from Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun,

When they first got together in New York more than a year ago — general manager Miro Satan, head coach Ralph Krueger and scout Peter Bondra — the determination for building Team Europe was rather basic.

How are we going to make this work?

“We came up with the idea that we’re going to be team, first and foremost, and that every player here is competing for his own country and he has to know that” said Bondra. “We made that clear right from the beginning.

“Team Europe is our name, but if you’re Swiss, we wanted you to know you’re playing for Switzerland. If you’re German, you’re playing for Germany. You had to feel that. We had to sell that. We had to build on that. But when I look back, it was the right approach in order to bring this team together.

“Somebody came up with the idea that we’re going to have the flag of the country on each players’ uniform. That way he’d be carrying around something special to him. That was important in trying to do something that’s never been done before.”

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