In the spirit of the NHL announcing quarter-century teams for each of its 30 franchises that have played since 2000, I thought I’d try a similar exercise by country – first and second teams. It’s not limited to NHL performance, although that carries a lot of weight. International play for the country also weighs heavily. To be eligible, a player needn’t have necessarily played for the country at a major tournament, but he had (or has) to be eligible.
Countries chosen have to have played in at least four major international tournaments (Olympic games, top-division IIHF World Championships or World Cups of Hockey) since 2000. Based on that arbitrary number, 20 countries qualify. Great Britain barely makes the cut with four top-level World Championships, while Hungary with three, South Korea and Poland each with two, and China with one do not.
I’m revealing them alphabetically starting with Austria, although the four teams in the 4 Nations Face-Off will be held back until the end, just before the start of the tournament. Scroll down for links to other teams published so far.
FRANCE
First Team
F: Pierre-Édouard Bellemare
F: Antoine Roussel
F: Stéphane Da Costa
D: Yohann Auvitu
D: Baptiste Amar
G: Cristobal Huet
Second Team
F: Alexandre Texier
F: Laurent Meunier
F: Damien Fleury
D: Vincent Bachet
D: Kevin Hecquefeuille
G: Florian Hardy
I ran my preliminary selections past French hockey journalist Nicolas Leborgne of the impressive HockeyArchives.info. There was full agreement on players like Bellemare, Roussel, Auvitu and Huet. I originally had Texier on the first team and Da Costa on the second. However, after consulting with, he convinced me to swap them.
“Da Costa singlehandly kept France in the elite division for years, including his monster 2015 World Championship where, injured, he scored in the seventh game and shootout to keep us alive,” said Leborgne. “That was after his monster 2014 tournament.”
Leborgne also suggested I move Amar to the first team in place of Hecquefeuille.
I originally had Canadian-born-and-raised Sébastien Bordeleau on the roster but Leborgne did not like the selection at all, citing the fact that he never played domestically in France and very rarely represented the country internationally. In fact, Bordeleau only played for France in two IIHF World Championships and strangely not even during the 1998 or 2002 Olympics, when the NHL paused.
The Bordeleau family is an interesting mix of nationalities, with Sébastien’s son Christian now playing internationally for the USA, but when all was considered, the 94 NHL games he played after 2000 wasn’t enough to get him on this team.
Damien Fleury, who’s still active in Grenoble at age 39, gets the last spot. I’m not looking to make any more enemies in France.
Agree or disagree with the selections? Comment below and check back daily as more international quarter-century teams are revealed.
PUBLISHED QUARTER-CENTURY TEAMS
Germany