International Hockey

Jay Williams has been fighting to have his hockey skills noticed, because as a native of McLean, Va., he's not from a typical hotbed for hockey talent.

But the 17-year-old goaltender will get the opportunity to showcase himself when he backstops the U.S. team at the upcoming Ivan Hlinka Memorial Tournament, which will be held Aug. 9-14 in Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

With teams from Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, and Sweden among the eight teams competing, the tournament provides a great opportunity for the players to measure themselves against some of the top competition in the world at their age level.

"Playing in Virginia is definitely tough," Williams said. "There aren't as many opportunities because the teams from around here aren't as competitive. I think if you get an opportunity like the Select Festival, you have to go out there and make the most of it."

He left Virginia to play at the elite Hotchkiss School in Connecticut, and parlayed success there into a spot this season with the U.S. National Team Development Program, and a scholarship to play in 2011-12 at the University of Miami (Ohio).

This won't be Williams' first trip overseas with a USA Hockey team. Last year, he helped the U.S. finish third at the Under-17 Five Nations Tournament in Germany. Williams won both his starts, beating Switzerland 4-3 and then stopping 32 of 38 shots in a 9-6 decision against Germany.

"I was lucky enough to make (a USA Hockey team) last year and it has pretty much been my goal to make it back," Williams said. "I'm really excited. We have a great group of guys, a really good team, and it should be a lot of fun. There are five or six guys who were on the team last year. I definitely think the experience of being over there last year will help us moving forward. Going over there, the goal is to win a gold medal."

Throughout the summer, Williams has used the time away from school to focus on his off-ice conditioning, hitting the gym four or five times a week with college players to get stronger. He also skates twice during the week to sharpen his footwork between the pipes.

"I want to go over there and win a gold medal," Williams said. "That would be pretty special."

For most 17-year-olds, summertime means spending time with friends and staying out late. Connor Murphy, a defenseman who will represent the U.S. at the upcoming Ivan Hlinka Memorial Tournament, has other plans.

He's at the rink or in the gym every day trying to get ahead of the competition as he prepares for the elite internation summer hockey tournament, which will be held August 9-14 in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Beyond that, he has a full season with the U.S. National Team Development Program Under-18 squad to look forward to.

"I'm trying to treat my summer like I'm in-season right now and get in shape as much as possible so that when the season comes, I'll actually be a step ahead of everyone," Murphy said.

He's gotten a lot of help from his father, Gord Murphy, who played 14 NHL seasons and is entering his first season as an assistant coach with the Florida Panthers.

"He's taken me out skating every week and putting me through workouts," Murphy said. "He knows a lot of the weaknesses that I need to work on to be one of the top defensemen. He knows what it takes to be a very good defenseman."

Wearing the red, white and blue is important to Murphy. Last year, he represented the U.S. at the Under-17 Five Nations Tournament in Germany, and was on the roster for the 2010 Vlad Druzilla Under-18 Tournament in Slovakia.

"It's always great to wear the USA jersey as much as possible," Murphy said. "It's obviously the best competition in the world. Canada only has one team going (to the Hlinka tournament), compared to last year at the World (Under-17) Challenge. They have a bunch of teams from different districts."

Murphy finds some time to relax—after practice, of course—with a good friend and teammate Sean Kuraly.

"We go through it together, working out here. It's always fun being at the rink," Murphy said. "Any night we get, we just kind of hang out a bit."

Murphy doesn't really mind that hockey has taken up most of his summer.

"I love skating," he said, "so it's not that bad."

USA Hockey has announced the Under-18 Select Team that will participate in the 2010 Ivan Hlinka Memorial Tournament in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, scheduled to take place August 9-14.

The players have been selected out of a group that participated in the USA Hockey Boys Select 17 Player Development Camp that was held in Rochester, NY from July 7-13.

The team is highlighted by Jay Williams, who led all goaltenders at the camp with a .964 save percentage and a 1.20 goals against average, as well as forward Carson Hohmann, who scored three goals and added six assists to finish tied for third at the camp with nine points.

The tournament will feature eight countries separated into two groups. Group A, consisting of the Czech Republic, Finland, Russia, and the U.S., will play its preliminary games in Breclav, Czech Republic. Group B, made up of Canada, Slovakia, Sweden, and Switzerland, will play its prelims in Piestany, Slovakia.

