Interesting Debates and Debacles

A few of the boys from home (Fredericton represent!) were in town last night and naturally the topic of the 2010 Olympic team came up as we had a few bevys, watched the Pittsburgh Penguins get absolutely demolished and played a few hands of 45's.

What I found most interesting about the debate though was that there were three main areas of the team that the six could not seem to agree on. I'd love to have some other thoughts on these:

Defensemen. Matty and I had a very difficult time cutting our list of the top 20 defensemen down to 12, and even then we only wanted 10 but we couldn't come to a consensus on who should be at the camp. Who are your 7 defensemen that make the team?

Joe Sakic. It hurt me to omit Sakic from our list of the top 25 forwards, but the reasoning for me was that I just don't think he'll be playing. With the injuries he suffered last year I just don't know if he will come back. One of my friends argued that his age would be why he's on the team, which is another post for another day, but to generalize, I think you need to take the best available players. We learned in 2006 that tenured veterans don't always make up the best team.

Shane Doan. Is he on the team or not? He's been a stallward of Team Canada's the last few years, but I attribute that to two things. Obviously he's on a terrible team and is always first in line to play IIHF. Second, Gretzky has been "the man" and not choosing someone from his own team could potentially cause a lot of problems. I don't think he's there, but what do you think?