WinterSports2002.com - Players like international rules, but how about NHL?

WinterSports2002.com, Monday, February 25, 2002

Players like international rules, but how about NHL?

By Tim Buckley
Deseret News sports writer

WEST VALLEY CITY — Officially, you might not know it.

But one NHL player after another said the same throughout, and even right after, the 2002 Olympic men's hockey tournament that ended Sunday with Canada's 5-2 gold-medal win over the United States.

The international version of the self-proclaimed greatest game on ice is really rather enjoyable.

"I think the tempo of the game was very exciting," veteran American defenseman Phil Housley said after Team USA's title-game loss. "To me, it's just a fun brand of hockey."

How much of it will be seen in North America on a day-to-day basis, however, remains to be seen.

The NHL is rather reluctant to alter its own rugged game.

And while league officials have said they will take a good long look at aspects of international play they may be able to adopt — shorter time between faceoffs being one — it's unlikely a bigger ice surface or removal of the red line (essentially lengthening the game) will be coming to arenas in Canada or America anytime soon.

As much as NHL players may like it, in fact, the league did everything it could during the Olympics to not let you know that.

After outspoken American Brett Hull spoke out on the subject, in fact, comments began disappearing from quote sheets prepared and distributed by workers for the Salt Lake Organizing Committee.

NHL officials working for the Olympics, in fact, are believed to have censored SLOC reporters from including quotes favoring the international game on the various paperwork distributed to newspaper reporters covering Olympic hockey.

But that didn't stop NHLers from speaking out on their own, or reporters who heard the quotes firsthand from using them in stories.

"I think there's some things the NHL can certainly take from this style of hockey," Canadian defenseman Scott Niedermayer said.

That's a comment Niedermayer made just minutes after winning Olympic gold. It did not, however, show up on any of the 15 or so quote sheets distributed by Olympic officials.