Hockey's best of all worlds The question inevitably comes up every time you get a group of great hockey players together like last weekend at the All-Star Game in Toronto: Which country produces the best players? "One of the latest cries is that our game isn’t producing enough skilled players," Red Wings left winger Brendan Shanahan says. "Heck, in Canada, there was a government inquiry -- 'Why don't we have skilled players?' -- after we lost to the U.S. in the World Cup and when we couldn't beat the Czechs in the shootout in the Olympics." With an increasing emphasis on the skills European players bring to the NHL, Canadians have bristled at suggestions that hockey is no longer their game. This isn’t a contest to see how many Canadians, Czechs, Russians, Americans there are in the NHL. It’s how the NHL has managed to blend the skill of the Europeans and the passion for the game by the Canadians and Americans to give hockey fans the best of all worlds. "You can take 100 players from around the world," says Blackhawks director of player personnel Mike Smith, "put them on the ice together and in 20 minutes they would manage to pair off with the top 20 players facing one another. "Hockey may be a sport of 10-15 different languages, but when they’re on the ice, the players all speak the same language -- hockey." Nowhere is this chemistry on display more beautifully than in Anaheim, where Canada’s Paul Kariya and Finland’s Teemu Selanne show us a different game -- a game that almost resembles keepaway from the opposition. "If Paul and Teemu played together when Jari Kurri and I did in the early 1980s," Hall of Famer Wayne Gretzky said with an excited look, "they would have shattered some of our records. . . . Give them the room we had to operate and just sit back and enjoy the show." "A lot of teams have one guy you have to key on," Bruins goalie Byron Dafoe says. "But those two are almost unstoppable. Not too many players can see someone open on the other side of the net, but they do it like it’s nothing out of the ordinary." The Mighty Ducks’ recent slump, in fact, may be the result of miscommunication on the part of Craig Hartsburg. "A couple of weeks ago," Kariya says, "Craig talked to us and gave us a little bit more rope. He said, 'I think you’re being a little too conservative. Go out there and do what you do best and make plays.' It’s given us a new life." And it puts every fan who sees the two on the edge of his seat. Capitals coach Ron Wilson guided the U.S. team to the gold medal in the 1996 World Cup. Two years later, his American skaters also lost out to the Czechs in the Olympics at Nagano, Japan. Wilson saw a German-born goaltender, a Slovakian goal scorer and a United Nations of other players lead his NHL team to the Stanley Cup finals in 1998. He is quick to point out how we should not bicker over who’s the best, but rather enjoy seeing the best of the best dazzle us. "It’s clear to me if you’re looking for skills, you’re looking for a European player," Wilson says. "If you’re looking for a guy who can score or grind, you look for a Canadian or American. "It’s sort of like the way we buy cars. If you’re looking for something sports and flashy, you buy a German car. If you want a truck, you buy a Chevrolet Suburban. We do the same at the draft. We assume a European can stickhandle and make plays and we assume a North American player is going to be like a utility vehicle -- not glamorous, but getting the job done." Red Wings goalie Chris Osgood has seen Russians like Sergei Fedorov, Igor Larionov, Slava Kozlov, Vladimir Konstantinov and Slava Fetisov as well as Sweden’s Nicklas Lidstrom and Tomas Holmstrom help Detroit win two Stanley Cups, showing how to find open ice and be ready to accelerate with the puck. "Give the puck to Fedorov, Jaromir Jagr, Peter Forsberg, Petr Bondra or Pavel Bure, and it’s like putting the bat in the hands of Mark McGwire," Osgood says. "The next pitch might be a homer." In the All-Star Game skills competition, Bondra had a two-year reign in the fastest skater competition. The key is not straight-ahead speed, as the contest is held on the oval 200 X 85-foot ice surface. "The one thing that sets the great players apart from others is they are faster than everybody else," says Mike Modano of the defending champion Stars. "You start with the speed and then add exceptional skill into the mix, and you've got a great player. That’s what distinguishes Forsberg and Jagr, Selanne and Kariya and Joe Sakic from the rest. "To form a championship team, you mix in the guts and leadership of a Mark Messier, the power of an Eric Lindros or Derian Hatcher. It takes a lot of different ingredients -- and you don’t always find them by shopping from the same grocery store." It’s like ordering one player from Column A. Another from Column B. Hockey’s become sport’s greatest melting pot of talent. War of the worlds? No way. This great sport is clearly the best of all worlds.