Joe Nieuwendyk of the Toronto Maple Leafs skates against Helsinki Jokerit during NHL Challenge 2003 Sept. 16, 2003 at the Hartwall Arena in Helsinki, Finland.Dave Sandford
Joe Nieuwendyk is reminded of his golden Olympic experience every time he enters his office at home. There, hung on the wall, is a huge picture, taken on the final day of the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City, which shows Nieuwendyk with his daughter in his arms as he and his Canadian teammates are singing the national anthem. Canada had just won the gold medal in the men's hockey tournament.
"How can I forget that moment," he said. "I look at it almost every day. She's now 7 and when she looks at that picture now, she thinks it's the coolest thing."
When Wayne Gretzky went crazy and began hugging other members of the Canadian Olympic men's hockey brain trust and later his players on the ice, Nieuwendyk's eyes eventually found his wife, Tina, in the stands of the E Center.
Tina was holding the couple's newborn daughter, Tyra, the middle child to go with Kaycee and Jackson. Nieuwendyk wanted to share the moment with his budding family.
"I saw my wife and daughter and Gretz told me to go over and bring [Tyra]on the ice," Nieuwendyk said. "She was crying - my daughter, not my wife. We have two photos from that day: One of her being handed to me over the glass and the other one in my office."
Nieuwendyk was 35 years old when Canada ended a 50-year Olympic drought, but he felt like a kid again when the final horn sounded and the scoreboard read, Canada 5, United States 2.
He was on the Canadian bench four years earlier, when all-world Czech Republic goalie Dominic Hasek stoned Canada in the semi-final and the shootout. To be part of the 2002 historic moment, in which 10.6 million Canadians tuned in to watch the gold-medal final on TV, was a relief and so satisfying.
Canada started the 2002 Olympics slowly with a loss to Sweden and received a break in the medal round when the Swedes were upset by Belarus in the quarter-finals.
"There was adversity, sure," Nieuwendyk said. "But every one of us stayed on the same page."
Nieuwendyk is often asked which was the more important to him, the 2002 Olympic gold or the three Stanley Cups with three different teams (Nieuwendyk is one of only six players to accomplish the latter feat).
"Winning Olympic gold and the Cup are just so different and too hard to compare," he said. "With the Olympics it's a three-week period in which you are isolated, but you know that the entire country is watching back home. It was so cool to have won, especially because it was something that a Canadian team had not done in 50 years.
"Stanley Cups are incredible experiences, too. But unlike the short, pressure-filled intensity of the Olympics, you are with your teammates for several months."
Nieuwendyk went on to win his third and final Stanley Cup in 2002-03, after winning NHL championships with the 1988-89 Calgary Flames and 1998-99 Dallas Stars. He retired from hockey in December, 2006 because of his chronic back woes.
Now 42, he is in the first year of a three-season contract as a special consultant to Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke. Among Nieuwendyk's duties this season was to keep a watchful eye on the U.S. college scene. Burke credited him for playing an integral role in luring coveted free-agent forwards Tyler Bozak and Christian Hanson from the University of Denver and University of Notre Dame, respectively.
He also is an assistant general manager for the Canadian team, which will participate in the 2009 world hockey championship in Switzerland.