Saturday, February 16, 2002
Startling start
By BRUCE GARRIOCH -- Sun Media
SALT LAKE CITY -- With Team Canada falling apart in the second period, the E Center scoreboard flashed to general manager Wayne Gretzky shaking his head.
In living rooms across Canada, fans were doing the same.
It was supposed to be a meaningless opening night of the Olympic hockey tournament, but what materialized from Team Canada was a horrible effort, resulting in a shocking 5-2 loss to Sweden.
"We have to take this as a lesson because we got hammered," Canadian coach Pat Quinn said. "If we don't learn from this lesson then we'll be going home Thursday.
"We had said we have three games and five days to pull things together, I don't want to be knee-jerk yet.
"We don't have time for incredible patience here, but we definitely have time to make some things work. We've got a lot of good offensive players and we've got a situation where we're going to have to ask them to do some work they maybe don't do in the NHL."
Trying to make up for their fourth-place finish at the 1998 Games in Nagano, this isn't the way the Canadian players would have scripted their beginning.
Instead, they would have preferred a good, solid victory in their first 60 minutes as a team.
Defenceman Rob Blake opened the scoring by beating Swedish goalie Tommy Salo at 2:37 of the first, but the fun stopped there for Canada.
A short time later, Swedish captain Mats Sundin scored his first of two to tie it up and the rout had its beginning.
The Leafs captain added an assist for a three-point night while Ottawa Senator Daniel Alfredsson picked up two assists as the Swedes had a four-goal second period to bury the favoured Canadians.
Eric Brewer scored the other goal for Canada.
"I wouldn't say it's shocking, I would say it's more disappointing," said Canadian centre Eric Lindros, who had a goal called back in third because Michael Peca was in the crease. "But, I don't think there's any reason to panic.
"We've got time here. There's obviously some things we have to work on, some adjustments that we have to make. We need to have a good practice and then just go forward from there. We know we've got a good team here."
Still, this was the worst loss at the Olympics for Canada since they dropped a 5-0 decision to Russia in 1988. It was obvious the Swedes were used to the big ice and the Canadians couldn't shut them down.
"They knew how to use it and we were having our difficulties," Peca said.
COULDN'T STOP THEM
"We did a pretty solid job in the first, but they were making some passes with no red line that were like football because they were going for the long bombs and we couldn't stop them."
Yes, and that has to change before Canada faces Germany tomorrow night in its second game.
The level of play is only going to get better as teams move forward. The Canadian players know they have to tighten up, despite the brave face they put up as they met with the media.
"Look, if we'd won this game we'd still be in the same position that we are right now: We wouldn't have won a thing," Steve Yzerman said. "We got away from playing our game and we've got adjustments to make.
"I think we've just got to settle things down a little out there. We just fell apart in the second period. This is our first game together as a team and there's some things that we can work on. The biggest adjustment is to the bigger ice."
The real stuff doesn't begin until Wednesday when the medal round starts, but this game served as a stern warning.
2002 Games Men's Hockey Coverage
