MILAN — Hobbled and dressed in street clothes, Sidney Crosby urged his Team Canada teammates on with an inspirational message during the second intermission of Wednesday’s Olympic quarterfinal against Czechia.
Or at least those who were listening, anyway.
“I didn’t even hear that, so I don’t know,” Drew Doughty said, stirring a laugh from reporters.
For just about any other Canadian skater, that response would wrinkle an eyebrow. Minutes earlier, Canada trailed for the first time in any best-on-best Olympic contest since 2010. How exactly do you miss Canada’s captain, just knocked out of the game, delivering an impassioned plea?
For him, that’s yet another example of Doughty being Doughty. About to embark on an elimination semifinal against Finland likely without Crosby, Doughty is unquestionably Team Canada’s MVP: Most Valuable Personality.
“Drew Doughty is the guy that when the tension is at its peak, he finds a way to poke a pin in it and just diffuse it,” Canada coach Jon Cooper said. “It’s a special talent to be able to do that. He doesn’t compound a problem, he alleviates it.”
Doughty’s passport may indicate he’s 36, but he’s still 16 at heart. What is Doughty’s secret for being a tension breaker?
“There’s a lot of different ways,” Cooper said, laughing, before strolling off - because almost none of them are printable.
Teammates and former teammates say that when two buddies are arguing and intense, Doughty would break the ice with perfectly timed flatulence. He’s the type of guy on a golf trip, with someone standing over a monster money putt, to have an inappropriate joke or one-liner that makes everyone laugh.
Doughty is not capable of being at his best when he’s tight, that isn’t his style on or off the ice. He’s not the class clown, as some have perceived, he’s simply able to lighten the mood with perfect timing.
“Everybody says they like adversity until you’re actually in it, and then you don’t really like adversity,” Cooper said. “But it’s how you find your way out of it, and that’s what these guys have done.”
Don’t let all of the fun that Doughty still has fool you - he is one of the game’s fiercest competitors. And he’s competitive at everything, whether it’s on the ice, on the golf course or riding road bikes.
Remember when reporters asked him in September how intensely he trained last summer in an effort to make his third Canadian Olympic team?
Doughty replied: Well, I quit drinking and golf.
“I worked my bag off,” Doughty said on Sept. 19.
His hockey life has come full circle for Doughty in Milan. The 20-year-old kid who was almost late to the gold medal game in Vancouver, who helped form maybe Canada's best blue line ever in 2014, is now one of his country's elder statesmen. And with Crosby out, Doughty will be the only one wearing red on Friday against Finland who has won gold before.
“Yeah, it means so much and it’s been so long since the last one,” Doughty said last weekend.
Doughty is a first-ballot Hall of Famer, one of the most decorated defensemen the game has ever seen. The serial winner has a Norris Trophy and two Stanley Cups to go with his two Olympic gold medals.
The Olympics are what have driven Doughty - the reason why that memorable call with GM Doug Armstrong notifying him that he made the team on New Year’s Eve was expletive-laden. Armstrong called it “R rated.”
Doughty arrived in Milan not playing his best hockey. He collected just one point in his final 17 games since Jan. 1, some close observers wondering if Doughty was on autopilot just to make it to Italy. He has as many points in four Olympic games now, averaging more than 15 minutes of ice.
“Drew is an unbelievable competitor, I’ve been fortunate to observe him close at international events going back to 2009,” Armstrong said on Dec. 31. “He’s fired up. He wants to win again. His passion, he wears it on his sleeve and that is infectious to everybody.”
That energy is why Doughty is in Milan. Canada might have been able to find a better defenseman at this stage of his career, but no one with his approach, attitude or experience. Now is when that will matter. With two games to play, the tension will be rising, not falling for Team Canada.
Walking out onto the ice for the third period against Czechia, Cooper said there was a message: “Don’t let this be Sidney Crosby’s last game at the Olympics.” Now, it’s Do It For Doughty. Like Crosby, there is no 2030 for Doughty, Milan is the end of the road.
That end almost came to a screeching halt against Czechia in the quarterfinal. Even Doughty said he couldn’t avoid that thought, trailing by a goal with under five minutes to play.
“As time keeps ticking, you’re like: ‘Holy fuck, this isn’t ideal,’” Doughty said. “But I never stopped believing. And look what happened.”
