Brian Burke may be general manager of one of Canada's iconic NHL teams, but Canadian he is not.
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Team USA's Burke tees off on curling, Canadian pressure
- February 4, 2010 6:02 PM |
- By Noah Love
Story provided by
By Jeremy Sandler, National Post
Brian Burke may be general manager of one of Canada's iconic NHL teams, but Canadian he is not.
During a conference call announcing Ryan Whitney and Tim Gleason would replace injured defencemen Mike Komisarek and Paul Martin, the GM of the U.S. men's hockey team for the 2010 Olympics showed as much when he momentarily forgot a question that had been posed to him.
"They've got curling on TSN and I'm just gripped by it," he said in a tone that suggested he was not all that engrossed by the sweepers and their rocks.
Of course, curling was not the only topic tweaked by Burke. He also took on Gleason's no-nonsense personality.
"He's not a chatty guy," said Burke. "Your worst nightmare might be to get stuck in a fishing boat with Tim Gleason for an afternoon because he isn't going to do much talking."
In what may have been his version of the truth or a bit of gamesmanship that is not foreign to Burke, he talked of his own team's shortcomings at the Olympics compared to pool rival Canada.
"We're not underdogs by design, we're underdogs," he said. "There's not going to be a penny bet on this team. We know that. We accept that. We have much more faith in our group than the public's going to. But in this tournament, all the money is going to be on Canada and Russia, to a lesser extent on Sweden, and the pressure on Canada ... being the clear favourite and playing on home soil is going to be unbelievable."
There was no mistaking Burke's enthusiasm at being part of the Games. He will not miss the opportunity to march in the Opening Ceremonies with U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden and 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey hero Mike Eruzione.
"I never got to represent my country as a hockey player," he said. "There's a good reason for that, there was that damn skill requirement that they have. This is my only chance.
"To march in the Opening Ceremonies with the athletes from my country is going to be one of those pinch me things," he added. "How did this happen to a kid, one of 10 kids from a family in Minnesota that started playing hockey when he was 13. How did I get this lucky?"
About the Author
- Bruce Arthur Bruce Arthur is the National Post's national sports columnist. A Vancouver native, he has been with the Post since 2001, and a columnist since 2005. He is covering his second Olympics, after the 2008 Games in Beijing. He expects these Games to be slightly less propagandistic, and for China to win slightly fewer medals.
- Joe O'Connor Joe O'Connor is a roving sports feature writer with an open-ended beat. He joined the National Post in 2002, and has spent the past seven years bouncing from sport to sport, offering fresh perspectives and delivering unique stories wherever he goes. Whether it has been getting Don Cherry to open up about his love life; George Chuvalo to talk about heartbreaking loss; or racing down the side of a mountain with former Crazy Canuck, Dave Irwin, the veteran Postie chases a story wherever it leads. Before joining the newspaper he was a two-time silver medalist at the National Magazine Awards. Vancouver will be his first Olympics.
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