does hockey have a better leader than this guy?.............
Its an amazing time in Hockey, historically speaking. We grow up and live hearing about "Legends of The Game", the all-time greatest then to get to actually see one of those perform, on these various stages: Olympics, World Cup, NHL....
Hockey is "Where Its At" right now.....from a few different perspectives. Compared to other sports. Inconvenient time for Team USA to Fail so badly and for that loss to Russia to lead to Team NA going Home.
That Canadian 3rd Period though
Seriously think Team NA woulda got sent home anyways.Crosby though? And the great Talent coming up + entering the league recently? Future looks very bright for Hockey.
how about that!?!
"This is our chance to go far in a tournament like this," Norway's Mats Zuccarello said. "I think we just cherish that moment and this chance."
"We wouldn't be here without fabulous goaltending," Europe coach Ralph Krueger said.
"I knew I didn't do a kicking motion, so I was hoping they were going to see it on the replay," Tatar said.
“Nobody would have guessed we could be in the final,” said Marian Hossa, the 37-year-old veteran from Slovakia.
[FONT="]Maybe that’s because, in a tournament that has been an exercise in earning back the respect that vanished with their embarrassing exhibition-game stumbles, Europe’s members were tailor-made for the task. As coach Ralph Krueger was saying of his players after Sunday’s win: All of them come from countries — places like Switzerland and Germany and Norway and Denmark — “that weren’t respected by the National Hockey League.” As a result, Krueger said, all of them “had to do something special to get to the National Hockey League.”
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[FONT="]“We’ve just got a whole locker room full of guys who had to fight to get here and had to fight to stay,” Krueger said. “But in the end, they’re NHL players.”
Krueger, a 57-year-old sporting renaissance man who took leave of his job as chairman of English Premier League soccer club Southampton to coach here, said he knows at least one thing: The slapdash, thrown-together nature of his team can be spun as an advantage.
“Because we have no past and we definitely have no future, we are really capable of being in the now,” he said.
“I came in here saying that I hope a few young children back in those countries get inspired by what we do and become great NHL players in 10 years or 12 years,” Krueger said. “If that happens when I’m old and retired, I hope it was a part of this tournament that did that.”
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as for the final;
As Hossa said: “That’s a different animal we’re going to face . . . But you never know what’s going to happen.”
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my pleasure MD. Kudos to Mr Kreuger in taking a leadership role . He knows Canadian hockey all too well. Team Europe is a terrific story and it appears the bookies have a David Vs Goliath event;
at pinny, game 1
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standing room only at beautiful Toronto, the ACC...8pm.......
Mike Babcock scoffs at the notion that he simply shows up to coach the Canadians and they keep winning best-on-best games, a streak that has run to 14.
“I think that’s what you guys think,” he bristled at reporters.
Whatever anyone things, Babcock has helped Canada win gold at the last two Olympics and he has the team rolling into the best-of-three World Cup of Hockeyfinals against Team Europe, with Game 1 on Tuesday night.
His counterpart, meanwhile, is simply happy to have a shot to coach hockey again. Ralph Krueger wasn’t sure if he would have another chance to be behind a bench after being fired a few years ago by the Edmonton Oilers via Skype while sitting on his daughter’s bed. He was let go after the Oilers went 19-22-7 during the lockout-shortened season.
While still reeling from the blow, he got an opportunity to bounce back – from Babcock. He asked Krueger to help the team as a consultant at the Sochi Games and they became friends, attending non-hockey events at the 2014 Olympics and swapping water skiing stories in recent years.
“Mike called me 12 hours later to ask me to come to the Olympic Games with Canada, so that’s Mike Babcock,” said Krueger, a Canadian who has known Babcock since 2004.
Now, they’re matching wits as competitors in a tournament in which Canada seems to have everything to lose as a heavy favourite and Team Europe has everything to gain. Europe’s surprising performance has some wondering if the next time an NHL team has an opening, Kruger might get another call.
“You should never say never about anything in life,” Krueger said. “Circumstances change, but I definitely did not take this job hunting for a job.”
Krueger is chairman of Southampton , a Premier League soccer club. He ended up there by following an unusual path.
When he became a coach in the Austrian Hockey League in 1994, Kruger was looking for another line of work.
“I was so frightened about the future and being unstable in coaching so I started doing motivational speaking and that took me into the corporate world,” he recalled. “I was then invited by the founder of the World Economic Forum to be one of the members of the leadership council. I was the only non-academic. There were 50 academics and me.”
That role led to his job with Southampton. When Team Europe was looking for a coach, its search started and ended with Krueger because of the relative success he has had in best-on-best tournaments.
Kruger coached the Swiss at three Olympics, including in 2006 when he helped them to a sixth-place finish – one spot ahead of Canada, a team they beat 2-0 – and a fourth-place showing at the 1998 World Championships.
Team Europe forward Frans Nielsen said he wouldn’t be surprised if NHL teams start showing interest in Krueger.
