NHL Hockey

John Grahame

TURIN, Italy (AP) - John Grahame is getting to know defenseman Jordan Leopold really well.

He has no choice — they were the only American hockey players who actually made it to the Olympics on Monday because of the weekend snow storm that socked the east coast of the United States.
The Tampa Bay goalie and Leopold of the Calgary Flames are both first-time Olympians and had never met until they walked together to a news conference.

It was there the opponents in the 2004 Stanley Cup finals found about 40 journalists waiting to pepper them with questions that ranged from the weather to Wayne Gretzky and the National Hockey League betting scandal.

Instead of sitting with three New York Islanders, three New Jersey Devils and two Philadelphia Flyers — as expected — they were all alone.

"I was actually kind of surprised but it's OK," Leopold said. "We get all of the attention."

The 21 remaining members are expected to arrive on Tuesday when the team will practice together for the first time. They will have just one day before opening the tournament against Latvia on Wednesday.

"I haven't gotten a lot of sleep in the last 24 hours, but if we were ready to play — I'd be ready," Grahame said. "When that puck drops there is something right there. You may not have as much juice as you normally would, but you'd definitely be focused and ready to go."

Grahame has no international experience to compare this to, but he is quite familiar with the 1980 U.S. team that won the gold medal in Lake Placid, New York.

"During the lockout, I must've watched "Miracle" 80 to 100 times," Grahame said. "It just always seemed to be on, and every time it was on I watched it. You never get sick of seeing it."

Now he wants to repeat it.

His journey took him from Boston, where the Lightning beat the Bruins on Saturday night, back to Tampa, on to Chicago, then to Munich for a connecting flight to Turin.

It was well worth it for Grahame, who wasn't even invited to the U.S. orientation hockey camp in September. Back then, Buffalo's Ryan Miller seemed likely to be picked along with Robert Esche of the Flyers, and Islanders goalie Rick DiPietro.

That was before Miller went down with a broken thumb. He didn't recover enough by the time the team was picked in December. Grahame got the spot and Miller is at home, waiting in the wings to be added to the roster should any of the three guys in front of him get hurt.

There weren't enough players for a pickup game Monday. The best Leopold and Grahame could hope to do was practice shootouts.

It is one of the downsides to having NHL players participate in the Olympics. The league wants the shutdown to be as short as possible, so teams were still playing games on Sunday - two days after the torch was lit in Turin.

Leopold watched some of the opening ceremony on Friday after the Flames beat the St. Louis Blues in overtime.

"It's kind of surreal at that time because you know you're going to be here but you really can't into the element and get in the zone until you're here," the 25-year-old Leopold said.