Canadian Press

12/21/2005 5:49:06 PM

(CP) - Todd Bertuzzi made it and Sidney Crosby wasn't picked for what is a veteran-laden Olympic men's hockey team.

The negativity that has buzzed around Bertuzzi since his league suspension over the Steve Moore attack will no doubt follow him to Turin but, in the end, he was considered too good to leave off the 2006 Olympic squad.

Selectors went with the tried and true in naming 10 who won 2002 gold and adding others who impressed during the 2004 World Cup of Hockey. Of the 23 players named, 21 were on in the lineups of those two squads.

''It's never an easy task,'' Kevin Lowe, assistant executive director, said of choosing the squad.

Lowe also read a statement by Wayne Gretzky, Team Canada's executive director, thanking hockey fans for their best wishes after the death of his mother Phyllis to cancer on Monday.

''This is a great day for Canadian hockey and congratulations to everyone. I know my mom was looking forward to this day as every Canadian is,'' Gretzky said.

Team Canada officials read out the player names by position, as if drafting the players, alternating with players from the women's team as they were selected. Youngsters wearing Team Canada jerseys with the men's player names on the back entered as they were announced.

Joe Sakic, the last player to have his name called, was unveiled as the team's captain.

There was no room in the team for much-ballyhooed rookie Crosby, who was recommended by Mario Lemieux after the 2002 captain took himself out of the running, or for sensational third-year pro Eric Staal.

At the time of announcement on the ice at GM Place in Vancouver on Wednesday afternoon, Staal led all NHL players with 24 goals and was fourth in points with 47. He was named to a reserve squad to be available only if a forward on the main roster withdraws due to injury.

Crosby is second among NHL rookies and 29th overall with 33 points.

''I understand and recognize that it's not an easy decision for the Canadian selection committee,'' said Pat Brisson, Crosby's agent. ''Regardless of their decisions, it was going to create some kind of controversy with the talent pool.

''However, as I've said before, in my opinion Sidney thrives under pressure and could play with anyone in the world and make a difference.''

Experience at the senior international level in Canada's colours obviously was a paramount consideration in the selections.

Goaltender Martin Brodeur, defencemen Rob Blake, Adam Foote, Ed Jovanovski, Scott Niedermayer and Chris Pronger, and forwards Simon Gagne, Jarome Iginla, Sakic and Ryan Smyth are the 10 holdovers from Salt Lake City.

Also named for the February tournament in Turin, Italy, were goaltenders Roberto Luongo and Marty Turco, defencemen Wade Redden and Robyn Regehr, and forwards Bertuzzi, Shane Doan, Kris Draper, Dany Heatley, Vincent Lecavalier, Brad Richards, Rick Nash, Martin St. Louis and Joe Thornton.

''It's a Canadian dream coming true,'' said Turco. ''There was no guarantee.

''I just feel fortunate and really honoured that I got picked.''

The reserve squad consists of Staal, Jason Spezza and Bryan McCabe, who is the highest-scoring defenceman in the NHL. They would only play in case of injuries taking others out off the roster.

Spezza was thought to have a strong chance of making it. He was tied for fourth in the NHL with linemate Heatley and Staal in points on Wednesday.

Others among leading NHL point-getters who weren't selected included Patrick Marleau, Brendan Shanahan and Alex Tanguay.

Twelve of the 2002 Olympic champions aren't among the 23 main roster players for 2006: Lemieux and fellow forwards Steve Yzerman, Paul Kariya, Eric Lindros, Mike Peca, Shanahan, Owen Nolan and Theo Fleury, defencemen Eric Brewer and the retired Al MacInnis; and goaltenders Curtis Joseph and Ed Belfour.

TSN.ca Staff

12/22/2005 6:12:51 PM

Calgary, AB - Calgary Flames goaltender Miikka Kiprusoff has withdrawn his name from the Finnish National Men's Hockey Team for the 2006 Winter Olympic Games in Turin, Italy.

Kiprusoff has inflammation of the hip and upon medical advisement will use the period during the Olympics to restore the injured area to 100 percent.

''It is in the best interest of the Calgary Flames that I use this opportunity to ensure I am totally recovered for the NHL playoff drive,'' said Kiprusoff. ''I have always been very proud to represent my country in international competition and I'm disappointed that I will not be joining them at the Olympics in Italy.''