“I think he has shown in this tournament how smart of a hockey brain he is,” Nielsen said.
He will be trying to figure out Canada this time, a team that hasn’t lost a best-on-best game that counted under Babcock since the U.S. stunned the Canadians in the preliminary round of the Vancouver Games six years ago.
“I get up every morning, and I do the best I can, and work as hard as I can to prepare my team the best I can,” Babcock said.
“Try to love the guys the best I can, try to make them feel good and make them better players. And I go home and love my family and I come here and do it the next day and over time things have worked out good.”
Babcock is the only coach to win gold at the Olympics and World Championships along with a Stanley Cup, which he helped the Detroit Red Wings hoist in 2008. He also led Anaheim to the Stanley Cup finals in 2003. His current team, the Maple Leafs, are in a rebuilding phase.
Even though Babcock oozes with confidence these days, he acknowledged accomplishing the things he has were beyond his wildest dreams while he was growing up and climbing the coaching ladder.
“You grow up in Saskatoon or you’re a coach at Red Deer College, you probably don’t think you’re going to coach Canada’s Olympic team,” he said.
SHOWTIME at 8pm........
at pinny, game 1
| 17.00 | Europe | +923 | +1.5 +207 | Over 5.5 -135 | Under 5.5 +122 |
| Canada | -465 | -1.5 -232 | |||
| Draw | +675 |
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standing room only at beautiful Toronto, the ACC...8pm.......
Mike Babcock scoffs at the notion that he simply shows up to coach the Canadians and they keep winning best-on-best games, a streak that has run to 14.
“I think that’s what you guys think,” he bristled at reporters.
Whatever anyone things, Babcock has helped Canada win gold at the last two Olympics and he has the team rolling into the best-of-three World Cup of Hockeyfinals against Team Europe, with Game 1 on Tuesday night.
His counterpart, meanwhile, is simply happy to have a shot to coach hockey again. Ralph Krueger wasn’t sure if he would have another chance to be behind a bench after being fired a few years ago by the Edmonton Oilers via Skype while sitting on his daughter’s bed. He was let go after the Oilers went 19-22-7 during the lockout-shortened season.
While still reeling from the blow, he got an opportunity to bounce back – from Babcock. He asked Krueger to help the team as a consultant at the Sochi Games and they became friends, attending non-hockey events at the 2014 Olympics and swapping water skiing stories in recent years.
“Mike called me 12 hours later to ask me to come to the Olympic Games with Canada, so that’s Mike Babcock,” said Krueger, a Canadian who has known Babcock since 2004.
Now, they’re matching wits as competitors in a tournament in which Canada seems to have everything to lose as a heavy favourite and Team Europe has everything to gain. Europe’s surprising performance has some wondering if the next time an NHL team has an opening, Kruger might get another call.
“You should never say never about anything in life,” Krueger said. “Circumstances change, but I definitely did not take this job hunting for a job.”
Krueger is chairman of Southampton , a Premier League soccer club. He ended up there by following an unusual path.
When he became a coach in the Austrian Hockey League in 1994, Kruger was looking for another line of work.
“I was so frightened about the future and being unstable in coaching so I started doing motivational speaking and that took me into the corporate world,” he recalled. “I was then invited by the founder of the World Economic Forum to be one of the members of the leadership council. I was the only non-academic. There were 50 academics and me.”
That role led to his job with Southampton. When Team Europe was looking for a coach, its search started and ended with Krueger because of the relative success he has had in best-on-best tournaments.
Kruger coached the Swiss at three Olympics, including in 2006 when he helped them to a sixth-place finish – one spot ahead of Canada, a team they beat 2-0 – and a fourth-place showing at the 1998 World Championships.
Team Europe forward Frans Nielsen said he wouldn’t be surprised if NHL teams start showing interest in Krueger.
“I think he has shown in this tournament how smart of a hockey brain he is,” Nielsen said.
He will be trying to figure out Canada this time, a team that hasn’t lost a best-on-best game that counted under Babcock since the U.S. stunned the Canadians in the preliminary round of the Vancouver Games six years ago.
“I get up every morning, and I do the best I can, and work as hard as I can to prepare my team the best I can,” Babcock said.
“Try to love the guys the best I can, try to make them feel good and make them better players. And I go home and love my family and I come here and do it the next day and over time things have worked out good.”
Babcock is the only coach to win gold at the Olympics and World Championships along with a Stanley Cup, which he helped the Detroit Red Wings hoist in 2008. He also led Anaheim to the Stanley Cup finals in 2003. His current team, the Maple Leafs, are in a rebuilding phase.
Even though Babcock oozes with confidence these days, he acknowledged accomplishing the things he has were beyond his wildest dreams while he was growing up and climbing the coaching ladder.
“You grow up in Saskatoon or you’re a coach at Red Deer College, you probably don’t think you’re going to coach Canada’s Olympic team,” he said.
SHOWTIME at 8pm........
