I’ll admit it. When I first heard that 37-year-old Ryan Malone was heading to Minnesota’s training camp with his target being this Winter’s Olympiad, I approached the thought quizzically.
“The dude has already worn the Stars and Stripes before, what is there left to prove?”
Coming from a person who has never represented his country in any other capacity than as a tourist abroad, the retrospective has a tinge of ignorance and arrogance. What I should’ve asked myself was, “why wouldn’t he?”
Since being released from his PTO in Minnesota on September 29th, Malone continues his journey to PyeongChang down in Des Moines, something that was both expected and relished by Iowa head coach, Derek Lalonde.