The U.S. has had success in the past Ivan Hlinka Memorial Tournaments, finishing in the top three nine times since the tournament began in 1991, including a first place finish in 2003.

The 21 players selected represent 13 states across the U.S. and will be coached by Tim Army, who is the head men's ice hockey coach at Providence College.

Click here for the complete USA Under-18 Select Team roster.

2010 Ivan Hlinka Memorial Tournament • Team USA Schedule • August 9-14 • Breclav, Czech Republic & Piestany, Slovakia

DATE	OPPONENT	TIME (LOCAL/EDT)	LOCATION
Sat. Aug 7 (Exhibition)	Slovakia	5:30 PM (11:30 AM)	Piestany, Slovakia
Mon. Aug 9	Czech Republic	3:30 PM (9:30 AM)	Breclav, Czech Republic
Tues. Aug 10	Russia	3:30 PM (9:30 AM)	Breclav, Czech Republic
Wed. Aug 11	Finland	3:30 PM (9:30 AM)	Breclav, Czech Republic
Fri. Aug 14	TBD	TBD	TBD
Sat. Aug 15	TBD	TBD	TBD

The USA may have blown it in the 2010 Vancouver Olympics Ice Hockey Tournaments by settling for silver, but in the Paralympics, it was a whole different story. This will go down as an up year for USA Ice Sledge Hockey.

Now for those of you who haven't followed this sport, or for those of you who could care less about it, ice sledge hockey is essentially ice hockey for paraplegics who play on modified sleds.

But going back to the gold medal game (and this time, there is no women's tournament; there is just one), the USA made no mistake in securing this one. Alas, it was not the Canadians that Ray Maluta's men had to deal with. Instead it was Japan, who stunned the then-defending gold medalists in the semis.

Alexi Salamone and Taylor Lipsett ensured that the USA's overall ice hockey campaign would not end in three straight silvers, shutting out Japan 2-0.

Here's something you have to know about Salamone, who is a Ukrainian-American that survived the Chernobyl power plant disaster in 1986. He had deformed legs and became a double amputee while being adopted by a family here in the States.

This tragedy never stopped Salamone from pursuing the sport he loves: hockey. And everything went full circle by scoring the first goal of this gold medal game at 4:10 of the first period.

"I didn't even think about the whistle. I was watching the play, staying patient and waiting for the puck to squeak out (from the scrum). I wanted to take my time and get the shot. That's what I did," said Salamone on the goal. "To win this gold medal in the Paralympics, the highest stage of competition, I'm so grateful to everyone for what they have done for me all the way."

Salamone would finish as the tournament's leading scorer with four goals and four assists.

Defensively, the USA's Steve Cash was all money, stopping shot after shot after shot. Not even Japanese team captain Takayuki Endo could get one past Cash, who kept the bank account of the Rising Sun closed for the Paralympiad.

Andrew Yohe of Team USA had rave reviews for Cash, who earned his fifth shutout to wrap up the tournament. "He’s an unbelievable goaltender," he said. "We knew he would keep us in every game and we just had to get out there and get the pucks into the net."

"I'm half happy and half sad," said Japan forward Uehara Daisuke. "I did not think it was a bad game. I think we missed one goal. It's always important that you feel you can win the game because if you do not feel that you will win the game, then you will lose it. I went into the game thinking that I will win it."

Well, if you get outshot 16 to 5, as Japan was here against the USA, it's probably wishful thinking at the most. Just to add salt to the wounds of Canadian hockey pride, Norway kept Canada away from the podium with a 2-1 victory. Can't win 'em all, Canada; two out of three shouldn't be bad for you.

But the story here is this: while it may be a down year for the able-bodied members, it's an up year for the sledgemasters of USA Ice Hockey. Stay tuned in four years' time for what will happen next...in Sochi.

This article is not going to be popular among my Canadian friends. And I have—or had—many of them.

I work for a Canadian company, I have dozens of Canadian fans on this site and several who are friends of mine on Facebook, and (with all due respect to my favourite team, the Green Bay Packers!) my favourite sport is the Canadian national pastime. Heck, you can see that I even use Canadian spellings (okay, originally they were the English ones).

