Olympics: Does a Player Owe More Loyalty to NHL Team or National Team?
In light of reports that Hockey Canada is "disappointed" in Claude Giroux for not attending the Olympic orientation/ team bonding activities in Calgary while rehabbing his recent surgery to repair torn tendons in his right index finger, I will reiterate what I wrote the other day. I think it is a manufactured controversy from the Great White North during the dog days of August, with the NHL regular season still a little over a month away and the Olympics five-plus months from now.
Did Giroux willingly go overseas to play at the 2013 World Championships -- and perform well, for the most part -- after the Flyers missed the playoffs? Yes.
Did Hockey Canada invite another Olympic-worthy player to replace the absent Giroux at the camp? No.
Is Giroux still a shoo-in to go to Sochi, assuming he is healthy this season? Yes.
This is all much ado about nothing. If Hockey Canada was truly all that broken up over Giroux not being at camp, they'd have replaced him with someone such as Jamie Benn, who was omitted from the preliminary roster.
The one interesting angle to arise is the suggestion by unnamed Hockey Canada officials that Giroux's decision not to attend the camp came under duress from the Flyers. Even if that is the case, who could blame Philadelphia's management for not wanting Giroux off in Alberta playing ball hockey games and the like after his recent golf course mishap?
Anyone familiar with my writing knows that I am a big proponent of international hockey. I am in favor of players making themselves available for their national teams whenever possible and even trying to play through injury on the same basis as the would for their NHL teams. As Eklund noted in his blog yesterday, virtually all players' see their international hockey careers as a separate career to his professional career with his club team.
Sometimes those careers bisect. Sometimes a player gets pulled in two different directions between what his NHL team might want and what the national team might want. When that happens, the player has to make a choice where his primary loyalties lie. The way I see it, it is proper for a player's NHL-team commitments to take priority during the offseason and for each and every day he has practice or game commitments to the club. During international tournaments, his priorities lie with giving his all to the national team.
If Giroux had not suffered the finger injury, there would have been no conflict of interests in joining his fellow Team Canada candidates in Calgary. But now that he's in injury rehab status -- with the start of NHL training camps much closer than the Olympics -- he owed his main commitment to the NHL team he captains and to the organization that just signed him to an eight year, $66.2 million contract extension.
Flyers' head coach Peter Laviolette had some
interesting comments yesterday at Team USA's orientation camp about the division of NHL/national team duties and working with some of the same people on the national team that he is competitive against during the season. The gist of his viewpoint is that it is not particularly hard to strike a balance between the two.
Usually there's a pretty clear line of demarcation on when to put on the national team hat, and it's driven by the calendar. In an Olympic year, there may be times when Laviolette, as a Team USA assistant coach, communicates with other team officials -- but it won't be to detriment of the job he's trying to do with the Flyers.
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Tuesday Quick Hits
* Flyers checking forward Max Talbot is fully recovered from a broken leg that brought his 2013 season to an abrupt end. In an
interview with The Hockey Guys' writer David Strehle, Talbot reported that, after three months on crutches and an intensive physical therapy regimen, he has been skating for over a month and has no lingering issues with his leg.
* In their final season in Glens Falls, NY, before relocating the Lehigh Valley, the Adirondack Phantoms will play a pair of home games in Philadelphia during the 2013-14 campaign. On Feb. 1, the Flyers' AHL affiliate will take on the Hershey Bears at the Wells Fargo Center. On Feb. 22, the Phantoms return to town to take on the Bridgeport Sound Tigers.
* The major junior exhibition seasons, along with the preseason tourneys in various European leagues, are already underway. Samuel Morin, the Flyers first-round pick in the 2013 NHL Draft, has already played in a pair of QMJHL preseason games for the Rimouski Oceanic against the Baie-Comeau Drakkar. He had one assist and was minus-three in the two games. Over in Sweden, 2013 second-round pick Robert Hägg has played in a pair of games since returning to Sweden from the World Junior Championship preparation camp in Lake Placid. His Modo club next begins play in the SCA Cup tournament. Hägg is slated to be in the starting lineup when his team takes on Timrå IK.
* In other Flyers prospect news, Valeri Vasiliev has been part of the Team Russia squad at the recent Four Nations Under-20 tournament. He is slated to rejoin his KHL team, Spartak Moscow, shortly.
* Flyers alumni birthdays today: Ryan Bast turns 38. Bast caused a brief sensation in the spring of 1998 when the Flyers signed him to an NHL contract under the noses of the Calgary Flames while he was a member of their AHL affiliate who played against the Phantoms in the Calder Cup Finals. Prolific playmaker Adam Oates, an expensive rental at the 2002 trade deadline, turns 51. Mark Botell, a defenseman who did well in midseason fill-in duty during the 1981-82 season, turns 52.
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A Personal Note on the Hockey Writing Business
Over the course of the past year, my four-year-old son, Benjamin, has started to take an interest in what I do for a living. Although he still gets confused about what I actually do -- he still frequently asks me if I'm the Flyers' coach and recently informed his same-age cousin, Matthew, during a 2-on-0 ball hockey game with me in net that I'm actually the goalie for the Flyers -- Benji's enthusiasm melts my heart.
