from Luke Fox of Sportsnet,
It’s 1998.
Brendan Shanahan is sitting on the bench in Japan listening to Team Canada coach Marc Crawford and his staff call out future Hall of Fame names to take part in a shootout that could get his country past the Czech Republic and into the Olympic gold medal game.
As the names ring out, "Fleury, Bourque, Nieuwendyk, Lindros…" Shanahan says to himself, "Pick me. Pick me. Pick me."
“All I’m thinking is, oh, my God, I hope I get to shoot. I hope I get to score the winner and be the hero,” Shanahan recalled Monday on the SmartLesspodcast.
“And the fifth name, they go, ‘Shanahan.’ ”
Robert Reichel beats Canada’s Patrick Roy on the Czechs’ first attempt, then no one else scores. Shanahan, the final shooter, is his country’s last hope to solve Dominik Hasek.
“And I don’t score. I let down the whole country. It was very confusing to me,” said Shanahan, who’d always believed that the great ones are supposed to want the puck on their stick with stakes the highest.
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