ESPN's John Buccigross gotten into the act, and tries picking the Canadian Olympic roster (these are his selections, not his predictions). ("If I was Team Canada executive director, I would immediately resign to spend more time with Janet Gretzky." - heh.) At forward, his team is the same as mine except he picks St. Louis, Marleau, and Kariya, leaving off Doan, Draper, and Shanahan.

I mentioned previously that I should change my Shanahan guess to St. Louis (although I'd rather have Doan stay home). I suppose Marleau may have gotten himself back into the mix in the past couple of weeks, although he's still pretty inconsistent, with no major accomplishments or stats on his record to bolster his chances. I'm pretty sure he's getting a vacation in February.

Here's what Butchy has to say about Kariya:

I would love to see Crosby and Kariya play on together and I would have Kariya around for shootout purposes. My top five Canadian shootout shooters: Lecavalier, Kariya, Crosby, Heatley and Gagne.

I'm not a Kariya booster, and haven't been for the past few years. But regardless: Kariya already had a chance in an gold-medal shootout, and got stopped by Tommy Salo. 2002 was his redemption; his services are no longer required.

Also, he puts Dan Boyle and Dion Phaneuf on the Canadian blueline, leaving off Adam Foote and... wait for it... Chris Pronger. Wow--a guy only scores two goals in 30 games and suddenly he's a bum. He also picks both CuJo and Turco to go with Brodeur, leaving Luongo at home: pretty defensible given the way things are going with all of them.

Butchy's picks for Team USA, prefaced thus:

Team USA is in the middle of a transition period. It has a lot of very good, young players, but too young for these Olympics. The U.S. will be fortunate to medal in 2006. In 2010, they will be among the favorites for gold.

No kidding. I'm not exactly trembling in fear at this lineup:

Forwards: Mike Modano-Brian Gionta-Chris Drury; Craig Conroy-Brian Rolston-Dustin Brown; Doug Weight-Keith Tkachuk-Mike Knuble; Scott Gomez-Erik Cole-Jason Blake; Ryan Kesler.
Defense: Brian Rafalski-Mathieu Schneider; Bret Hedican-John-Michael Liles; Jordan Leopold-Aaron Miller; Paul Mara
Goal: DiPietro, Grahame, Esche

A rematch of the 2002 gold medal game seems unlikely.

Lastly, from the same column, he's invited reader submissions as to which players should change their numbers so it would be, you know, funnier. Some results:

• "Very few things in life make me angry. One of those things is the fact that Mike Commodore does not wear No. 64."
• "I know there will only be one No. 66 in NHL history, but it might be fun if Ottawa's Chris Phillips got to wear it just once. He could then be known as the Gas Man for the rest of his career."
• "Brenden Morrow could wear No. 2 and be 2 Morrow."
• "I think the Wings should trade Jamie Rivers to Pittsburgh and give him No. 3. (Three Rivers? Eh?)"

You'd think Commodore's teammates could scrape together a few grand to make this happen. That is all.