Gretzky Won’t Manage 2010 Olympic Team
Posted September 17, 2008 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Wayne Gretzky will not manage the Canadian men’s hockey team again at the 2010 Olympics, but is expected to be involved with the team in some capacity.
Hockey Canada president Bob Nicholson confirmed Monday that Gretzky will not reprise the role of executive director he had with the gold-medal winning team of 2002 in Salt Lake City, or the 2006 team that finished out of the medals in Turin, Italy.
“We’ve chatted for a number of months on this and also in the last couple weeks,” Nicholson said. “It’s best for Wayne Gretzky not to be GM given his focus on his job as head coach of the Phoenix Coyotes.”
Gretzky managed the team in 2002 that captured Canada’s first Olympic hockey gold in 50 years, but the team was not as successful four years later and lost in the quarter-final to Russia. Gretzky played in the 1998 Games in Nagano, Japan, where NHL players made their Olympic debut and Canada lost in the semifinal.
Nicholson wants to solidify Gretzky’s role with the 2010 team by the end of October when he also intends to name the managerial team.
Gretzky could play a role in selecting the next GM, Nicholson said, who also added Canadians should expect to see Gretzky at GM Place during the Olympic hockey tournament in February, 2010.
Photo credit: Jeff Vinnick/Getty Images.
