Saturday, December 15, 2001
Nothing plain about travel
By AL STRACHAN -- Sun Media
One of the biggest problems facing the organizers for the team in Salt Lake City is the most basic one.
How is the team going to get there?
The NHL, in its wisdom, has scheduled six games for Wednesday, Feb. 13.
At 10:30 a.m. on Feb. 14, Team Canada has been allocated ice time for its only pre-tournament practice.
The players who are in action on Wednesday night will have to get to Salt Lake City -- never an easy task in itself -- not only in time to get to the rink for a 10:30 practice, but also in time to pick up their Olympic accreditation.
One game -- Florida at Chicago, isn't likely to be of any concern.
But the Rangers are in Dallas that night and a number of participants in that game will be in the Olympics. Team Canada players will be in action at all the other venues as well -- St. Paul, Minn., Denver, Anaheim and Los Angeles.
As a result, Team Canada is going to have to arrange some charter flights -- probably three.
One will depart from southern California bringing in the likes of Paul Kariya, Sean Burke and Jarome Iginla.
One from Minnesota will transport Brendan Shanahan and Steve Yzerman to Denver where they will meet Eric Lindros, Theoren Fleury and perhaps Stars forward Joe Nieuwendyk coming in from Dallas.
According to the existing plans for maximum security at the 2002 Games, no flights will be allowed to land at Salt Lake City unless they have first undergone a rigorous inspection in Denver.
In other words, if you're arriving in Salt Lake, you're arriving from Denver. No other flights will be cleared for landing.
As a result, Team Canada may use Denver as a staging point and bring in all the players on one flight.
Even so, those players will be arriving late and will have no chance whatsoever of having a full night's sleep before the morning skate.
But at these Olympics, the order of the day will be bureaucracy, not common sense.
2002 Games Men's Hockey Coverage
