Originally published on IIHF.com in 2002 By Lucas Aykroyd “Man can be defeated but not destroyed. Man can be destroyed but not defeated.” This was one of author Ernest Hemingway’s favorite sayings, and it would come as no surprise if Ryan Smyth of the Edmonton Oilers had it painted on his wall. The gritty left […]

Originally published on IIHF.com in 2006 By Lucas Aykroyd Alexei Kovalev earned his pilot’s licence in 1998, but the Togliatti native has also experienced the pain of having his Olympic gold medal hopes shot down twice since that year. A knee injury forced the 6-2, 210-pound right winger to opt out of Nagano 1998, and […]

Originally published on IIHF.com in 2006 By Lucas Aykroyd At the 2002 Olympic hockey tournament, a guy named Salo gained the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. Swedish goalie Tommy Salo was beaten by a long shot from Belarusian defenseman Vladimir Kopat late in the quarter-finals, enabling Belarus to pull off an enormous upset. In […]

Originally published on IIHF.com in 2006 By Lucas Aykroyd Just how good is Chris Drury as a clutch goal-scorer? Wayne Gretzky’s record for career NHL playoff game-winners is 24, while the 29-year-old Buffalo Sabres captain has 11. Gretzky accomplished his feat in 208 games (0.11 GWG per playoff game), while Drury has achieved his mark […]

Originally published on IHWC.NET in 2007 By Lucas Aykroyd The United States versus Finland can’t be classified as one of those natural geographical or historical international rivalries like USA-Canada or Finland-Sweden. At one time, both were ranked among the weakest of the former “Big Six” hockey nations, usually lagging behind the Soviet Union, Canada, Czechoslovakia, […]

Originally published on IHWC.NET in 2007 By Lucas Aykroyd Imagine the following scene. It’s just before a game-day skate in the Detroit Red Wings dressing room during the 2006-07 season. Nicklas Lidstrom: “Good morning, fellow Swedish Wings! Are you ready to compete hard for victory tonight?” Mikael Samuelsson: “Captain Lidstrom, I was reminiscing with Henrik […]

Originally published on IHWC.NET in 2007 By Lucas Aykroyd Hockey players like to take it “one game at a time.” Fans, journalists, and hockey officials often look much further ahead. Admittedly, there are three IIHF World Championships yet to be completed before we can truly start thinking about what will take place at the 2010 […]

Originally published on IHWC.NET in 2007 By Lucas Aykroyd If you’re a Swedish hockey fan, you surely remember where you were when Nicklas Lidstrom scored the Olympic-winning goal versus Finland last year. If you’re a Slovak hockey fan, you must recall what you were doing when Peter Bondra’s late goal lifted Slovakia over Russia in […]

Originally published on IHWC.NET in 2006 By Lucas Aykroyd Olympic years have been very good to Niklas Hagman. In 1998, the robust winger scored the overtime gold medal winner versus Russia for Finland at the World Junior Championship in his native Helsinki. 2002 saw the 6-foot, 205-pounder named Best Forward at the IIHF World Championship […]

Originally published on IHWC.NET in 2006 By Lucas Aykroyd There’s no way around it. Finishing seventh at the Turin Olympics after losing three 2-0 games was the worst failure in Canadian hockey history. Just go down the list. In 1954, the Soviet Union shocked the world by thumping Canada 7-2 to clinch its first-ever IIHF […]