“I remember having cameras all over the place, people following us around,” he said. “I guess they were trying to get the greatest moments. There were just cameras around all the time. It was different for us.”

Slaney’s goal helped turn TSN’s world junior broadcast into a national institution. Today, TSN broadcasts every game of the tournament, which has become a Canadian holiday tradition. According to Bell Media, TSN’s parent company, more than 19.4 million unique Canadian viewers watched part of the 2015 tournament, which Canada again won on home soil. That figure represents more than half of Canada’s population.

Slaney appeared poised for N.H.L. stardom in 1991. He was first called up in December 1993, and was on the Capitals team that shocked the heavily favored Pittsburgh Penguins, who had Mario Lemieux, Ron Francis and Jaromir Jagr, in the first round of the 1994 playoffs. Washington went on to lose to the Rangers, the eventual champions.

“My time in Washington, right away I was told to play against Lemieux and Francis and Jagr in the playoffs,” Slaney said. “That was one of my challenges there, and it was unbelievable. As time went on, new players come into the league and you still have to perform all the time at the top level. At the same time, I was getting hurt every year. When I look back at my career, being hurt didn’t help.”

Slaney’s second season in Washington was derailed by an ankle injury, and he was traded that summer to the Colorado Avalanche, a championship-caliber team boasting one of the N.H.L.’s deepest defensive groups. Hampered by injuries, Slaney played 268 games for seven N.H.L. teams over parts of nine seasons.

Despite being encouraged to take his game to Europe, Slaney spent much of his career in the American Hockey League, where he became a star. In 2002, he became the third player to win the Eddie Shore Award, as the league’s top defenseman, in consecutive seasons. A five-time A.H.L. All-Star, he was the first defenseman in league history to collect 500 career points.

He won the Calder Cup championship in 2005. With the N.H.L. season lost that year to a work stoppage, Slaney anchored a Philadelphia Phantoms team featuring the future N.H.L. stars Patrick Sharp, Jeff Carter and Mike Richards. He was inducted into the A.H.L. Hall of Fame in 2014.