by Gare Joyce
“It was a tough pill to swallow,” he said of what had happened. “But I think I’m a better person for it.”
If he could handle this, he knew, he could handle anything. He knew now that he was strong enough to leave it behind him, to move on. There would be more “ups” coming.
No one was up when Mark came through the front door that evening. But then, almost immediately, came the sound of an old dog’s nails moving along the floor. Sheeba, still going strong at 14, came hurrying toward him, wiggling and tail wagging.
“She was just happy to see me,” he said.
And he her, considering the day he had just put in at the most noble position in the game.
The Program of Excellence has grown by our willingness to learn. When we’ve made mistakes, we’ve learned from them. When we’ve had successful approaches, we’ve tried to repeat them. That said, we had to make sure that we didn’t settle for the same old thing. We haven’t stayed in one place with our program. We couldn’t. We’ve had to keep evolving, after our victories and our defeats. It’s not change for change’s sake. We’ve been forced to adjust because other programs have learned from us and they improve every year. The world junior championship was always a tough tournament to win, but it’s tougher now than ever before. The last two tournaments prove the point.
Sweden won its lone WJC title back in 1981, the season before the launch of our Program of Excellence. The Swedes have won world championships and Olympic gold and sent scores of stars to the NHL. They often failed to live up to expectations at the WJC. That, however, has not been the case in recent years. The Swedish Ice Hockey Association has placed a greater emphasis on its junior program and the teams wearing the Tre Kronor are at or near the front of the pack in virtually every season. The Swedes beat our team in the qualifying rounds in Pardubice in the 2008 WJC and, in the rematch with the gold medal on the line, a hard-fought contest went to overtime before Matt Halischuk scored the golden goal.
Through the WJC’s first 20 years, U.S. teams were only occasionally a factor. Over the last decade, however, the United States has come away with
two golds, the most recent when they beat our team in overtime of the 2010 gold-medal game in Saskatoon. We know from experience that a gold is hard to win on the road and hardest in the other team’s building. You have to give Team U.S.A. full credit for what they were able to do. We go into every tournament now knowing that the United States is going to have a strong team.
Russian teams were the dominant force in the tournament back before the Program of Excellence and almost always a gold-medal threat. Some people have thought that Russia’s junior program has been in a downturn because there haven’t been breakthrough Russian stars in the NHL since Alexander Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin. Maybe people have forgotten that it took a last-second goal by Jordan Eberle just to send the semifinal into overtime in 2009. It hardly looked like the Russian program was on hard times when its team stormed back on us in the third period of the gold-medal game in Buffalo.
Those were narrow wins and tough losses, but the greater lesson to learn goes deeper than the gold-medal games: nothing can be taken for granted. No tournament. No game. We saw it in the game the Americans lost to Slovakia in the quarters in Ottawa, and in the Russians’ loss to Switzerland in Saskatoon. Any gaps between the teams in this tournament have closed dramatically. Other countries are dedicating more resources and more money to the development of young players. They’ve moved aggressively and I think that makes what we’ve accomplished in the last 10 years with the Program of Excellence look all
the more impressive. I know that it is going to make our next 10 years an even greater challenge.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that our program produced some of Team Canada’s greatest moments after our biggest disappointments.
When we were disqualified from the 1987 WJC in Piestany because of the bench-clearing brawl, we came back the next year with a highly disciplined squad and beat a great Soviet team in Moscow. We instilled in our players a better sense of what it was going to take to win, not just technically but also emotionally. Over the years it’s been a message we deliver to all the players who come through the program. That said, we don’t avoid players who might seem like risks because of their histories in major junior. When Steve Downie came to us for the first time back in December 2005, we told him that he would have to check a lot of his emotions or impulses at the door. The same applied with Steve Ott a few years earlier. Both players and others like them appreciated our position of having open minds about them and they played very well for us.
