Thirty Years of the Game at its Best

by Gare Joyce

  Iginla’s moment came in the third period against the Russians. Canada was clinging to a 3–2 lead despite being outshot almost two-to-one—the final shot numbers were 49 for Russia and 28 for Canada, and the defending champions were only in the game thanks to an impressive performance by goaltender José Théodore. The pivotal play came on a Russian power play. Though Iginla was the Canadian team’s best offensive threat, he was also the first choice for the penalty kill, and he showed the opportunism that Comeau had ranked as necessary to gold-medal hopes. Morozov circled back into the Russian end to retrieve a loose puck. Iginla gave chase but Morozov had a couple of steps on him. It looked like Iginla was just putting token pressure on the Russian forward but would peel back into the neutral zone once Morozov took possession. When Iginla kept coming, Morozov thought he had a chance to slip by Iginla and leave him in his wake going back up the ice. Rather than making a safe play, clearing the puck and regrouping, Morozov decided to get cute—too cute, as it turned out.

  Iginla had a good idea that Morozov was going to try to do something along those lines. Scouting the Russians’ earlier games in Boston, the Canadian staff had spotted their tendency to make high-risk plays in their own end during power plays. Iginla and the Canadian penalty killers had read the scouting report and were put on high alert. “We wanted to pressure their power play, because we knew they liked to dipsy-doodle around a little in the centre ice area,” Iginla said after the game. “We were looking for it.”

  When Morozov tried to flip the puck by Iginla, the Canadian forward snared it—blocking the puck in his mid-section, letting it drop to the ice, and then taking it in flight on the Russian goal. Morozov was caught leaning the wrong way and couldn’t get back into the play. He could only watch as Iginla went in on Russian goaltender Alexei Egorov and beat him cleanly to make it 4–2.

  Often, a goal coming against play—especially a short-handed one—might have been a soul-crusher, but the Russians continued to surge and Morozov scored a few minutes later to pull the Russians back within a goal. In fact, with 10 seconds left in the game, he almost fully atoned for his gaffe, setting up Ruslan Shafikov alone in front of the Canadian goal with Théodore out of position and helpless. Shafikov, however, fanned on the shot and before he could take a second stab at it Iginla arrived at the edge of the crease to lock him up.

  With his 46 saves, José Théodore’s performance would have been the big story in almost any other circumstances. This, however, was Iginla’s night. It wasn’t, however, the end of his heroics in Boston. Canada still had to beat Sweden in the final for the gold.

  Since the WJC went to a playoff format, the ‘96 final stands among the most anticlimactic of gold-medal games. The Swedes had a few talented players, but they gave you the feeling they were just happy to have made it as far as the final. On the eve of the final, club teams in the Swedish elite league called back two of the three best defencemen on the juniors’ roster. It would have been hard for anyone to like the Swedes’ chances, including the Swedes.

  The Canadian juniors weren’t in their top form in the final. They had spent a lot of emotion in the semifinal and for 20 minutes allowed the Swedes to hang around. With the score tied one-all, Iginla again made a defining play that led to the winning goal. He didn’t score it, but he created it with a smart read of the play and brute force. In a battle for the puck along the boards, Iginla knocked Swedish defenceman David Halvardsson reeling in the corner and then made a pass from behind the net to his centre Daymond Langkow. It wound up being one of Iginla’s three assists in a 4–1 win. What’s more, it sent messages. To his teammates, the message was that physical intensity was going to deliver them gold. To the Swedes, it was that you get in Jarome Iginla’s way at your peril.

  Iginla’s wasn’t the biggest hit in the game—honours for that would go to defenceman Denis Gauthier, who put an open-ice charge into a Swedish forward who had his head down. On impact, you could hear him grunt and groan even if you were halfway up the empty stands. Thereafter, the Swedes moved farther and farther out on the perimeter and almost out of the Boston area code—and by game’s end, though trailing, they just rolled back into the neutral zone and were trying to keep the score relatively close.

  Celebrating in the dressing room—and with his gold medal still hanging around his neck—Iginla said he hoped to be in the NHL at the start of the 1996–97 season. If he was going to be back in junior, he said, he wanted to help Canada go for a fifth consecutive gold at the WJC. “Having that maple leaf on our chests gives us more energy at times, being part of Canada’s hockey tradition. When the going gets tough, it gives us a little extra, because when we were young we would watch Canada play and we always prevailed.”

  CHA executives weren’t counting on his availability for Geneva. The Program of Excellence is a learning program, and Jarome Iginla’s education, at least this part of it, was complete. They knew that they had seen a young man already primed for bigger things. If they had any illusions about that, Iginla’s performance on his return to Kamloops obliterated them—he would end up scoring 79 goals in 79 WHL regular-season and playoff games and leading Kamloops to a third consecutive Memorial Cup championship. But it turned out he’d get a chance to wear the maple leaf on his chest sooner than he might have expected. In the spring of ‘97, after his rookie year with the Flames, Iginla was the youngest player selected to join Canada’s team at the world championships—picking up a couple of goals, three assists, and another gold medal.