But even my attempts to broach this idea in the last week since the gold medal game have been met with accusations that I am bitter, a sore loser, making excuses, or diminishing Canada's accomplishment. Nothing could be further from the truth, and I will address them one-by-one.

There is nothing bitter about me regarding Olympic hockey, unless you are referring to my prognostication skills: I picked Canada to win, but had every other medalist wrong.

The tournament was extraordinary, and did wonders for marketing the world's best game. Team USA made me proud and exceeded my expectations, and more games than I predicted (back to my lack of prognostication skill!) were close and competitive.

More to the point, because this is the thing that my Northern neighbours have misjudged me on, I fully acknowledge that the best team won. They were better than us in the final, and we were not robbed.

That should take care of the "sore loser" and excuse-making accusations. Let's move on to the diminishing Canada's accomplishment, because this one has some merit.

Let me make this clear: Canada was expected to win, and especially playing at home, that is an intense amount of pressure. There may be nothing harder than winning when everyone expects you to.

Unless it is winning with far less talent. Like every other team in the tournament.

Canada had 14 players who had participated in last season's NHL All Star Game, and all but one of their players (Patrice Bergeron) is on the ice when the puck first drops for his team's contests. In fact, if Canada fielded two hockey teams, their next 23 players would be medal favourites.

Do not misunderstand me, Team USA was no slouch: 12 of their 19 players participating in the gold medal game are on the ice to start games for their teams, and the rest still play significant roles on their teams. However, there is no comparison to the talent of Canada—only four participated in last year's NHL All Star Game.

For this team to win a medal at all was a bigger accomplishment than Canada winning gold. But that alone would not be enough for me to be more proud of my team than Canada should be of theirs.

The reason I believe Team USA was the most impressive in the Olympics was they played hard on every shift. They came up with an upset win over arguably the most talented team ever assembled, beat a team on their own level 6-1, and never trailed until the gold medal game, when they still managed to come back from a two-goal deficit to force overtime.

Canada lost to a less talented Team USA, then blew a two-goal lead as their intensity noticeably diminished once they attained that lead (a trait my San Jose Sharks are known for—albeit less-so this season—that drives me nuts) before needing overtime to beat their little brothers.

They needed a shootout to beat Switzerland, who had only two current NHL players. They almost blew a three-goal, third period lead to Slovakia, who had fewer NHL players than Canada had All Stars.

Did they rise up when it counted? Yes. (My fear is this will teach the four San Jose Sharks on the team—more than any other NHL team—that they can do this, as they have tried in the past, during this year's NHL playoffs, leading to another premature defeat.)

Is this the spirit of the Olympics? No.

Originally an amateur competition, it has always been about national pride spurring on amazing performances, much like the early rounds of March Madness. Players are supposed to show constant work ethic and "leave it all on the ice."

This is what Team USA did. This is what the Slovakians did. This does not describe Team Canada, who was outworked in three of their six games and relied on their ability to take over when they turned the switch back on.

I am certainly not alone in this assessment. Team USA Coach Ron Wilson echoed my sentiments a week ago:

"I couldn't have asked anything more of our players. They did us proud. They played hard for 60-some minutes, right to the end in regulation and (Canada) made a great play and found a way to finish us off. But, we are very proud of every one of our players—their character, how hard they tried, their comportment here has been excellent.'
 
"It's just a shame that both teams couldn't have received a gold medal today. Sometimes, the best team in the tournament doesn't win a gold medal. I thought our team played as well as any team I have ever coached."

That's what the Olympics are supposed to be about, and that's why to me USA hockey's silver medals shine brighter than Canada's gold ones do.

Hopefully, my Canadian friends can be objective and acknowledge we accomplished more even though they reached the ultimate goal. If not, I do not blame them for being defensive about their nation's performance in their nation's game, especially given they did win gold.

I originally wrote this article for Shark-Infested Blogger .

To say the gold medal hockey game between Canada and the U.S.A. was the most thrilling part of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics is probably an understatement.

In fact, the whole tournament carried story lines of anticipation, roster decisions, and potential grudge matches, even before Wayne Gretzky’s nervous looking trip to the Olympic cauldron to light the official flame.

Not to mention the excitement of the tournament itself—the strong performance of the United States to knock off the host-country favourites in the round robin and Canada's defeat of arch-rivals Russia  in the semi-finals before a hotly anticipated rematch between the North American neighbours was riveting.

