Article content continued

Photo by Dave Sandford / Getty Images

The 2019 team will have its own story to tell but they’ll also be connected to the greater Canadian story of this tournament. It stretches back to Gretzky in ’78, runs through Crosby to Connor McDavid and includes virtually every great Canadian player of the last five decades.

They’re all connected to this tournament, as are we.

— It’s absurd when you think about it but, after the ’78 WJC in Montreal, it was eight years before the WJC came back to Canada. Then it was five years. Then it was four. Then it finally dawned on the IIHF the tournament was a licence to print money when it was held in Canada.

Since ’06 it’s been in Canada five times. It’s headed to Montreal and Toronto this year, Buffalo the next year, then back to Vancouver. The IIHF now says it has the dough to cover travel and insurance for NHL players at the Olympics. Draw your own conclusions there.

— In keeping with the WJC theme, it’s instructive to note so many of the players from the ’05 tournament in Grand Forks came to define this era of the NHL. In addition to Crosby et al, the Canadian team had Corey Perry, Ryan Getlzlaf and Brent Seabrook. That year the Russians had Alex Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin. The American team featured Phil Kessel and Ryan Suter.

Bergeron, Weber, Perry, Getzlaf, Seabrook, Suter and old pal Ryan Kesler also came from the ’03 draft, which is generally regarded as the best draft in NHL history.

You’d have a hard time proving it by the Ducks’ 3-1 win on Thursday but those players are finally starting to showing their age after dominating the NHL for more than a decade. Kesler is 32, Perry and Getzlaf are both 31 and there are a lot of miles on those engines.