Thursday, February 14, 2002
Quinn dumps old style
Canadians will hold on to the puck for a change
By AL STRACHAN -- Team Sun
SALT LAKE CITY -- Europeans beware! The Canadian gifts that you could always count upon are no longer going to be available.
This time around, if you want to get the puck from Team Canada, you're going to have to come and get it. It will no longer be given away.
That was part of the message delivered by Team Canada's head coach Pat Quinn last night as he explained the overall philosophy behind his strategy for the Olympic tournament.
In simple terms, it is this. As far as the physical aspects of the game are concerned, Quinn will try to breed familiarity. Players who know each other, or have an affinity for each other, will play together as much as possible.
Similarly, the systems that will be put in place are those which are most common in the NHL.
The only significant change the players will be asked to make is mental. There will be no dump-and-chase game because on the larger European ice surface, it usually ends up as dump the puck, then chase the opposition.
"What we want to change is a way of thinking," said Quinn. "We've gone to these tournaments, and while in the small rinks -- Canada Cups, that sort of thing -- we can play a dump-it-in, let's-go-get-it, knock-them-off-the-puck sort of game. We have found it doesn't work very well all the time.
"Well, we don't want to give the puck up. We don't intend to. We will occasionally, and our challenge will be to get it back and I think we'll have those two-way guys who can defend as well as they attack."
No matter whose rules you're playing under, if you've got possession, the chances of giving up a goal are pretty slim.
To make sure that his players are as comfortable as possible, Quinn intends to minimize unfamiliarity.
CRYSTAL CLEAR
Although he wouldn't reveal his lines, they were in The Sun last week and they make his thinking crystal clear.
"Some of the guys will have played together with teams in the National Hockey League," he said. That explains Steve Yzerman with Brendan Shanahan, and Simon Gagne with Eric Lindros.
"Some have a good feel for each other," he said. That would be Mike Peca with Ryan Smith and Theoren Fleury -- scrappy, two-way players.
"We've got some pretty bright players coming here," Quinn said, "and they can see other guys that they'd like to play with, and have expressed their opinions."
That would include the captain, Mario Lemieux, who hand-picked linemates, Joe Sakic and Paul Kariya.
Once the organizers got that far, they agreed that they needed a defensive system that would work and which could be implemented in the short time frame that is available for this tournament.
"We'll pretty much play what is a 1-2-2 formation," Quinn said. "The reason we'll go to that is that most of the teams are playing that formation somewhat with subtle little changes.
"We didn't want to come in here with a change and go to a 1-3-1 or whatever some of the other good formations are. We wanted to have something the guys can feel comfortable with."
It all boils down to using the available time wisely. Quinn and his players have five days, during which time they play three games, before they get to the must-win games.
2002 Games Men's Hockey Coverage
