by Al Strachan
Hockey had evolved into its modern phase by then. In the six-team league, and even for years afterwards, players spent the summer relaxing, and then came to training camp to lose weight and get in shape. Often, they didn’t accomplish that goal by the time the regular season started. Many a coach would blame an early season loss on the fact that “our guys aren’t really in shape yet.”
By 1996, those days were mostly gone. Many of the players—and Gretzky was one of them—had personal trainers who kept them in top condition during the summer. “I worked out every day,” Gretzky said after one of the practices. “You just have to. When you come here, there’s no time to get into shape. This is not a training camp. We’re right into practices now.”
Even so, Gretzky suffered a slight groin pull, which gave Sather an opportunity to tee off on his favourite target—the NHLPA.
This was another area in which the NHL was evolving. Now that Bob Goodenow was running the Players’ Association, it was the end of the cozy relationship between the PA and the league that had existed under Alan Eagleson, who had been jailed for defrauding players. In his six years on the job, Goodenow had already forced the league to boost the average salary from $190,000 to $1 million, and he had instituted a number of rules regarding the manner in which players had to be accommodated.
“I don’t think it’s particularly right that you’ve got some lawyers in Toronto telling you how to organize your training camp and in what period of time the players are going to be in good enough shape,” Sather said. “I think it will be a real travesty if somebody gets hurt here because of a lack of conditioning.”
When asked why he didn’t bring the team to camp sooner, Sather said, “We didn’t have anything to do with that. It was done by [Goodenow’s assistant] Ian Pulver. They’re making rules that you can practise for only four or five days. For the most part, these guys train hard. But they don’t train under the kind of tempo and conditioning that you’re going to see here.
“They need at least five days of this. They need a couple of days to get into it and a couple of days to wind down.”
When asked why he didn’t ignore the rules, as coaches from Russia and the Czech Republic did, Sather said, “The PA basically runs the NHL. All we are is the caretakers. We have to do what they say because they control the players. If you’re going to have anything done, you have to have the co-operation of the players.
“If they say you’re going to be here on the Wednesday, you’ll be here on the Wednesday.”
Despite all the bombast, Sather and the players—and the PA, for that matter—were all on the same page. Style-wise, there would not be much difference between the Edmonton Oilers of the 1980s and Team Canada ’96.
The four basic rules of that Edmonton dynasty would be followed to the letter:
Go to the net once you’ve passed the puck.
Move up the ice when you pass to the forwards.
If you lose the puck, stop. Don’t go for a skate.
Move into the open area on the ice.
It was not likely that Team Canada ’96 would be engaged in any titanic defensive struggles. “We’re trying to develop a team-flow style that is aggressive and offensively designed,” Sather said. “We’re not going to lay back and wait for the opposition. We’re going to create the opportunities.”
For Gretzky, the early phase of the tournament—the camp and the exhibition game that Canada won 3–1 over the United States—wasn’t overly demanding. Janet was there with his three children, and they had something of a family vacation.
But then the team travelled to San Jose for the opening of the tournament, and Gretzky had time for a chat about his role. He was no longer hockey’s shining star, but he was certainly its elder statesman. He was the Team Canada veteran with four Canada Cup appearances to his credit, one more than Messier and Coffey, and he was fully aware that his role had changed.
“It’s a lot different this time,” he said. “I mean, let’s be honest. When you look in this locker room, you don’t just look at me or maybe Mess, like you would have in 1987 or 1991. I don’t mean to put pressure on guys, but you look in this room, you see Eric Lindros. He needs to play his best hockey for us to win. We need Joe Sakic. It’s not just a question of looking in this room and seeing myself. We need Steve Yzerman. We need all our weapons.
“No longer am I the guy you can walk in and say, ‘Well, he had two hundred points last year.’ My role has changed in a lot of ways, but the bottom line is I still come to work and contribute as best I can.”
In all his years, Gretzky had never turned down a request to play for his country.
“Years from now, when I look back at it, I’ll be thrilled that I played,” he said. “I’d be disappointed if I didn’t. The thing about this tournament is that there are so many guys who want to be here who don’t get invited. To get invited, I think, is an honour, so I’d rather be here.
“It’s up to the individual. It’s your choice, but I think it’s their loss, the players that don’t come. I think it’s something they’d always remember and would be a great thrill for them.”
In the 1981 Canada Cup tournament, just out of his teens and learning from the likes of Bobby Clarke, Bob Gainey and Guy Lafleur, Gretzky was in awe. By 1996, he was the player who inspired the awe in others, but the learning process still continued.
“And Slats is still yelling at me,” Gretzky laughed. “I learn a lot. The game changes all the time—the way teams forecheck, how they handle the power play. As for the game itself, the fundamentals of the game are never going to change, but the things you’re going to do, that changes, and you need to stay abreast of it all the time.
“Our team is a solid hockey club,” he said. “We have some great young superstars. The problem is the other teams have some great young superstars. The Americans are a great example. You take guys on their team like Keith Tkachuk, Mike Modano, Gary Suter and Brian Leetch. They’re all-stars.