So, forgive me for being just a little surprised that there are actually a whole lot of people out there who think professional hockey players should no longer be able to compete in the 2014 games when they’re hosted, somewhat ironically, by the Russians.

What a shame it would be, not just for passionate hockey fans who have only been shown brief glimpses of greatness from superstar scoring lines consisting of players like Ovechkin, Malkin and Semin, but for the game in general. Professional hockey desperately needs the Olympic hype every four years if it hopes to stay relevant in the international arena.

The issue of tainting the purity of the Olympics with professional athletes frankly went away a long time ago. Try convincing me that Shaun White is an “amateur” snowboarder.

The guy pulls in around $10 million a year to do what he does. And the same can apply to a host of other Olympic sports which would be pretty terrible if it weren’t for athletes who were being paid to compete year round from endorsements or otherwise.

Having a repeat of the World Junior Championships every fourth February, an event that happens annually in December and January anyways, is not an option.

The WJCs are already hosted by Canada every second year because nobody else puts as much weight into the Christmas/New Year’s event as we do.

Competition wise, Canada’s dominance, while amusing, has only recently been ended by the Americans. The tournament’s finals will never average the nearly 27 million viewers the United States does—which is how many tuned into NBC’s coverage of the Olympic gold medal game (The most to watch a hockey game there in 30 years).

The real issue though is the recent moaning of NHL owners and some pundits who are saying a two week break in the middle of the season is bad for business and the sport.

To say the games have a negative effect on the athletes is laughable. If the NHL’s best hockey players can’t handle a minimum of four extra games and a maximum of seven every four years to represent their country at the Olympics, they might as well be considered amateurs.

So a two-week break once every four years is a little bit uncomfortable for NHL owners, but until the NHL and the IIHF can come up with a viable international tournament that actually means something, taking pro players out of the Olympics could only damage a sport that is actually further along internationally than every other major sport in North America.

Despite the fact that some of the greatest players to ever lace up skates have come from across the big pond, international hockey tournaments are a joke.

Since having its name changed from the Canada Cup to the World Cup of Hockey in 1996, the NHL-run tournament has only happened twice.

The only thing the World Cup has right is scheduling the tournaments in August and September, before the NHL regular season. The next is supposed to happen in 2011.

The IIHF World Hockey Championships offer a glimpse of international competition but can never be considered a preeminent tournament when the world’s best players are, for the most part, playing for the greatest hockey teams in the NHL.

It’s really just a sideshow to the Stanley Cup.

So if the owners get their way and NHL players don’t make the trip to Russia in 2014 what happens? We pray the NHL can organize a summer tournament sooner than every eight years? We base our hockey pride on teams that in most cases won’t include guys like Crosby, Ovechkin, and Miller?

Not good enough.

Right now, the Olympics offers the only place we can watch hockey at its absolute best, and if that means putting the NHL season on hold for two weeks every four years, then for the game, it should be worth the sacrifice.

The bitter defeat of the United States by Canada at the Vancouver Olympic Games is something the Russians and other European hockey powers can relate to.

Canada always seems to find a way to win the big game when it has to.

Many American B/R writers were predicting an American victory after the earlier preliminary meeting, but a change in goal and better defensive play was enough to put the more talented Canadian team on top.

Now Sidney Crosby has been officially crowned as the heir of the Canada's unofficial "hereditary line" of "greatest player of his generation."

This line stretches back to the 1940s and includes Maurice Richard, Gordie Howe, Bobby Hull, Bobby Orr, Guy Lafleur, Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, and now Crosby.

And there lies the problem for the Americans and Europeans.  They have no Crosby who is the best of his time.  They never have.

The closest anyone has come to Canada that way has been Jaromir Jagr and now Alexander Ovechkin.  But the Canadians made Ovechkin invisible in their game against them.

Canada also has had a formidable supporting class that includes Jean Beliveau, Bernie Geffrion, Doug Harvey, Stan Mikita, Phil Esposito, Bobby Clarke, Mike Bossy, Brian Trottier, Denis Potvin, Steve Yzerman, Mark Messier, and too many others to count. 

That doesn't even include the goaltenders that have been developed.  Canada's domination of international hockey is no fluke.