When we lost in Füssen in 1992, we tried to do something different in the run-up to the tournament. We added players to the lineup on the eve of the round robin, ignoring what we had learned about assembling a team and establishing good chemistry. Our poor result in that tournament forced us to take a long, hard look—not at the players, but at ourselves. We had forgotten how valuable our team building had been to our success. We tried to take a shortcut and the loss fell on us. What might have worked out with a team over the course of a hockey season is tougher to pull off in a short tournament. There’s no time for a learning curve. The team has to be ready to play immediately, from the first shift of the first period of the first game. In Füssen, we thought the players would come together—but they simply did not have enough time.
Our greatest assets going forward aren’t anything money can buy. They are our people. When I say this, I’m not talking about our players being superior. No, I’m talking about the Canadian Hockey League executives we’ve developed excellent working relationships with and the coaches who’ve learned and grown in Hockey Canada’s programs over the years. I’m talking about physicians, sports psychologists, trainers, and technical staff who volunteer their time for us. And I’m talking about grass-roots supporters who have contributed in hundreds of different ways to the development of the players who represent this nation at the WJC.
There isn’t a particular profile that we seek out for the Program of Excellence. There isn’t a “company man.” We’ve had a wide range of characters and they’ve displayed their mettle at the tournament. They’ve faced a variety of challenges and been forced to respond to them in ways they could not have anticipated.
Perry Pearn has always been thought of as a tactician and technical coach rather than a fiery, emotional presence. He had to break that mould in Sweden in 1993. Perry’s players seemingly had no gas left in the tank when they made it to the gold-medal game. He came up with an emotional speech that many would have thought was out of character. Later, he placed his championship ring on a table and walked out of the dressing room. Those are inspired coaching moments, spontaneous decisions made in the heat of battle.
Brent Sutter faced an entirely different set of challenges with the teams he coached in 2005 and 2006. In his first go-round at the WJC, Brent had a powerhouse team. His challenge was to keep his players focused and any egos in check. The next year, however, was a very different set of circumstances: a team that went into the gold-medal game as an underdog in the minds of many. Instead of worrying about egos, Brent had to be concerned about nerves and self-doubts. The result was the same—in fact, our team’s performance in the 2006 gold-medal game might have been more impressive than the final the year before. The work of Brent and his staff in Vancouver certainly was.
In the wake of victories it’s easy to forget just how difficult many big decisions were along the way. Our two most recent WJC gold medals came after our coaches made incredibly tough decisions about their goaltenders. In ‘08, Craig Hartsburg went with a hunch late in the tournament, going with Steve Mason in the medal round. In ‘09, Pat Quinn stayed with Dustin Tokarski despite three first-period goals scored by Team U.S.A. late in the round robin—on that occasion his own assistant coaches were sure he’d make the switch. Both Mason and Tokarski were key to their teams’ victories.
Everyone who has been involved in the Program of Excellence
doesn’t just give it his all for a few weeks, or even a season. There’s a sense of loyalty and kinship there and an incredible willingness to share and give back. Those who have coached or played another role always come back to help out and work with those who are coming up through the ranks. That includes coaches who went on to helm Stanley Cup winners: Mike Babcock, Ken Hitchcock, and Claude Julien. That includes hockey people like Pat Quinn, who has worked in the game for more than four decades, and others like Guy Boucher, who is barely four decades old.
When Murray Costello and Dennis McDonald founded the Program of Excellence, I don’t know if they fully intended its name to work on so many levels. Our WJC program draws on gifted, industrious, tireless people who would never settle for less than excellence and puts them in situations that demand excellence. Good isn’t good enough. Excellence is what we aspire to but will never settle for because we believe we can be even better next year. And we know that we have to be better every year.
MIKE BABCOCK coached the Detroit Red Wings to the Stanley Cup in 2008 and the Canadian men’s hockey team to an Olympic gold medal in 2010.
BRENDAN BELL has played for the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Phoenix Coyotes, and the Ottawa Senators. He was a first-team all-star in the Ontario Hockey League with the Ottawa 67’s.
MURRAY COSTELLO was president of Hockey Canada and president of the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association. He played for the Chicago Blackhawks, Boston Bruins, and Detroit Red Wings, in a 163-game NHL career. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2005 as a builder.