“For us to be successful in this tournament, it has to be a mistake-free tournament. We can’t take unnecessary penalties. We can’t give up the puck in certain situations. We have to play a quality tournament. We’re not a dream team like people want to think it is, because other teams are on a level that is very comparable to ours.”
As usual, Gretzky had assessed the situation accurately. It was no insignificant matter, therefore, when Team Canada started to lose defencemen to injury. At some levels, they could win easily with a depleted squad. But this was hockey at its highest level.
Al MacInnis had been ruled out before the training camp opened; then, in quick succession, Coffey, Adam Foote, Eric Desjardins and Rob Blake all went down with injuries of varying degrees.
The team desperately needed Raymond Bourque, but Bourque did not share Gretzky’s approach to international play. He had played in the Canada Cups of 1981, 1984 and 1987, but then decided he had done enough. Even though Gretzky and Messier had both pleaded with him to join Team Canada in 1991, he had refused to do so. In 1996, he refused again, even after Canada had become desperately short on the blue line.
“He should be here,” said one of the 1996 players. “I don’t know why he didn’t come in the first place.”
His answer was that he wanted to spend time with his family.
Mario Lemieux wouldn’t play, either. He opted for golf over Team Canada, but at the time, his absence didn’t seem to be as critical as Bourque’s.
Even with a depleted defence, Canada had little trouble winning the opener 7–4 against the Czech Republic in a game played in Edmonton.
In international tournaments, only one star is selected after the game, not three, and in this case, it was Gretzky. “He looked good, didn’t he?” asked Sather. “He was really dancing. The funny thing about being around Wayne is that you can see the gleam in his eye when he’s going to have a good game.”
Gretzky gave credit to the locale. “How can you not feel good when you’ve been here and won championships? I�
�ve missed it.”
But Canada lost the next game 5–3 to the United States and, as a result, found itself facing the horrific prospect of being eliminated from the tournament in the opening round. This kind of ignominy was supposed to be reserved for the likes of Germany and Norway, not Canada.
It was also supposed to be reserved for the likes of Slovakia, who, after two periods, were leading Canada 2–1.
From coast to coast in Canada, fingernails were being bitten and fans were shouting at television sets. But according to the Team Canada players, there was no serious concern either in the dressing room or on the bench.
Finally, Team Canada banged in a pair of third-period goals to escape the disaster of a first-round exit, but not a single player would say that there had been the slightest doubt about the outcome.
“Never,” announced Vincent Damphousse, when asked if he had considered the repercussions of a loss. “Everybody was calm. Everybody was confident. Nobody panicked.”
“It’s a lot harder on the people watching than it is on us,” Gretzky admitted. “We’re so into what’s going on on the bench and who’s up next that the possible consequences don’t occur to us.”
And the dressing room between the second and third period?
“It was quiet and calm, nothing out of the ordinary,” said Steve Yzerman, who salvaged Canadian pride by scoring the winner. “There was really not a whole lot said.”
Getting the crucial win was no easy task for the Canadians, who were dog-tired. As Brendan Shanahan said after Air Canada had failed to deliver the chartered plane on time, “I’m not one to make excuses, but all these ridiculous screw-ups and sitting on a runway until 3 a.m. take their toll.”
“Fatigue does play a part,” Yzerman said. “When you play back-to-back games on the road in the regular season, it always takes some time to find your way into the game. And we needed some time tonight.”
“You just try to go out and battle,” said Theoren Fleury, who put his finger on the reason that Canada had persevered. “It was a real heart check, gut check there in the third period that got us through.”
Nevertheless, it was clear that the original philosophy was going to have to change. An offensive approach requires offensive defencemen, but because of all the injuries and Bourque’s refusal to play, Canada was desperately short in that regard.
As a result, Team Canada could no longer count on long, crisp, trap-beating passes from its defencemen and would have to use another method to defeat the trap. They would have to get the puck low and use their physical presence to keep it there.
Said Sather, “We have to play a simple game. We have to fire it in. We have to chase the puck, and we have to crash the net.”
By this time, Team Canada had been together for two weeks. That meant that Sather and Gretzky had been together for two weeks. Their relationship, which had once been so tight but had shattered, was now becoming tight again.
In the 1980s, the skinny kid with his dazzling moves and the smirking mastermind behind the bench had changed the face of the hockey world. A decade later, their faces were creased, and neither carried himself with the carefree grace that was once so evident. But the rift between them had been healed. Gretzky and Sather were back together, fighting side by side for the nation’s hockey glory.
The media had focused on the reunification of Gretzky and Messier and, to a lesser degree, Coffey. But those three had been together a number of times since Gretzky had left the Oilers—in all-star games, in the 1991 Canada Cup and in the barnstorming European tour during the 1994 lockout.
But Gretzky and Sather together was a different story. Gretzky felt betrayed when he was sold to the Los Angeles Kings in 1988, and it took years before he became convinced that Sather had played only a minimal role in the affair.
On a number of occasions when I challenged him, Sather swore that if the decision had been his alone, Gretzky would have played his entire career in Edmonton. It was a message I repeatedly passed on to Gretzky, but he was not easily convinced.
