Our conversation was supposed to be about doing two jobs at once. I had several questions for Bill Guerin, including: When do you take off your Wild general manager hat and put on your U.S. Olympic team GM hat?
Guerin, last week, was named to lead an all-NHL Olympic team to play in Beijing in February. Part of this interview was to grill Guerin about getting Wild goal machine Ryan Hartman onto that team.
But ... "One hat is put in the closet," Guerin said.
Wednesday's decision by the NHL and the players association to pull out of the Beijing Olympics because of COVID concerns effectively ended Guerin's role with the team. The job has become substantially more involved now because the globe has to be scouted, foreign leagues have to be scoured and college players have to be considered as part of a restructured Team USA that will replace the NHLers. Doing that and running the Wild is not practical.
What was your favorite moment of Guerin's USA Hockey management stint? Mine: The news release. He enjoyed his brief time in the role, although as Team USA assistant general manager, he basically had been in charge since GM Stan Bowman resigned on Oct. 26.
"Trying to juggle the two teams was an experience of its own," Guerin said. "One of the more enjoyable things was talking to some of the players, putting together a completely separate coaching staff and utilizing guys who had done it before."
Guerin, a three-time Olympian himself, knew of the players' concerns about the Beijing Games, but he said the movement to pull out accelerated over the past two weeks. Fifty NHL games have been postponed during the nation's new virus surge. The league is citing that number of postponements as a main reason why players won't be going to Beijing. And the league has paused its regular season until next week.
Players expressed concerns about ending up in a quarantine facility for as long as five weeks if they were to test positive while at the Olympics.
