Pat Quinn saw his Canadian squad score in just one of its last 12 periods.

Woe Canada, what went wrong?
By Rich Libero | NHL.com
Feb. 22, 2006

Stripped down to his jersey and a pair of shorts, Sakic bore a 12-stitch scar across his left cheek (which is slightly fractured) and a black eye. These are the souvenirs Sakic will carry home, courtesy of an errant stick in Canada's shock loss to Switzerland.

"I think everybody learned what it really takes," Sakic said.

Head coach Pat Quinn knew. Team Canada's executive director Wayne Gretzky knew as well.

"I said to Brad Richards and Martin St. Louis, 'And now you know how the Calgary kids felt after Game 7,' " Gretzky said in reference to Tampa's Game 7 victory over Calgary in the 2004 Stanley Cup Finals.

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Gretzky addressed the media after the loss in a subdued, almost relaxed matter. He spoke slowly and thoughtfully, the stress of the past three months washing over and through him.

"It's been a horrible three months for me and moving forward you have to think about your health," Gretzky said.

In the middle of trying to coach the Phoenix Coyotes and select Team Canada, Gretzky's mother passed away five days before Christmas. Recently, Gretzky's name and family have been linked with scandal.

While not saying that he would step down from his involvement with Team Canada, he did say that he'd take stock of his role. Such words can be expected after a loss that Gretzky deemed "devastating" several times during the course of the press conference.

"I take full responsibility," Gretzky said. "It's nobody else's fault. I'll reassess what's best for me and Hockey Canada. I want to win gold in 2010 (in Vancouver)."

But what happened to the 2006 Canadian team that appeared so strong on paper? The second-guessing is well underway in the most hockey-mad nation on Earth. Hockey is so engrained in the culture that when Canada fails to win, it's taken as a blow to national pride and psyche.

Watching Russia's youngsters Alexander Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin contribute to their success, many Canadians will no doubt ask why Sidney Crosby, Eric Staal or defenseman Dion Phaneuf were left off the roster despite having solid NHL seasons. Unfortunately, the coach and executive staff will be questioned about their player choices -- such is life when you have the deepest talent pool in the world.

The last-second loss of a puck-carrying defenseman in Anaheim's Scott Niedermayer (knee surgery) certainly came as a blow. Niedermayer's abilities to advance the puck forward would've been handy on the big ice surface.

"We didn't have terrific speed back there," Quinn said. "We lost a couple of guys to injury and certainly Scott Niedermayer could bring some speed."

Executive director Wayne Gretzky took full responsibility for Team Canada's poor performance at the 2006 Olympic Games.

Quinn said Canada was guilty of trying to stretch the ice by employing the wrong methods. The forwards got too far away from the defense in the transition game. Passes couldn't be completed and the defense didn't have the ability to skate the puck forward effectively. Teams sat back and challenged Canada to come at them.

"We tried to play this stretch game where instead of playing with speed, we stood still thinking that we were stretching," Quinn said.

But that was just one of the problems. The Canadian power play was dismal, accounting for five goals in 31 chances for a 16.13 percent success rate and while Canada enjoyed 49:09 of power play time, they spent almost as much time killing penalties at 44:42.

"This possibly was our best game overall, but we couldn't find a way to solve our scoring, especially on the power play," Quinn said.

The Team Canada coaches and executives, not unlike their American cousins, were left scratching their heads about why they didn't generate enough offense. Richards led Canada with four points and 10 more players were tied with three, so what little offense Canada did generate was spread evenly through the lineup.

"We looked at all the tapes every night and thought that we were a talented group that does score and has scored at the NHL level," Quinn said. "Bottom line is you have to come together as a team."

Quinn said that try as they might, Canada couldn't get its team to gel.

"We still were relying on our individual skills and we just didn't get over that hump we needed to get over," Quinn said.

It is odd. Every player on the team is a leader in his NHL dressing room. Each one can take control of a game at any one moment and snatch his team from the clutches of defeat. Perhaps Canada's problem was the team was too talented.

Perhaps, with all the pressure that accompanies Team Canada, each player wanted to affect the outcome of the game. The intention isn't selfish in nature, but the love of the team is so strong and the desire to win so high, that perhaps each player thought he had to be the difference maker.

"The pressure of representing this country in any international competition is really high," Gretzky said.

So high, that it might've affected Team Canada without the players even knowing about it.

"(The team) does not have a thing to be embarrassed about," Quinn said. "We came here to play for flag and country. I know they feel they let some people down, but they have nothing to be embarrassed about."

Ask to compare this loss to the one he participated in at Nagano in 1998, Gretzky said being a player and an executive are different.

"You wonder what you could've said or done to make it better for the players," Gretzky said. "The devastation is the same. The responsibility aspect is different. You feel more like a parent, like you've let your kids down, so for that reason this is more devastating."

But, in losing, he said, there is a silver lining.

"Losing is what makes winning so enjoyable," Gretzky said. "This is a great example of what made '02 so special. This is a hard tournament to win."

And the Canadian brass is going to spend the next four years finding a way to fix that.

"There will be accountability over the next couple of years," Gretzky said. "I'm not going anywhere."