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Players want medal, Cup
Saying which one is more important is tough
By Tim Buckley
Deseret News sports writer
As one of America's 1980 miracle men, Ken Morrow won Olympic gold. As a defenseman for the New York Islanders' NHL dynasty of the early 1980s, Morrow had his name etched four times on Lord Stanley's Cup.
Prying out of Morrow which one means more to him would take the talent of one of his Lake Placid teammates, oral surgeon Bill Baker.
Because it's like pulling teeth.
"That's certainly the biggest question I get — the most-asked question," Morrow says. "And I feel bad, because I haven't come up with a great answer."
Neither have many of the NHLers who hope to win gold during the 2002 Winter Games, which for men's hockey players gets under way with preliminary-round play Saturday.
Ask Russian goalie Nikolai Khabibulin which he'd rather have, and he answers diplomatically.
"Both," he says.
Reminded that it was not one of the choices, Khabibulin gets more defensive than he does when minding net.
"It's two different things," he says. "One you play for your country, and the gold medal, I think, is a big accomplishment. But the Stanley Cup is also big. So I don't even know which one. I'd say both."
Ditto for Sami Kapanen, a left-winger from Finland who plays for the NHL's Carolina Hurricanes.
"You can't focus on more than one thing at a time," Kapanen said. "When you're playing for your club (NHL) team, you're focusing on your team's games, hoping you can give your team a good chance to go all the way to win the Stanley Cup. But once you get to play in the Olympics, you're focusing on winning the gold medal there.
"Both of those things have been my dream since I was a little kid," Kapanen added, "and I would like to win at least one of those, if not both of them."
A couple of goalies who have won one yearn now for the other.
"Stanley Cup is something I (always) wanted," said Dominik Hasek, who led the Czech Republic to 1998 gold at Nagano, then helped orchestrate a move from the NHL's Buffalo Sabres to Detroit, home of the perennial Cup-contending Red Wings. "That is why I asked to be traded to Detroit."
Sweden's Tommy Salo won his gold in 1994 at Lillehammer and will play for it again in Salt Lake. But, eight years later, he still is chasing the Cup. It's a quest he deems even more challenging than a few February Games.
"Olympics is for two weeks, and if you're a hot goaltender, you have a chance to win the whole thing," said Salo, who plays for the Edmonton Oilers. "But Stanley Cup, you have to play seven games — and the quarterfinals, semifinals and the Finals — to win the thing. So it's a little more difficult to win the Stanley Cup."
Morrow, the 1980 Olympian, agrees — to a degree.
"With the Stanley Cups, it was more just going out and doing your job," he says. "I hate to put it that way, but you're out there trying to make a living, and then, when it comes playoff time, you're trying to survive. When you get to the Stanley Cup playoffs, it's survival of the fittest — for two months."
The Olympics were different, and that is why — several teeth later — Morrow finally 'fesses up.
Asked what answer he did come up with, 22 years later, Morrow offers this: "Well, truthfully, nothing will top the emotional high of the Olympics."
And then he adds an addendum.
"The Stanley Cups were just as thrilling — more a feeling of relief when it was over, because it's grueling, and you're just trying to survive out there," Morrow says. "Every time you win a series you have a better team waiting for you. So you feel like you've earned it after the Stanley Cup."
E-mail: tbuckley@desnews.com
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February 8, 2002
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