Skoula, Young weigh in on Canadian turmoil

Originally published on IIHF.com in 2002

By Lucas Aykroyd

Everybody wants a piece of Canada at these Olympics. Or is it the other way around in the hockey tournament? It depends who you ask.

According to Team Canada GM Wayne Gretzky, “the whole world” wants Canada to lose and the American media has been playing up his team’s stumbles in the medal round.

Not surprisingly, Czech defenseman Martin Skoula has a different perspective on the late third period incident that sparked Gretzky’s ire after Canada tied the Czechs 3-3 to close out Final Round play Monday night.

Theoren Fleury got tangled up with Dominik Hasek in the goal crease and was slow to make an exit. When Fleury finally did get up, Skoula’s defense partner, Roman Hamrlik, skated over and levelled the 5-6 New York Ranger forward with a huge cross-check.

“I think everybody pretty much saw it,” said the 22-year-old Skoula. “Fleury kind of ran into Hasek, so we had to do something. I just tried to push him off. I wouldn’t say it was out of line because it was kind of an on-the-edge situation and we didn’t start it. There were some incidents before.”

As far as Team Canada’s conspiracy theories are concerned, USA forward Scott Young has his own take.

“There are so many big players on that hockey team,” said Young, who plays for the St. Louis Blues. “You’ve got Mario Lemieux, Brendan Shanahan, Joe Sakic and Paul Kariya. When a lot of people picked them as the favorite, that’s understandable. There’s that fear that they can win this whole thing. Do you want to avoid facing them? There’s an argument that yeah, it is that way, and maybe that’s why things seem that way to Canada.”

Canada has its chance to prove the doubters and naysayers wrong tomorrow when it faces off against Finland at 8:15 p.m. at the E Center.