DAMIEN COX is the Toronto Star’s hockey columnist and a regular on Sportsnet’s radio and television broadcasts. He has written and co-written several books about hockey.
DEAN EVASON is an assistant coach with the Washington Capitals. He played over 800 games in the NHL and also coached in the Western Hockey League.
SHELDON FERGUSON is director of amateur scouting for the Carolina Hurricanes.
TERRY KOSHAN writes about the NHL and major junior hockey for the Toronto Sun. He has covered many Memorial Cup tournaments and world junior championships since joining the paper in 1996.
STÉPHANE LEROUX covers junior hockey at RDS.
ROY MacGREGOR has been a columnist at The Globe and Mail for the last decade. His book Home Team: Fathers, Sons and Hockey was shortlisted for a Governor General’s Award.
BOB McKENZIE has been a hockey commentator on TSN since the late 1980s. He first covered the world juniors on air in 1990.
GORD MILLER joined TSN in 1990 and has been the network’s lead NHL play-byplay announcer since 2002. His work at the 2008 world junior championship earned him a Gemini nomination.
STEVE MILTON is a long-time columnist with The Hamilton Spectator. He covered the 1985 WJC.
DAVE MORRISON is head of the amateur scouting department for the Toronto Maple Leafs. He played professional hockey for 18 seasons before retiring in 1999.
BOB NICHOLSON has been the president and CEO of the Canadian Hockey Association since 1998 and serves as Canada’s representative to the International Ice Hockey Federation. In the years since he was named senior vice-president of the association in 1992, the Program of Excellence has won ten gold medals, six silver, and two bronze at the IIHF world under-20 tournament.
FRANK ORR is a member of the media wing of the Hockey Hall of Fame. He has covered many Stanley Cups and international tournaments for the Toronto Star.
MIKE SANDS is a retired professional hockey player who played six games in the NHL with the Minnesota North Stars and has worked for the NHL Central Scouting Bureau. He currently serves as the director of amateur scouting for the Calgary Flames.
DONNA SPENCER has covered the world junior championships and other major international tournaments for the Canadian Press for over a decade. She is based in Calgary.
JESSE WALLIN is the coach of the Red Deer Rebels. He is a former first-round draft pick of the Detroit Red Wings.
TOM WEBSTER is a retired professional hockey player and head coach. He currently serves as an amateur scout for the Calgary Flames.
TIM WHARNSBY writes about hockey for CBC.ca. He previously worked for the Toronto Sun and The Globe and Mail.
ED WILLES joined The Province (Vancouver) as its general sports columnist in 1982, and has worked for newspapers in western Canada for three decades. He has also written two hockey books.
Adam, Luke, 211
Adams, Kevyn, 95
Afinogenov, Maxim, 126
Agnew, Gary, 83
Agridome, 73 74
Aliu, Akim, 175
Allen, Bryan, 127
Allen, Jake, 206 209 211
Allison, Jason, 95 99 101
Alzner, Karl, 188–193
Anchorage, 52–59
Andersson, Andreas, 126
Andreychuk, Dave, 12 12
Anisimov, Artem, 184