  For Iginla, it has come full circle 15 years later. In that dressing room in Boston, after a game played in a vacant arena, Jarome Iginla talked about watching Canada play and prevail when he was young. He couldn’t have imagined the influence he’d have down the line or his place in the program’s tradition. The play Iginla made in the gold-medal game in Boston looked an awful lot like that pass to Sidney Crosby as he poured in on the American net in overtime in Vancouver. And when Jarome Iginla emerged as a star in Boston, Sidney Crosby was eight years old.

  Centre Alyn McCauley

  won his second WJC

  gold in Geneva. He

  was a key penalty

  killer and also set

  up linemate Boyd

  Devereaux’s game-

  winning goal in the

  semifinal versus

  Russia.

  Our team in Geneva wasn’t the most talented team that Canada ever sent to the world juniors. We weren’t especially talented at all. More talented Canadian teams have played in the tournament—and played well—and not won. I remember a reporter who had covered a lot of the tournaments coming up to me on Christmas Day and telling me that we weren’t going to finish higher than sixth. I didn’t think so, but I don’t think that anyone looked at the team as a favourite for the championship or even a safe bet to win a medal. There was incredible pressure on the players after the program had won four straight championships. I know I felt it.

  I wouldn’t claim that my coaching “won” the tournament. What we had, though, were a bunch of young men who weren’t the best pro prospects but knew how to play the game. We did have Joe Thornton, but that was before he was drafted first overall—he was the youngest player on our roster and he had limited ice time. We were lucky to have a few players who played their best hockey in the most important games of their career. We had players who were smart enough to figure out a way to win and had the nerve to step up when things got really tough.

  I wouldn’t claim that the coaches brought the team together. The leaders in our room brought us together. The one I’d point to first was our captain, Brad Larsen. He wasn’t the most skilled guy but he worked hard and took charge in the room.

  Goaltender Marc

  Denis started every

  game for the Canadian

  team and capped the

  tournament with a

  shutout victory over

  the United States in

  the gold-medal final.

  He made sure that
everyone was involved, that everyone parked his ego at the door. A player in the room, not a coach, has to deliver the message that team success is the only goal and individual accomplishments don’t mean anything. Brad was the perfect one to deliver that message. He was comfortable standing up and talking to his teammates. He was in the centre of everything—he could put himself there but it was natural, not forced. If it was setting up a card game, he was dealing. If it seemed like some of the boys were down or maybe feeling left out, he was bringing them in. The role he took wasn’t something you could ask someone to do or try to show him how to fill. When I came into the room, Brad was the one I looked to when I wanted to get a read of the team’s energy and emotion. Brad wasn’t a great pro prospect but he was maybe the most important player on that team.

  Our road to the medal round wasn’t easy. There were times when we didn’t get calls that we were sure we deserved and other times we ended up on the wrong end with the referees—it was a quick education for our players that it’s a different game when you’re playing in Europe.

  Then we had a couple of tough games in the opening round. We had been down 4–3 to the United States with about four minutes left and Peter Schaefer came through for us and tied the game. And then in our final game in the opening round, we had a one-goal lead in the last minute against the Czechs.

  We were on the power play and had a chance to dump the puck into their end to ice the game. Instead, we turned the puck over, trying to force an unnecessary play.

  The Czechs took the puck the other way and they beat our goalie Marc Denis with 10 seconds left.

  We didn’t get a bye into the medal round and those ties put us in against the Russians, a strong team, in the semis. But those two ties were good for us in the long run. They were good for building the team and getting us ready for the semis and then the final. Adversity made that team.

  In the semis we were down 2–1 to the Russians after two periods, which would have been a tough spot but it was made a heck of a lot tougher when the ref gave Jason Doig a five-minute major for slashing. We lost Jason, our second-best defenceman behind Chris Phillips, and had a five-minute penalty kill. The funny thing was that the players weren’t down in any way. They were sure that they were going to kill the penalty and get back into the game. I didn’t need to try to pick them up or reassure them. They were really ready for this moment—all the time they had spent together in the weeks leading up to that point were going to pay off.

  It really was an amazing thing. The Russians didn’t get a shot during those five minutes. I was joking when I told the reporters after the game that the Russians killed off the major themselves—but, fact was, they weren’t ready to

  Christian Dubé, here

  celebrating with Brad

  Isbister looking on,

  was an important

  piece of the puzzle in

  his second trip to the

  world juniors.

  deal with the advantage and we were ready to handle the adversity. Boyd Devereaux, who really hadn’t played a lot early in the tournament, scored a couple of shifts into the penalty kill to tie the game. Boyd and Alyn McCauley were just great on that penalty kill and all through that game. Alyn set Boyd up with the winning goal midway through the period. It’s a credit to the players on that team that, when things looked really tough for them, they had composure—even confidence that they were going to find a way to win.