A few times this summer, I've taken him to the Skate Zone in Voorhees. He instantly loved the rink, especially the goalies in full equipment and the one-timers that either get hammered in to the net or loudly careen off the glass behind the net. With the building nearly empty, he rode up on my shoulders to the upstairs pressbox where I work during the season and loved flipping through all the colorful team media guides stationed on the back wall. It was special time together that I will never forget.
As he gets older, I plan to stress to Benji that apart from hard work and passion for whatever you do in life, it is important to ask questions, keep learning and to show respect and gratitude for those whose own experience benefits you.
I have been involved in hockey writing for the last 18 years. It started out as a fun little hobby and slowly but steadily grew into a way to supplement my income from my "real", non-sports-related writing and editing job. Finally, in 2009, it became my primary source of income. None of it would have been possible without the help of a variety of people in the business.
In my earliest "professional" days, I was credentialed only through the Philadelphia Phantoms while writing for Hockeysfuture.com. It was unpaid work but the credentials were payment enough in my mind. I got to know Mark Fischel, who was running the site and later worked for the NHL.
It was Philadelphia Daily News writer Les Bowen, who was then the Flyers beat writer, who first told me that I had the hockey writing talent to pursue my passion on a more serious level. In 2000, while I was still writing for the Rivals.com site operated by old friend Mike Barr as well as the now-defunct Pro Hockey Euro Report, I started to be credentialed for the Flyers' press box.
Some years later, while I was with Kevin Greenstein's Inside Hockey, John McGourty encouraged me to contact Phil Coffey, then the editor-in-chief at NHL.com, with a proposal to write a weekly column on international hockey at the league's official site. It was Phil who gave me a chance to write for the League, and later sent a variety of other work my way apart from Across the Pond, spanning an array of NHL topics. Eklund invited me to come write for HockeyBuzz two months after I started writing for NHL.com.
Kevin Kurz brought me aboard the Flyers' official site as an occasional writer in 2007, and also helped me line up some article work in the Flyers' game programs. The IIHF's Szymon Szemberg and IIHF.com editor Martin Merk contacted me right around that time to do some articles about the hockey programs in secondary and obscure countries, which have been some of my favorite projects. For two seasons, until the point that Versus and Versus.com was folded into NBC Sports and NBCsports.com, I did a daily NHL blog for Versus' Tom Layberger, and enjoyed every day of it.
Over the years, I have made many friends in the business, and have learned to see things from a variety of perspectives. That's a big part of the reason why I stay out of the whole "mainstream writer vs. blogger turf war" that goes on in this business. In my own work, I have always sort of walked with one foot in both worlds, and I can see where both sides are coming from.
Yesterday's news that Gannett newspapers has slashed a variety of jobs, including those of Courier Post Flyers beat writer Randy Miller, Phil Coffey, and sports editor Gary Silvers, was very upsetting to me. It's an economic sign of the times in the newspaper (and print media in general) business but it still stinks for the people who are affected.
During the last two NHL seasons, I've gotten to know Randy well, and I consider him a friend. We rode together to many practices in Voorhees, to a handful of games and to cover the NHL Draft in Newark just a few months ago. We spent many hours talking hockey, baseball, other sports and about our lives. In the colorful personal story department, few folks this side of Tim Panaccio can top Randy Miller.
When I freelanced for the Courier Post during the 2012 playoffs, it was Randy who helped set up the opportunity with Gary. I appreciated it greatly, because the only way to make a living in the career path I've taken is to write in volume. The more outlets and the greater the frequency, the easier it is to make ends meet and to have alternatives when one opportunity dries up (often after a change in editor and/or budget cuts).
What I've come to discover about Randy is that, apart from being a sports nut who is devoted to his job, he's someone who always wears his heart on his sleeve. He takes things to heart, and reacts accordingly. He's not someone to back down when he thinks he's being challenged. If you could walk a mile in his shoes and got to know him on a personal level, you'd understand why.
At some point this season, I'd like to arrange to bring Benjamin to a Flyers practice. I won't be working that day, but I would take Benji around. Unfortunately, Randy won't be there if and when that happens. He would have fussed over my boy and given him a "job" to do in the pressbox; Benji would have loved that.
I have already noted my debt of gratitude to Phil Coffey. Apart from bringing me aboard NHL.com as a regular freelancer, he brought me to New York some years ago to interview for a full-time position with the site. Although I did not get the job, simply walking into the NHL offices for the first (and, thus far, only) time in my life was a thrill. Phil and I have been in irregular contact since he left NHL.com, but I still hold him in the highest of esteem.
My only contact with Gary was through the series of articles I did for the newspaper during the 2012 postseason. It went smoothly, and I was glad I got a chance this past January to briefly meet Gary face-to-face and shake hands.
I wish all three men nothing but the best in all they do. I am glad that Benjamin isn't old enough yet to learn the lesson that sometimes good people have bad things happen to them that are beyond their control to prevent. On the flip side, it makes me a proud daddy to know that he's already learning that friends are friends, no matter what.
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