Dec. 27, 2005. 02:31 AM
DAVE FESCHUK
SPORTS COLUMNIST

When Alexander Mogilny signed a free-agent contract with the New Jersey Devils this past summer, walking away from the Maple Leafs for money clearly grown on trees, eyebrows were raised at the Devils' extravagant splurge. Mogilny was feted with a two-year deal worth about $7 million (all figures U.S.), which amounted to $3.5 million for each of the surgeries he'd endured on his arthritic right hip in the previous couple of years. And though Mogilny had only a few months earlier been heard lamenting the difficulty he'd been having performing everyday tasks — not so much skating and scoring, but sitting and standing — you had to wonder what Lou Lamoriello, the usually astute New Jersey honcho, was thinking.

Said Lamoriello: "We're comfortable that he's 100 per cent healthy."

Perhaps Lamoriello was confusing the word "healthy" with "Russian."

So far this season, Mogilny has been a healthy scratch in one game and missed four more with a concussion suffered in the November moment his chin collided with a moving puck. But while the 36-year-old veteran has been in the lineup for 31 games, he has not been in the pink.

"It's been a difficult couple of years for me, a couple of surgeries, and still I feel the effects of that every day," he said before last night's 2-1 New Jersey loss to the Leafs at the Air Canada Centre. "It's a battle every day. It's not going to go away. It stays with me.

"(But) we're all hurting in some ways. It's part of playing hockey. There's no time to recover. You go out there and play with it ... Some days it feels okay. Some days it doesn't."

Don't cry for No.89, the preternaturally gifted sharpshooter who at the height of his powers scored 76 goals in 77 games in 1992-93. Mogilny didn't only get a Gretzkyish dose of hand-eye genius along with the jet-fuelled feet of his youth; he also, on account of being injured, got paid his full $5.5. million salary during the NHL lockout.

And even on one good leg he is still a half-scary scoring threat. He had 12 goals and 25 points heading into last night's tilt, which was not to say he was a happy right winger.

He was aching. His team was struggling badly, winners of just two of their previous 10. That was at least partly because the Devils were ranked 26th in the 30-team league in the all-important category of power-play efficiency, and as if to prove their futility they went 0-for-6 with the advantage last night, at one point squandering a five-minute five-on-four, with Mogilny spending much of that unproductive time on the ice.

Said Martin Brodeur, the Canadian Olympic goalie who stopped 25 of 27 shots for the Devils: "We played a solid game but nothing to show for it, so it's definitely getting old ... I've got a lot more worries in New Jersey than the Olympics."

Mogilny, for his part, has a beef with the new-era NHL.

"I can't stand it. Can't stand it," he said. "This is not hockey, how it should be played ... It's hard to see some of the guys who played in this league for a lot of years and been successful, bring something special to this game, now they find themselves without a job and being on the bubble to just basically let them go. That's been difficult for me to watch. I'm not going to name names throughout the league."

Lamoriello wasn't naming names yesterday when it came to candidates for the coaching job he is currently occupying while also down gigs as chief executive officer, president and general manager. Ted Nolan, the one-time NHL coach of the year who's been slumming it in the junior ranks of late, probably didn't help his chances by telling the Buffalo News he'd informed the Devils of his interest.

"It's a free country," Lamoriello said yesterday when asked about Nolan's disclosure.

Indeed, junior coaches everywhere are free to put their feet in the mouths. But shooting from the hip, as Mogilny must know, can hurt.

Associated Press

12/29/2005 3:26:09 PM

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - Eight years after the Whalers left Hartford for North Carolina, a developer wants to bring another NHL team to the Connecticut capital.

Lawrence Gottesdiener is head of Northland Investment Corp., which owns $500 million US worth of property in Hartford. He would like to put the team in a $250 million arena he hopes to build.

''We've got our own money, we're willing to invest in an arena and we're willing to buy a team,'' he said. ''It would be an important entity and symbol of the city, the region and the state.''

Gottesdiener's plan calls for a publicly subsidized, 16,000-seat venue that would be home to a major hockey team. The University of Connecticut men's and women's basketball teams also would play some games there.

The new arena would replace the Hartford Civic Center under the proposal, which was announced Wednesday amid talk of the Civic Center's future.