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es, Roy still has a
Topic Started: Apr 16 2014, 09:07 AM (7 Views)
ainimeng

DAVOS - Canadian head coach Doug Shedden was thrilled to be given the task of coaching Canadas team at this years Spengler Cup. He would have been thrilled, Im sure, to have coached the team under the normal circumstances that would have seen him utilising a roster of mostly Swiss League-based players. But the assignment got a lot sweeter, and much more high profile, when it became clear that some big names would be playing for Canada as a result of the NHL lockout. But that immediately put Shedden into a situation that many a Canadian coach is familiar with. Its the sharp part of the blade on the double-edged sword that coaching almost any Canadian team in an international hockey tournament is: Even if you win, its often not enough. The severity of the sharpness of the blade differs slightly from tournament to tournament - but, in the end, Canadians expect their hockey teams to win. Thats it. To put it in even simpler terms: If Canada wins at this tournament, the attitude from Joe Average hockey fan towards Sheddens work would pretty much be "Well, with that roster, of course he won." Hardly the credit he would deserve. If Canada doesnt win, opinions would generally run along the "What a horrible job. He couldnt win with that team." Which, again, would hardly be fair. The part of that double blade that cuts in our favour is that Canadas attitude towards hockey - most Canadians think were the best and expect nothing less of our teams than a win – contributes to making us good. My disconnect with the whole thing is that, sometimes, people get a little myopic in their vision of the great game on a world level. Canada is good. Canada usually has a chance to win a championship in any tournament it enters. But that doesnt preclude other teams/countries from being better than Canada sometimes. And it doesnt mean that Canada played badly or failed. It means that the other team was better. No shame in that. Take this Spengler Cup tournament. Going by Twitter traffic after Canadas opening overtime loss (Im writing this prior to the game v Davos), the feeling I got from many was that Canada could pretty much just show up and win this tournament because, you know, its Canada - and that the performance of the team in the first game was terrible. I said to a colleague, and Ill say it here, if youre one of those people, youre fooling yourself. You have two teams (Mannheim and Fribourg) that are leading their respective leagues. You have another team from the KHL (Ufa) that is a middle of the pack team in the second-best league in the world and you also have a host club (Davos) bolstered by several excellent NHL lockout players. All of those teams are, quite literally, are in mid-season form. This tournament was never going to be easy for any team to win – whether that team is called Canada or not. To bring it back to Shedden and his assistant Chris McSorley – McSorley agreed that they were indeed in the position of having to win to escape being known as the two guys who couldnt win with all those NHLers. But he was quick to add, with a smile, "Yeah, but there are about a thousand other coaches whod love to be in the situation were in." How positive. How Canadian. Its that attitude that makes me miss home. Cheap NHL Jerseys . On Wednesday, they had four with big games. Daniel Murphy homered twice, Scott Hairston hit a grand slam and David Wright drove in five runs to lead the Mets to a 17-1 rout of the Chicago Cubs. Wholesale NFL Jerseys . Lampards agent Steve Kutner has told British media that Chelsea has no intention of offering the veteran midfielder a new contract when his current deal expires at the end of the season. http://www.xingfantrade.com/ . Lindegaard, 28, joined United in January of last year from Aalesund in Norway. He made eight appearances in the English Premier League, but was sidelined by a knee injury after earning the starting role. Wholesale Jerseys . Gee shook off the rough patch in an otherwise strong outing, Lucas Duda backed him with a homer and single to drive in four runs, and the New York Mets beat the Colorado Rockies 7-5 on Saturday night. xingfantrade . Paul Millsap scored 24 points and Mo Williams added 22 in Utahs third straight victory, 117-110 on Sunday night.MINNEAPOLIS -- Brandon Roys retirement from the NBA last year wasnt intended as a final decision. The Minnesota Timberwolves were eager to help him clarify his status. "After a few months of sitting out, I decided, Hey, I dont want to stop playing basketball," Roy said Tuesday at a news conference at Target Center after signing a two-year, $10.4 million contract. "I wanted to continue going forward. It was never a situation where I said, Im done forever. Its just more of a pause." The Portland Trail Blazers announced Roys medical-related retirement right before the start of the lockout-shortened season last year. His knees, lacking cartilage after six operations, were bothering him too much to continue. Roy said Tuesday, though, that the team doctor advised him to quit. The Blazers used the amnesty clause to waive Roy and not count the remaining $63 million on his contract against their salary cap or luxury tax. "It was never really officially my decision to retire," Roy said. So here he is with the Wolves, at 6-foot-6 and age 28 ready to resume what was already an outstanding career before his knees began to break down. Roy was on a playing-time limit -- 22 minutes per game -- during his last season with the Blazers, a restriction he said frustrated him badly. His 18-point fourth quarter in a Game 4 comeback win over the eventual champion Dallas Mavericks in the first round of the playoffs only boosted his confidence that he could still play at an elite level. The Wolves not only were interested once he made it known he was considering a comeback, they promised him theyd take off the reins as long as he can prove his knees can handle it. Roy said his goal is to again become a 35-minute-per-game player, his career average. That, combined with endorsements from friends of head coach Rick Adelman, familiarity with Adelmans assistants and a playoff-calibre core in Kevin Love, Ricky Rubio and now Andrei Kirilenko, was enough to persuade Roy to pick the Wolves. "Its not a situation where I wanted to be a 10th man. I want to be able to go out and work and be a big part of a team taking that next step, and I thought the pieces were right here," Roy said. "When they say, You know, Brandon, the skys the limit here, that really made me feel good. I thought some teams maybe wanted me to play a small role, but Minnesota was saying, You can come in and earn as big of a role as you want. So that was really important for me.dddddddddddd" Roy worked out for two months last winter before deciding to try an increasingly popular but medically unproven procedure known as platelet-rich plasma therapy. Its basically an injection of a patients own blood back into the body, to help heal degenerative joints. Kobe Bryant went to Germany before last season to have it done. Roy said its allowed him to work out hard and feel no day-after discomfort. "Im not saying Im Kobe Bryant, but my body felt really good. Ive been working out ever since, and there hasnt been any swelling. Im excited I got it done," Roy said. He told Wolves president of basketball operations and general manager David Kahn he wouldnt have returned if he didnt think he could "reach a high level of basketball." Roy, of course, was drafted by the Wolves in 2006 and traded to the Blazers for fellow shooting guard Randy Foye soon after. His mom keeps a picture of him shaking the commissioners hand for the cameras, with a Timberwolves cap on. Roy recalled Tuesday a television interview backstage that ended abruptly that nighes, Roy still has a career average of 19 points. He was an All-Star in three of his five seasons with the Blazers, the NBA Rookie of the Year in 2007 and scored better than 26 points per game during the 2008 playoffs. So after years of decrying the front office for the ill-fated Roy-for-Foye trade, Wolves fans can finally root for the player they wanted -- while hoping those knees hold up. "This one kind of came out of left field," Kahn said. "It wasnt until late this spring that Brandon decided that he was ready to come back to basketball after being away for only a season. And all I can say is Im just thrilled that he chose us and not somebody else, to resume his career." Kahn said hes not concerned about unrealistic expectations. The fact that Roy is not currently experiencing soreness or swelling in his knees, Kahn said, is key. "If that continues," Kahn said, "this should really work out well because thats the only thing then that would hold him back." ' ' '
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