People always talk about 98 how it was such a disaster but in actuality it was very unlucky and with not so many key injuries it might have been the greatest Team Canada ever assembled.
First you have the best player in the world Mario Lemieux retire the year previous (he put up 283 points the previous 2 years), then Paul Kariya goes down thanks to a horrific cross-check to the face by Gary Sister, and finally Joe Sakic gets injured at the games and misses the semi finals. Your telling me had those 3 players been available they couldn't have found a way to beat the Czechs? No shade at the Czechs they deserved Gold in 98 but had Lemieux, Kariya and Sakic played I'm convinced they win Gold in 98.
I mean you could have had prime Lemieux and Lindros as your 1/2 centers with Gretzky as your 3rd line center, or you could have reunited 66 and 99 and let them fly. Then you also had Patrick Roy in net for the only time he would start for Canada, and he was also really good, just Hasek was better. It's to bad it went down how it did because the 98 team could have been an all timer.
2006 is another story......
