Forty-seven players — five goalies, 17 defensemen and 25 forwards — have been invited to attend Team Canada’s Olympic orientation camp to be held Aug. 25-28 in Calgary.
“I would like to congratulate the players being invited today to our orientation camp,” said executive director Steven Yzerman in a Hockey Canada release. “This marks an important step for this program, as it is our only opportunity to be together as a group before Sochi.”
Click here for the full camp roster.
Goalies: Corey Crawford, Braden Holtby, Roberto Luongo, Carey Price, Mike Smith
Defensemen: Karl Alzner, Jay Bouwmeester, Dan Boyle, Drew Doughty, Mike Green, Dan Hamhuis, Travis Hamonic, Duncan Keith, Kris Letang, Marc Methot, Dion Phaneuf, Alex Pietrangelo, Brent Seabrook, Marc Staal, PK Subban, Marc-Edouard Vlasic, Shea Weber.
Forwards: Patrice Bergeron, Jeff Carter, Logan Couture, Sidney Crosby, Matt Duchene, Jordan Eberle, Ryan Getzlaf, Claude Giroux, Taylor Hall, Chris Kunitz, Andrew Ladd, Milan Lucic, Brad Marchand, Rick Nash, James Neal, Corey Perry, Mike Richards, Patrick Sharp, Eric Staal, Jordan Staal, Martin St. Louis, Steven Stamkos, John Tavares, Joe Thornton, Jonathan Toews,
As always, there are surprise invites and surprise non-invites. (In the former category, Alzner, Hamonic, and Methot may have raised some eyebrows. In the latter, what about Jamie Benn, Jason Spezza, Evander Kane, Cam Ward, Francois Beauchemin, Dan Girardi and Patrick Marleau?)
Also worth noting, of the five goalies on the camp roster, only Luongo was on the 2010 gold medal-winning team; neither Martin Brodeur nor Marc-Andre Fleury were invited.
More information, from the release:
Collectively, the 47 players invited to orientation camp have:
—- appeared in 1,295 games for Team Canada;
—- won 96 gold medals for Canada in international competition;
—- appeared in 21,728 NHL regular season games, 2,369 NHL playoff games and 57 NHL All-Star Games;
—- won 34 Stanley Cups.
Chicago leads all NHL teams with five players invited to camp, followed by Pittsburgh and San Jose with four:
5 – Chicago
4 – Pittsburgh, San Jose
3 – Boston, Los Angeles, Washington
2– Anaheim, Carolina, Edmonton, Montreal, N.Y. Islanders, N.Y. Rangers, St. Louis, Tampa Bay, Vancouver
1 – Colorado, Nashville, Ottawa, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Toronto, Winnipeg
Camp averages:
—- Average age (as of Aug. 26, 2013): 27 years, 6 months, 25 days
—- Average height (as of Aug. 26, 2013): 6’1.5”
—- Average weight (as of Aug. 26, 2013): 206 lbs
Related:
Here are Russia’s 35 Olympic hopefuls
Babcock to coach Team Canada in Sochi
NHL, NHLPA taking wait-and-see approach to 2018 Winter Olympics