Sather insisted that he became involved only to make the pot as sweet as possible after Oilers owner Peter Pocklington had struck the basic deal. Although there were some ill feelings between Gretzky and Sather, there had never been a loss of mutual respect. Even when he was angry at Sather, Gretzky always conceded that Sather prodded him into his best performances. In turn, Sather always said he felt that Gretzky was the greatest player the game had ever seen.
“My entire career was built around him,” Sather said three years later when Gretzky retired. “All the success I’ve had has come directly from Wayne. If someone wasn’t playing well, it wasn’t, ‘Get a psychologist and straighten him out.’ It was, ‘Let him play with Wayne.’ Suddenly, a kid would get four or five goals in a week and he would be straightened out.”
As far as coaches are concerned, Sather knew Gretzky better than anybody.
“I set a standard,” he said. “I expected them to play up to it all the time. I wouldn’t take any excuses, so they accepted that standard. Even in practices, I wouldn’t let them slack off.”
Sather knew how to use Gretzky to maximum advantage and how to spur him on. And he was doing it again in the World Cup.
“That’s a pretty fair assessment,” Gretzky said. “First impressions are lasting impressions. It’s like with my dad. You get this sense of not wanting to let somebody down, not wanting to fail.
“I don’t think there’s any question that in my career, because of my stature, because of the way I’m built, a lot of coaches might not have given me the same opportunity that he gave me. He pushed me. He enjoyed the good times with us, and a lot of times were fun. At the same time, a lot of times were tough.”
That elicited a rare burst of modesty from Sather.
“I would not give me any credit,” he said. “Wayne does it on his own. The only thing I feel about Wayne is that there’s a sort of chemical link between us. I know when he’s feeling good. I know when he’s not feeling good. I have that sense with Mark, too, but with Wayne, probably more so because I think he feels the same thing I’m thinking a lot of times.”
Both Gretzky and Sather enjoyed the reunification, Sather out of his sense of Canada’s hockey heritage, Gretzky out of his sense of respect for those who helped him along his way.
Sather was not the first choice to coach Team Canada ’96, but he took over when Scott Bowman backed out. Others were available, but one consideration pushed Sather into the job.
“I did it,” he said, “because I knew it was going to be the last opportunity to be around Wayne and Paul and Mark—the last chance to be back with them.”
All three players had very close relationships with their fathers, so it would be unfair to say Sather was like a father to them. But he did exhibit many fatherly qualities. He knew when to spur them with criticism and when to reassure them, because even though the Oilers, and especially Gretzky, had accomplished so much, there were still times when they needed help to overcome their nervousness.
Most people wouldn’t expect Gretzky to still feel nerves, but Sather knew better.
“Oh yeah,” said Gretzky forcefully. “You still get nervous. Adam Foote and I were talking about it on the ice. He said, ‘Oh, I’m so nervous out here.’ I said, ‘Hey, it’s my fifth one and I still feel the way I did in 1981.’
“When I got here, I didn’t know what was going to happen. You always have to show people you can play all the time, every time you step out there. I don’t know if lack of confidence is the proper word, but yeah, I was a little bit unsure.”
After all he had accomplished, he was still unsure?
Gretzky paused for a moment, and in a tone that reflected an unexpected vulnerability, said, “I just don’t want to fail, you know?”
Sather knew. He had always known. In the discussion about his relationship with Gretzky, he had referred to Gretzky’s initial “lack of confidence.” He always had been able to handle Gretzky like no other coac
h.
In the late 1970s, Sather acquired a bunch of kids, and by the end of the 1980s had transformed them into the men who were the elite of the hockey world.
“I had to pat them on the back and give them the odd boot in the pants once in a while,” he said. “Players always think they’re giving a hundred per cent, but you have to push them to get them to give a little bit more.”
To Gretzky, there was little change between the Glen Sather who ran the Oilers and the Glen Sather who ran Team Canada. He spoke of Sather’s reaction when Canada was trailing 2–1 to Slovakia after two periods. “He was strong, but he didn’t panic,” he said. “That was always kind of his forte. When you thought he may panic, he didn’t.”
After the near-disaster against Slovakia, the Canadians were anything but overconfident in their first elimination-round game against Germany. After all, if the Germans were capable of getting to the second stage of the tournament, they had to be taken seriously, especially since they had a Canadian coach, George Kingston, who was quite familiar with Sather’s methods.
The Canadians responded with a strong game—a 4–1 victory—and moved on to their next hurdle, a single game against Sweden that would determine which team qualified for the three-game final series.
As was becoming the norm in this tournament, the Canadians did little to makes their lives easy. They took a 2–0 lead into the third period, only to see it evaporate as the Swedes sent the game to overtime.
A number of factors were in play, the most obvious being that the Swedes were a good team. Also, the dearth of healthy defencemen had forced Canada to play a chip-and-chase game that was nowhere near as explosive as their much-preferred freewheeling, quick-passing game.
But Canadians, whether players or fans, feel that the more difficult the circumstance, the more likely it is that the Canadians will come out on top. They feel that their skills might fall a little short some days, but never will another team show more heart or courage.
