Hockey

Wednesday, on the day the countdown to the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver reaches 100 days, Steve Yzerman will convene a summit meeting of his own in Detroit. The timing is just a coincidence.

Yzerman, executive director for the Canadian men's Olympic hockey team, found a break in the NHL schedule that will permit his managerial staff, along with coach Mike Babcock, to assemble and review their scouting work a month into the new season.

According to Yzerman, the plan is to name the 23-man roster between Christmas and New Year's, likely in conjunction with the world junior tournament taking place in Regina and Saskatoon. The reason for waiting until the 11th hour? To permit Yzerman and Co. every possible opportunity to sift through his many and varied choices.

A total of 46 players attended the summer orientation camp. Without naming names, Yzerman said some of those candidates have fallen out of contention, but others - who didn't attend - have suddenly played their way into the mix.

"Everybody does it the same way," said Yzerman. "You sit there and put down your own roster and then you look at it and say, ‘Ok, I left off this guy, this guy and this guy.' Hmmm. Kevin (Lowe) said it's like that. Wayne (Gretzky) has said it's like that.

"When you get right down to it, you're going to spend a lot of time debating that 12th or 13th guy on your list of forwards. You're going to have a lot of debate over the sixth or seventh defenceman. That part is the hard part.
"But the more I watch the players, the more comfortable I am in my decision - I like this guy a little bit better in terms of where he's going to play for this reason."

Lowe, the Edmonton Oilers' president of hockey operations, is one of Yzerman's key advisers. He was also part of Gretzky's team for each of the past two Olympics: 2002, in which Canada won a gold medal, and in 2006, when it finished seventh.

With less than two months to go until his roster needs to be submitted to the International Olympic Committee, Yzerman plans to ramp up his travel schedule in the next little while.

"At the August camp, the Olympics seemed so far away," he said. "Now, here we are, it's November, and it's time to really get at this. October just flew by. Here we are a dozen games in the season and I'm still thinking, ‘geez, I gotta get a better look at this guy or that guy' or see him in games against tougher competition."

Naturally, the Canadian public is doing all it can to assist Yzerman in his quest.

"For the most part, people are saying, ‘good luck' or ‘how's it going?' The real intense fans might say, ‘what about this guy, what about that guy?' and the real loyal fans will say, ‘what about my guy?' I listen. I like to throw it back at them. I'll say, ‘well what about this other guy then?' It's fun to talk to people about it. You can see their passion for it."

As for the possibility Yzerman will get burned out by the constant Olympic focus between now and February, he doesn't believe it will happen.

"I hope it's not anticlimactic," he said. "The only way it's anticlimactic in Canada is if we don't do well.

"Otherwise, it won't get old."