TORONTO - It was supposedly the late Herb Brooks who had the famous line about not bringing an All-Star Team to the 1980 Olympics. “I am not looking for the best players,” said Kurt Russell, who played the U.S. hockey team’s head coach in the movie Miracle. “I am looking for the right ones.”
For the longest time, that was how Canada also used to assemble its international teams.
Skilled scorers could be found on the top-two lines. But from Rob Zamuner winning a roster spot over Mark Messier at the 1998 Olympics in Nagano to Kris Draper being chosen ahead of Sidney Crosby at the 2006 Olympics in Turin, bottom-six jobs often went to role players because the thinking was you could not ask a star player to get his hands dirty and block shots.