Some of the Olympic camp invites are trickling out today, and Blues fans should be happy. Aside from Ken Hitchcock being named associate coach for Team Canada, Blues general manager Doug Armstrong has been named Associate Director of Player Personnel. Also, the following guys have been named to their respective home countries' camp tryouts:
Canada:
- Alex Pietrangelo
- Jay Bouwmeester
Sweden:
- Alex Steen
- Patrik Berglund
Russia:
- Vladimir Tarasenko
Team USA's list isn't out until 10AM Eastern tomorrow, but there was a tweet from David Backes.com earlier today that seems to leak what we all expected:
Congrats to @dbackes42 on being invited to the Team USA Olympic Camp. #captclutch #Sochi2014 @usahockey
— DavidBackes.com (@DavidBackesCom) July 22, 2013
Jaroslav Halak will probably get a call to come to Slovakia's camp, as will Polak for the Czech Republic. I hope that his Olympic photo will be better than 2010's confused-dog-staring-at-ceiling-fan look:
Keep your eyes peeled for the US announcement tomorrow. I'll update the post with T.J. Oshie and Kevin Shattenkirk, who we're all pretty much expecting to be invited to Team USA's camp with Backes.
Yeah, who needs to wait for an official announcement.
The USA olympic team has announced its orientation camp roster. It includes from the #stlblues: David Backes, T.J. Oshie & Kevin Shattenkirk
— Lou Korac (@lkorac10) July 22, 2013