The Puck Stops Here

With the deadlines to pick Olympic teams, I will make my picks for the Canadian and American teams. Today, I will select Canada. These picks are NOT the players that I expect to make the team - that becomes a bit of a game of second guessing what I think Wayne Gretzky might do instead of making the best picks I think can be made. These picks are the people that I would select for the Canadian Olympic Team if I was allowed to select it.

Forwards:
Todd Bertuzzi
Rod Brind'Amour *I am aware he was not even on the long list of eligible players*
Simon Gagne
Dany Heatley
Vincent LeCavalier
Jarome Iginla
Patrick Marleau
Brad Richards
Joe Sakic
Jason Spezza
Eric Staal
Martin St Louis
Joe Thornton

Defensemen:
Rob Blake
Ed Jovanovski
Bryan McCabe
Scott Niedermayer
Chris Pronger
Wade Redden
Robyn Regehr

Goaltenders:
Martin Brodeur
Roberto Luongo
Marty Turco

The hardest part of picking a Team Canada is not finding talented players to fill out the lineup. The problem is that there are too many talented players. There are talented all stars and players with a successful history of playing for Team Canada internationally who are left off this team because of all the available talent. I think this is the best possible team Canada could have. At the same time, I think that the actual Team Canada will be different from this one.

Interestingly, all the consensus picks at battle of Alberta are choices on my team as well.