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Canwest News Service
Trevor Linden doesn't look like someone who has slipped into easy retirement.
Instead of packing on the pounds, the former Vancouver Canucks captain has shed a dozen since calling it a career following the 2007-08 season and having his No. 16 jersey retired Dec. 17, 2008. Aside from a devotion to cycling and mountain biking, he has developed a passion for cross-country skiing and even entered an amateur biathlon competition.
So much for collapsing on the couch with the TV remote and binging his way to the Beer Belly Club.
"I still get in the gym and push some weights around, but I'm a little embarrassed at the weight and I can't believe how weak I am," chuckled the 39-year-old Linden.
"I consider myself more an endurance athlete now."
A zest for life has Linden pulled in different directions. He's involved in a Victoria commercial-residential development and will carry the Olympic torch on Feb. 11 for a 300-metre jog through Coquitlam.
"I'm running around Kitsilano with a weight in my hand and my arm in the air [to get ready]," he said.
Linden will also be an ardent observer of the 2010 Olympic hockey tournament. His last-minute typing goal against Dominik Hasek during a 2-1 semifinal shootout loss to the Czech Republic at Nagano, Japan in 1998 is a double-edge memory. Stunned by that setback, Canada lost the bronze-medal game 3-2 to Finland but won admiration for the way pro players openly embraced the experience.
"From a life standpoint it was a pretty incredible time," recalled Linden, who was traded to the Islanders on eve of the Nagano tourney and entered the competition with a knee sprain. "It's an opportunity of a lifetime and that's why players want to be a part of it."
Linden believes Team Canada will rise to the gold-medal challenge in Vancouver, rather than fall into a predictable pattern that plagued the 2006 squad that finished seventh in Torino, Italy.
"You can't always go back to the well," he said of the veteran-laden 2006 entry that was slow and couldn't score.
"It's paramount that they come together for one goal. They're too good and too smart. They'll get it."
Linden believes Team Canada will take its cue from executive director Steve Yzerman — a leader on the 1998 and 2002 Olympic teams — and make sure there's a blend of no-brainers like Roberto Luongo and Sidney Crosby on a club that should also consider Shea Weber, Martin St. Louis, Brenden Morrow and Shane Doan for a competitive balance.
"Steve was always able to check his ego at the door and that's why I was so impressed by him," said Linden. "And that's why Doan fits in so well. He will play any role for the team."
What future role Linden plays in the game remains to be seen. He attended the Canucks-Hawks game last Sunday — the first time he's been at GM Place since the jersey retirement — and knew his time had come to call it a career as a player. But as an executive?
"It's something I think about, but whether the right opportunity comes up or not, I'm not sure," he said. "There's not a day that goes by that I think I should still be playing — or I wish I was still playing — because I was fortunate to play 20 years. There are certain things I miss, but I'm also enjoying some of the freedoms of not playing."
bkuzma@theprovince.com