Because behind them is the organization that wins the gold medal for Canada EVERY year: the CHL (Canadian Hockey League).

For American and foreign readers of B/R, who aren't familiar with the CHL, it is Canada's only and top junior league.

It consists of three sections, the QMJHL (which is the junior league of Quebec and the Maritimes), the OHL (Ontario), and the WHL (Western Canada).

Every year a new crop of CHL juniors graduate to the NHL.  On Canada's gold medal winning team, 20 players came from the CHL.

The top player of the CHL is usually the number one NHL draft choice.

The CHL has a schedule similar to the NHL.  Each section has a regular season and then playoffs to determine its champion.

Then the three winners get together with a host team, to play a mini-tournament for Canada's top junior prize, the Memorial Cup.

Perhaps one day if there are enough Quebec and Maritime teams, the QMJHL will split into two sections so that all four regional champions of Canada play for the trophy.

The gold medal that the CHL wins EVERY year is for turning out the best junior players in the world.  No other organization comes close, not even the European Junior leagues.

In fact there is a backlog of European and American boys eager for the limited positions open to them each year.

For the CHL doesn't just develop Canadians, they develop everybody.

And that is the problem for the United States and those that want to make hockey an "American game."  They have no equivalent of the CHL.

Most of the best American development of junior players takes place during the university years, when a boy is emerging into manhood.  But the CHL develops a boy during the critical high school years.

So most American boys who want to have an NHL career have to come to Canada to hone their skills and play against good competition.

Canadian families sponsor them, and take them in.  The American/European boy plays with his CHL team and goes to a Canadian high school to continue his education.

They become like adopted sons for their sponsoring Canadian family.  There's never a shortage of foreign applicants.

So when the United States finally dethroned Canada after a run of five years at the World Junior Championships, it was no fluke.  Most of the American boys play somewhere in the CHL.   The Americans in particular play the Canadian style of hockey.

Over the years, there has been talk by American team NHL owners and other prominent Americans in the hockey world of making the United States a world power in the sport and hockey an American game.

But they won't do that until they set up a CHL of their own.

The fact the Americans, renowned for their sports development facilities and organizations, have never done the most obvious thing to do is curious.

The fact is the United States is content to let Canada train their own players.

The United States does have a limited presence in the CHL.  Each section has at least one American franchise.

The QMJHL has one; the OHL three; and WHL has a whole US division.  Sometimes the American franchises do very well.  The last one to win the Memorial Cup was Spokane.

Setting up an American equivalent of the CHL seems the obvious step if the United States really wants to win Olympic gold medals in hockey and other international tournaments.

They could start in one region and let it grow and spread.  Maybe they could finally develop a Crosby of their own.

Just as importantly, it would help make hockey popular in the United States at a boy's earlier age, something Gary Bettman desperately wants to do.

If the United States wants to contest Canadian hockey supremacy, they are going to have to challenge the CHL.

Because as long as the CHL goes unchallenged, so will Canada.

For more information on the CHL go to  http://www.chl.ca

I don’t really like hockey.

Living in Colorado for three years now, I realize how blasphemous that sounds. But it's the truth.

It’s not that I don’t “get” it or think it’s a dumb sport. I’m just not a fan. The same thing goes for rugby, track and field, and NASCAR.

I see the appeal, I understand why folks are drawn to it, but it’s just not my cup of tea. If that’s all there is to watch on TV during a Saturday afternoon, I’ll just get out and hit the fishing hole.

And my lack of love for this game on ice can’t be attributed to the fact I’m an Oklahoman. Growing up, I went to Tulsa Oilers games and watch the city of Tulsa’s four-team high school league, but whenever I went to a hockey game, it was mainly to see the gloves drop.

Heck, the majority of my knowledge about the sport comes from playing “Wayne Gretzky’s 3D Hockey” and “NHL Breakaway ‘98” on the Nintendo 64, neither of which are true almanacs on Canada’s pastime.

Still, despite not being a fan of hockey, I wouldn’t trade this past week of watching USA in the Olympics with my roommates for anything.

You can pick your poison on whether that’s attributed to the sappy feeling of sharing time with friends or, the way I see it, to rooting for my country. Correction: our country.

