Photography courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, Johnmaxmena2
Watching the Olympic games, in all their pomp and glory, it can be difficult to fathom anyone turning down an opportunity to compete. But if you really think about it, the fact that hockey players sometimes decline the invitation isn’t a shock.
Imagine you’re in the midst of a grueling 82-game season, playing a sport whose violence rivals or exceeds that of football. Certainly, your chance of losing a tooth is far greater on the ice. Then, halfway through that grind, you’re offered a couple of weeks off. It’s time to mend your injuries, heal your bumps and bruises, and maybe even spend some time on a beach, far from the brutal winter weather. Or you can go to Russia and put your body through a further beating for national pride.
When you look at it that way, perhaps it’s surprising that so many of the NHL’s best do participate. The Blues sent 10 players to the Winter Olympics in Sochi, tied with the rival Chicago Blackhawks for the most in the league. (Nine of the locals will actually play, with Vlad Sobotka of the Czech Republic sitting out with an injury.)
For Blues captain David Backes, agreeing to play for Team USA was an easy decision. He grew up in Minnesota, the nation’s most hockey-obsessed state. He remembers bringing his stick and skates to school every day as a kid, so he could go straight to an outdoor rink after the closing bell. They’d play until it got dark or their feet went numb or both. The state high-school hockey tournament is treated like a holiday, with kids excused from school to watch the teams compete.
As cliché as it might sound, for a kid like that, playing in the Olympics really is a dream come true. Backes helped the U.S. win a surprising silver medal at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver in 2010. And this time, he has his eyes set on gold. The Americans’ first game of the preliminary round is tomorrow against Slovakia.
We spoke to Backes just before he left for Sochi.
What was that experience like at the 2010 Olympics?
Being named to the team is a huge honor. You’re representing your country on an international scale, and the world is watching. It’s something that you watch growing up, watching the Olympics, watching great moments of perseverance and of victory and of defeat and of heartbreak. Being at the games, being in the Olympic village and experiencing what Vancouver had to offer—as far as the coming together of so many nations in the truest form of sport—was a time I’ll never forget and an experience like none other I’ve ever had.
Fellow Olympian and St. Louis native Paul Stastny told me the 2010 team was young and didn’t have a lot of expectations.
I think the external expectations were low. I think internally we knew we were maybe a little younger than some of the other teams, but we knew what kind of talent and character we had in that room. Obviously, Ryan Miller was fantastic in 2010, but I think as a group, we bonded together and got better as a team every single day. The only game we lost was the gold-medal game, and that was in overtime.
Were you happy with a silver medal or upset that you didn’t beat Canada for the gold?
We had our eyes on the gold medal the entire time. No matter what the experts wanted to pick in the tournament, that was our intentions. You’re in a gold-medal game, and you haven’t lost. You beat the Canadian team in an earlier game. You’re going into that game wanting to leave as the best team in the world. That didn’t happen obviously, and I think that’s fueled some fire to finish that task and goal this time around.
Some of the other countries, especially Russia, might have bigger stars, but it seemed like you guys really came together as a team.
In a short tournament like that, when you’re playing with your NHL team up until a couple of days before it starts, you've got to come together in a heartbeat. Whoever becomes the best team is going to have the most success. It’s not who’s got the best individual players on their team; it’s who can be cohesive and who’s willing to take a role that’s maybe lesser than they’re used to, in order to help their team be successful.
Do you enjoy playing with stars from around the league?
It’s the ability to—rather than trying to defeat those guys—team up our abilities and our styles of play to make it miserable, perhaps, on someone else or to go into battle with them to look for victory. Knowing how tough some of those guys are to play against and what they bring to the table, having the same sweater on as them is going to be a welcome thing.
You’ve said choosing between Olympic gold and the Stanley Cup would be like asking someone to choose their favorite child. But how does the Olympics compare to the NHL season? It’s two different beasts. The NHL season is an 82-game grind, followed by a seven-game playoff series, where it’s really fierce extended competitions; there are four rounds of those types of series. Whereas the Olympics is a two-week, short tournament where you lose the wrong game, and you’re going home a lot earlier than you thought you were. There are pros and cons to both. You could be doing something that’s long-lasting and uplifting for a whole country, but knowing that in the end of it, you’re going to have to go back and continue an NHL season, where there are high expectations in St. Louis as well.
Is there a fatigue factor after adding these extra games to the NHL schedule, which is already condensed to accommodate the Olympics? Everyone in the league is playing that same condensed schedule. There’s no excuses there. The one difference is some guys are getting a 10-day break and going to a warm-weather destination, perhaps, and relaxing and resting. Other guys are going to fly halfway across the world, but stay on the ice and stay engaged in competition. Which one of those is superior? I think it helped me a lot staying on the ice in Vancouver and staying with the intensity of playing the game.
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Olympic Update: Speedskater Patrick Meek, a St. Louis native whom we wrote about in this space a few weeks ago, competed in the 5,000-meter race this past weekend. Skaters from The Netherlands won all three medals, and Meek finished in 20th place.