  Our kids had to come up with a clutch performance to tie the U.S. in the opening round, but in the final against the Americans they were a different team. They really had learned what they needed to do to win. Each player knew his individual responsibilities and everyone was confident that his teammates were going to do their jobs. Boyd and Alyn ended up being our two most important forwards in the medal round and Boyd scored the winning

  goal when we won the final 2–0. Still, it wasn’t any one player’s show or one line’s show. Everyone had a reason to feel his job was important, and that was how the team ended up being more than the sum of its parts.

  A player who really represented the character of that team was Trent Whitfield, a winger who played for me at the time in Spokane. He wasn’t invited to the national junior camp the previous summer. He has managed to play professionally for a long time and he had some injury problems that held his career back, but back in ‘97 he was a great junior. I didn’t select him because I coached him in Spokane—in fact, in the team selection I recused myself when his name came up. On that team, though, he was a perfect utility forward. I felt like I could send Trent out—like Alyn, like Boyd—in the important situations. If the other team sent one of the top scorers out, I could send Trent to stick with him. If Trent was out on the wing and his centre was thrown out of the faceoff circle, he would come in and win the draw. He was like other players on that team—you could count on him to do all the little things right. If we had taken the 22 most talented players in major junior or the 22 best pro prospects he wouldn’t have been on the team. But the Program of Excellence focuses on team building, finding players to fill roles, and Trent, as much as anybody on that team, filled his role perfectly.

  Coaching that team was a tremendous opportunity for me. I’ll admit that, at the time, I wasn’t thinking about the opportunity as much as the pressure to win. I felt that, and everybody on the roster and involved in the program had to feel it. But in the years after, that tournament has had a huge impact on my career, like it has for other coaches who have taken Canadian teams to the WJC. My involvement with the under-20 program and the Olympic team has allowed me to meet and talk with and work with those coaches, and all of them have been generous to share what they’ve learned through their experiences.

  For me, Geneva in ‘97 was an opportunity for personal and professional growth, and I know that others who have worked with these teams over the years feel the same way. I’m sure that it was an important educational experience for the players, too. I’ve stayed in touch with Brad Larsen—he’s a coach now and he’s going to be a great one. He might have picked up a thing or two from me, but I’m sure he picked up a whole lot more from his role as captain of a championship team. He learned about what it takes to win from his experience with a team that won the hard way.

  Left: Cameron Mann,

  Jason Doig (plate

  aloft), and Daniel

  Brière (in flag cape)

  celebrate Canada’s

  victory over the

  United States in the

  gold-medal game.

  The team’s chances

  of getting to the final

  looked dim when Doig

  was assessed a major

  penalty at the end of

  the second period in

  the semifinal against

  Russia.

  Forward Josh Holden

  holds up a Russian

  opponent in Canada’s

  2–1 quarter-final

  overtime loss. After

  that game, Holden, the

  team’s leading goal

  scorer, was suspended

  along with defenceman

  Brad Ference and

  forward Brian Willsie

  for team discipline

  violations.

  The Program of Excellence has given me great memories from victories and awful ones from the most humiliating defeat you can imagine. I learned a lot about the game from both.

  I was named captain of the ‘98 team in Finland. Cory Sarich and I were the two returning players from the Geneva team. We had a great experience in ‘97 and we saw how the Program of Excellence could and should work. We had outstanding leadership in ‘97—from Mike Babcock, from our captain, Brad Larsen, and from other players in the room. Everyone bought in and had faith. Everyone took a lot of pride, and anyone who had to play a different role didn’t hesitate—Alyn McCauley was one of the best junior players in Canada, maybe the best, and Mike asked him to play the third line. It wasn’t a problem.
He took it as a challenge and so did everyone else who was asked to do something different from what he was used to with his junior team. We all understood how hard it was going to be to win that tournament.

  In ‘98 we had the talent to win gold again but things felt different, even before the tournament started. It just felt different. It’s hard to put a finger on exactly why. It wasn’t just one thing. We had an inexperienced group, but that wouldn’t be enough to explain how things fell apart. We might have been the favourites in ‘98, and a lot of players on the team were more talented than players on the ‘97 squad. But in ‘98 there were cliques

  Forward Matt Cooke

  sticks with a Russian

  winger in the quarter-

  final. Cooke would be

  knocked out of the

  tournament with a

  concussion.

  on the team, just a different attitude overall. A lot of the players were focused on the wrong things. They were worried about themselves first and foremost, taking an I’m-on-my-own-page attitude. What happened on the ice was a by-product of that attitude and a loss of discipline off the ice as well.