The Rocky Mountain Collegian editor Sean Star said it best on his Facebook status Wednesday: “I don’t usually watch hockey, but when I do, I prefer Team USA.”

Star is right. When watching sports of which you’re not a big fan, it helps when it’s international play. You root for country.

It reminds me of my sophomore year in college, my first at Colorado State, living in Corbett Hall. The FIFA Women’s World Cup was being played in China, and despite staying up most nights until 2 a.m. annoying the heck out of my poor roommate while socializing, I went to bed early on those international game days so I could wake up at four in the morning and watch the USA play live. Good times.

It’s all about a sense of patriotism. Seeing the red, white, and blue fall behind by two goals against Canada on Sunday was not something that sat well with me. But when Ryan Kesler (whether he actually scored it or not) was credited with cutting the lead in half in the second period, I got a little excited.

I don’t really know hockey, but I know sports. I know momentum. I know how the snowball effect works.

I started to think, “OK, no problem. We’re right back in this.”

Then 26 more minutes went by, and the US could not score, could not even setup a good shot. Ryan Miller was pulled and the Canucks even cleared the puck toward that empty net. But it was still a time game.

Finally, with my heart pumping, the entire populous of the living room no longer on the couches but rather two feet away from the TV screen, with less than a minute to go, there's an offensive face-off for the US.

And something happened.

All is quiet …

… GOAL!

Our house erupted while the Canada Hockey Place fell silent.

It was a good feeling. There was a sense of joy and camaraderie for about 20 minutes of real time until Sidney Crosby had to ruin it all.

Canada deserves credit. They played harder and won that game fair and square, but it’s rough to get silver while your ginger cousin from up north wears gold.

And being a die-hard Kansas Jayhawks fan as well as CSU student, this was just another loss to cap off a bad weekend for my teams. But this loss was actually bittersweet.

It capped off a fun two weeks of cheering for the United States, a time of brotherhood across the country.

I’m no hockey fan, but I’m a fan of our country. And while I still feel like the Winter Olympics are primarily a two-week episode of MTV’s “Jackass,” there are still the high points.

Uniting a country is definitely one of them.

It's hard to believe that the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics are over. I never get to see as much of the Olympics as I'd like, and every two years as another winter/summer event passes, I regret not watching more of the action.

There won't be any movies about Canada's epic 2010 men's Olympic hockey victory over the United States, at least from Hollywood.

In this match, reality, not fiction prevailed.

The American players knew what they were up against.  They knew they were in for a tough game against Canada.

Then they found out what the USSR found out in 1972 and 1987: what it's like to have a dramatic goal scored by Canada to win a medal or series in the last minute with everything on the line.

More importantly, the American public found out what it's like.

Maybe now there won't be any more corny movies made that fly in the face of reality, in order to maintain the American sports myth.

If Americans don't have a real hero, they'll manufacture one. For baseball, it's the Bad News Bears.  For hockey, it's the Mighty Ducks.

Fortunately, I've never seen a Mighty Duck movie but I've been told about them.

In them, Canada is always conveniently defeated by some villainous European team, leaving the underdog Ducks to save North American hockey.

Canada's defeat is of course discreetly handled, taking place off camera and quickly mentioned and forgotten. Disney doesn't want to harm sales of its products north of the American border.

Every Canadian who has watched these movies is either dumbfounded or laughs with contempt. They still wonder when the Ducks are going to come north of the 49th parallel to play them.

In fact, I don't think there's ever been a game between the Ducks and Canada. Pity.

Sometimes shamefully, Canada tries to emulate this boorish garbage. Usually, they can back it up with their play on the ice.

You won't get any American players who regularly play with and against Canadians endorsing this embarrassing crap. They know what it's like to play against them. In fact, they try to emulate the Canadian style of tough, physical play.

Disney tried carry this myth into the NHL.  When they were awarded an expansion team for Anaheim, they were called, (what else) the Mighty Ducks.

Those Ducks at least have the distinction of really being a Stanley Cup Champion. Last year they played one of the hardest hitting playoff series in NHL history against the Detroit Red Wings.  Besides the finals between Pittsburgh and Detroit, that was probably the best series of the playoffs.

The United States was looking for a Duck—like, Hollywood finish to the 2010 men's hockey competition.

Instead bitter reality intruded, something the Russians and other European opponents of Canada know only too well.