Antropov, Nikolai, 126
Arnott, Jason, 92
Ashton, Carter, 212 215 216 219
Atchison, Don, 206
Aufiero, Pat, 135
Babcock, Mike, 116 136 138 225
Babe, Warren, 49
Baizley, Don, 86
Balmochnykh, Maxim, 126
Barker, Cam, 174
Barnes, Stu, 60 61 65 69
Bassen, Bob, 22 23
Bassin, Sherry, 26– 28 36
Baumgartner, Nolan, 96 97 105
Begin, Jean, 51
Bell, Brendan, 150–151
Bell, Mark, 133
Belosheikin, Evgeny, 34
Berezin, Maxim, 219
Berezin, Sergei, 75
Bergeron, Patrice, 164–168, 168–171
Berglund, Christian, 126
Bernier, Jonathan, 189 191 191
Betts, Blair, 132
Beukeboom, Jeff, 29
Billington, Craig, 24–25 28– 29 29–34
Biron, Mathieu, 131
Blackburn, Dan, 152
Blake, Rob, 21
Blunden, Michael, 177 178 179
Borschevsky, Nikolai, 20
Boston, 102–109
Botterill, Jason, 94
Bouchard, Joël, 84 85
Bouchard, Pierre-Marc, 154
Boucher, Guy, 225
Boucher, Suzanne, 179
Bouck, Tyler, 125 126 132
Bourdon, Luc, 172 172– 174 173 175
177 179 182
Bouwmeester, Jay, 131 131 132 134 140
146
Bowman, Scotty, 60
Boyd, Dustin, 175
Boyes, Brad, 142 143 149
Bradley, Brian, 22 24 24
Brandon, Manitoba, 124
Brewer, Eric, 121
Brière, Daniel, 114 115
Brin, André, 217
Brind’Amour, Rod, 55 58
Brisebois, Patrice, 63 72
Brown, Rob, 50
Budrov, Denis, 177
Buffalo, 202–221
Bure, Pavel, 52 69 70 73 74 75
Burns, Pat, 30 36 43 54
Burrows, Alex, 177
Burrows, Nancy, 179
Butler, Stan, 136, 138–139 141– 142 142
147 149
Byakin, Ilya, 12
Byers, Lyndon, 18 19
Calder, Kyle, 125
Calgary, 99 164 167
Callahan, Ryan, 169
Cameron, Dave, 215
Cammalleri, Mike, 141 142 143 146
Campbell, Brian, 125
Campbell, Jack, 211 217
Campbellton, NB, 105
Canale, Joe, 90, 92, 94–95
Cape Breton, 153
Carkner, Terry, 34
Carlson, John, 211 211
Carlsson, Jonathan, 192
Carter, Anson, 93–95
Carter, Jeff, 158 163 166 169 171 174
Cavanaugh, Daniel, 135
Centre 200 162
Chambers, Dave, 47 49 51
Charlene, 179
Charron, Guy, 62, 63, 65– 66 68–69 77 87
Chipchura, Kyle, 177
Chorney, Taylor, 182
Chouinard, Eric, 134
Chubarov, Artem, 124,126,127
Church, Brad, 98,
Ciccarelli, Dino, 6,
Cimetta, Rob, 52, 53
Clark, Wendel, 22, 24,24– 28, 28
Coburn, Braydon, 159, 160,161, 166,
Cogliano, Andrew, 176, 183, 184,
Colliton, Jeremy, 168,
Comeau, Blake, 175, 177,
Comeau, Marcel, 105, 106,
Comrie, Mike, 132,
Cooke, Matt, 118
Copps Coliseum, 33, 34,
Cornacchia, Rick, 83,
Corson, Shayne, 33, 34,
Costello, Murray, 43, 225,
Côté, Alain, 33,
Côté, Sylvain, 33,
Courtnall, Russ, 20,
Craig, Mike, 63, 72,
Credit Union Centre, 208,
Creighton, Adam, 22, 24– 29,
Crosby, Sidney, 109, 158, 163, 164, 166,
168– 171, 174, 202,
Daigle, Alexandre, 84, 87, 92, 96, 98,
100– 101,
Daigneault, J.J., 18, 19
D’Amigo, Jerry, 211,
Daniels, Kimbi, 83,
Davydov, Evgeni, 41,
Dawes, Nigel, 156, 169,
Daze, Eric, 100, 100– 101,
Della Rovere, Stefan, 208,
Demers, Jacques, 132,
Denis, Marc, 112, 113, 163,
DeRouville, Philippe, 88, 89,
Desjardins, Eric, 46, 51, 54, 58,
Desjardins, Willie, 208,
Devereaux, Boyd, 110, 114, 115,
DiMaio, Rob, 48,
Dingman, Chris, 148,
Dixon, Stephen, 169,
Doig, Jason, 113, 114, 115
Dollas, Bobby, 26,
Dome, Robert, 125,
Domenichelli, Hnat, 105, 105, 106,
Donnelly, Gord, 132,
Doughty, Drew, 197,
