Rangers).
Team USA is coached by Ron Wilson, headman from the Toronto Maple Leafs. Group A will be a tough test as they will face-off against Switzerland, Norway, and Canada in pool-play.
Sabres fans have a lot to look forward to in these Olympics. Five members of the organization will represent their respective countries in Vancouver including three Sabres defensemen: Henrik Tallinder (Sweden), Toni Lydman (Finland), and Andrej Sekera (Slovakia).
Lindy Ruff will be on Team Canada’s bench as an assistant coach. And of course, fans are most excited to see Ryan Miller for Team USA. Miller is expected to be the United States starting goaltender, with Tim Thomas (Boston Bruins) as his backup. After having such a strong first half of the season thus far, Sabres fans don’t want to see Miller burn out the second half after the Olympics, and make his Olympic debut a bitter-sweet occurrence.
The minimum number of games Miller will play is most likely four or five, while the maximum can turn out to be eight if the United States makes the gold-medal match.
According to the USA Hockey website, when Burke was asked about the goaltending situation, his response was distinct: “The schedule lends itself early to a one-goalie tournament. We’re playing every other night… So it screams for a one-goalie system.”
It’s a fair argument to say that Miller won’t disappoint Team USA, but hopefully he won’t disappoint Sabres fans after the Olympics. Patrick Lalime will surely be rested and have to step up for Buffalo.
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