{"id":66202,"date":"2025-08-13T09:36:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T09:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/66202\/"},"modified":"2025-08-13T09:36:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T09:36:07","slug":"savard-hockey-legends-thrilled-for-nhls-return-to-2026-olympics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/66202\/","title":{"rendered":"Savard, hockey legends thrilled for NHL’s return to 2026 Olympics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Marcel Dionne<\/a> was a member of Canada\u2019s Summit Series team, though just having turned 21 he didn\u2019t see action. The sniper from Drummondville, Quebec, dazzled to be practicing with many of his heroes, would soon play plenty of international hockey, representing Canada in the 1976 and 1981 Canada Cup and three world championships.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope it\u2019s special for the kids who go to the Olympics,\u201d Dionne said, picking Paul Henderson<\/a>\u2019s 1972 series-clinching goal in Moscow over Crosby\u2019s 2010 \u201cGolden Goal\u201d in Vancouver for the greatest moment in Canadian international hockey history.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom 1972 onward, we saw how dominant the Europeans could be — Jaromir Jagr<\/a>, Alex Ovechkin<\/a>, soon players from Sweden. The Olympics are different than what we experienced in 1972. That was much more political.\u201d<\/p>\n

Goalie Jose Theodore<\/a> represented Canada in the world junior and world championships and was a member of his country\u2019s 2004 World Cup of Hockey team. He still fondly remembers tugging on his first Canada jersey at age 14, during a training camp in Calgary.<\/p>\n

Theodore views the Olympics, and any occasion to represent one\u2019s country, as almost a life-changing experience for a player.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember the first time that NHL players went to the Olympics in 1998 (Nagano, Japan), it was a big thing,\u201d he said. \u201cEvery time you have a chance to see the best players in the world, it\u2019s great. We saw what the 4 Nations Face-Off did; I didn\u2019t expect something that big. Representing your country is a thrill for the players, a huge source of pride, and it\u2019s a big treat for the fans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Top photo: Serge Savard at his 2025 invitational golf tournament at Le Mirage Golf Club in Terrebonne, Quebec.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Marcel Dionne was a member of Canada\u2019s Summit Series team, though just having turned 21 he didn\u2019t see…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66203,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-66202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66202\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}