Canada's Headache

By Joel Stein

Rod Brind'Amour stepped off the bullet train in Nagano and took a hard check to the ground. But the crush of Japanese fans was actually gunning for Wayne Gretzky, who, after fleeing to the Team Canada bus, said, "I've been in a lot of places, but I've never seen anything like this." It wasn't supposed to go this way for the Great One. The plan was to divert the hockey-deprived country with Paul Tetsuhiko Kariya, who, at least in Japan, is the most famous hockey player ever.

But Kariya, 23, a fourth-generation Canadian of half-Japanese heritage, isn't part of the first 125 NHL players to participate in the Olympics. The man Hockey News named the best player in the world was stateside nursing a concussion received on Feb. 1, when he took a stick to the head while celebrating a goal. Kariya was grounded by doctors last Thursday. It was, he told Team Canada general manager Bob Clark, "the worst day of my life." The guy who held the offending stick, Gary Suter, despite an NHL suspension, will be playing for the U.S. That makes Canada mad.

Canada has been harboring a grudge since 1966, when the two teams last met and the U.S. shocked its northern neighbor by winning the World Cup. Canadians began to rethink their national plan (More funding? A youth movement? Abandon NAFTA?), but what really upset them was learning that hardly anyone in the U.S. even knew about the contest. It's one thing to import Canadian NHL teams to southern U.S. cities, steal SCTV guys for SNL, infringe on fishing rights, but to beat them at their own sport? This could get ugly.

Before the North American rivals get to that matchup, there will be four other Dream Teams to get through--Sweden, Russia, the Czech Republic and Finland--none of which will roll over. The "Big Sheet," the offense-friendly, Olympic-size playing surface that is 13 1/2 ft. wider than the NHL's, will help the smaller, speedier European teams, as should the stiff penalties against fighting. The Swedes took advantage of this in their first game, swirling around the Americans and winning 4-2. And because a hot goaltender can control a short series, the Czechs could take gold because of Dominik Hasek, the NHL's 1997 MVP.

But Canada is likely to win its first gold since 1952 even without Kariya. And the NHL might not have got all the hype it hoped from him anyway. Sure, his skating would have been incredible to watch on the Olympic-size rinks, but his comments about not feeling very Japanese might not have played well, and his lack of stage presence might have worked against the flashy image the NHL wants to present. That's partly because he looks less like an athlete than that guy from your computer-science class. He's so small he was told he could never compete with tough guys like Suter. Although listed as 5 ft. 11 in. for his entire NHL career, Kariya admitted recently, "I'm 5 ft. 9 and, like, 3/4 in. I guess I can say that. It doesn't matter, now that I've proved myself."

He now has time to grow into all the off-ice attention. Sitting at a Benihana's last month, eating a meal called the Rocky's Junior, Kariya touched his cheek and discussed his shaving habits: "A lot more often this year," he says, "every two or three days now." Maybe 2002, in Salt Lake City, will work better for Kariya after all. Gretzky can handle the Japanese for now.