Saturday, February 23, 2002
Lemieux to Pen final script?
By AL STRACHAN -- Toronto Sun
Mario Lemieux is thinking only about tomorrow.
Asked to discuss his future following Canada's 7-1 victory over Belarus yesterday at the E Center, the 36-year-old Lemieux wouldn't look any further than the Olympic gold medal game tomorrow.
While Lemieux has promised to play another season, there is talk circling here he may retire if Team Canada brings home the championship because there is little left to be gained with the Pittsburgh Penguins.
"My only concern is (tomorrow) right now," said Lemieux, who has been troubled by a sore hip and missed the second game of the Olympic tournament against Germany. "Anything that happens after that is something I can't control.
"I've talked all along in the past couple of months that the most important thing for me was to play in the Olympics and to try to help this team achieve (its) goal which is winning gold. That's why I skipped a lot of games with Pittsburgh. Hopefully, my hip is going to be all right and I can play the rest of the season, but (tomorrow) is my priority."
THE UPSET IS OVER
Belarus goaltender Andrei Mezin had his 15 minutes of fame end pretty quickly yesterday. The hero of the club's 4-3 win over Sweden on Wednesday was pulled after allowing four goals on 27 shots midway through the second period. He watched the rest of the game from the end of the bench.
"Today was not a great game for me," Mezin said. "Four goals ... I should stop more."
A starter for the Berlin Capitals of the German league, Mezin will return there following the bronze-medal game between Belarus and Russia today. He said he has had calls from a couple of people who are mentioning the possibility of playing in the NHL, but there is nothing concrete.
"I've received a few phone calls, but I haven't talked to anyone or thought about anything yet," he said. "We'll see. I am playing hockey right now and then I'll think about it."
A FEISTY BIG E
Benched in the third period against Finland Wednesday, Eric Lindros was in a nasty mood yesterday and finally ended his scoring slump in the tournament.
"I think getting that goal was kind of like chopping at the big red oak. You just keep going at it," Lindros said. A member of the 1998 team in Nagano, he is pleased to move on. "If you think about what happened four years ago, we were in shock," Lindros said. "Things were going our way and we were playing well. All of sudden we found ourselves in a shootout and it seems like 30 seconds later we found ourselves making travel arrangements to head home. We're proud to represent Canada in the final game."
HEAD-HUNTING?
Early in the Canada-Belarus game yesterday, Al MacInnis blasted a shot that had Mezin diving in terror. There were those who suspected that MacInnis was trying a bit of intimidation
"Not really," MacInnis said. "It was on a power play. I didn't think the defenceman would go down that early, but he confronted the shot and went down, so I just tried to shoot it over him.
"I caught all of it and it just went off the crossbar.
"But if it had hit him, well, he chose to be a goalie."
--with files from Bruce Garrioch
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2002 Games Men's Hockey Coverage
