NHL NOTES : Hull Chooses Sides: the U.S. Over Canada

Brett Hull has a long memory. That’s why the NHL’s most valuable player will be playing for the United States, not Canada, in the Canada Cup tournament this summer.

The decision really was made five years ago, when the United States was recruiting college players to fill out its roster for the 1986 world championships. Head coach David Peterson invited Hull, who has dual citizenship, to join the team from the University of Minnesota at Duluth.

Canada, which preferred NHL players, wasn’t inviting college kids.

“At that point in my career they felt, I guess, that I wasn’t good enough to play,” Hull said. “Team USA thought I could and they gave me the opportunity to go to Europe and play with some of the greatest players in the world. I’ve never forgotten them for that.”

Hull tried out for the U.S. Canada Cup team in 1987 but didn’t make it. This time, after scoring 86 goals and winning the Hart Trophy, the St. Louis Blues’ star is expected to be an important part of a team that could give defending champion Canada a formidable challenge.

Despite drawing the opposition’s top checkers, Hull has managed to score goals and stay relatively injury-free. How come?

“I don’t play a real physical game,” he says when asked to explain why he’s remained free of injuries. “I don’t put myself in situations where I could get hurt. It’s hard to explain.

“I’ve got a sense of what is going on around me during a game. Another thing is, I roll with the checks. If somebody is going to hit me, I just let them hit me. I don’t try to hit them back, because that’s when you get hurt.”

Although Hull already has said he intends to play for Team USA, tournament chairman Alan Eagleson says the host country is still the team to beat in the Canada Cup.

“We’ve got players like Joe Sakic, Steve Yzerman and Adam Oates -- players who get 100 to 150 points in the NHL,” he said. “The second-best team in this tournament might well be Team Canada 2.”

Canada will have Wayne Gretzky, who will serve as team captain. It may not have Mario Lemieux or Mark Messier, both of whom are still nursing injuries. In addition, Boston’s Ray Bourque and Andy Moog both declined invitations, saying they want to spend time with their families, and Cam Neely backed out due to possible knee surgery.

Sergei Fedorov of the Detroit Red Wings, a Calder Trophy finalist, is trying to go home to visit his parents.

Fedorov sneaked away from the Soviet national team a year ago to join the Red Wings but wasn’t able to take his passport with him. Fedorov recently visited the Soviet consulate in Washington with an immigration lawyer to see whether he can get his passport back so he can go home.

“My passport is in a Moscow building,” Fedorov said in halting English. “I want to go home. Sometimes I miss Moscow.”

Fedorov also says he would not mind playing for the Soviet national team in the Canada Cup. That decision is up to head coach Victor Tikhonov, who didn’t take Fedorov’s decision to move to the West lightly.

“I don’t know whether he will ask me. But just because I live in Detroit doesn’t mean I can’t play. The Soviet Union has changed,” Fedorov said.

Chicago forward Dirk Graham says he is a dinosaur as far as the NHL goes because he is a defensive specialist. Graham won the Selke Trophy as the league best defensive forward at this week’s awards ceremony.

Graham was 27 when he finally cracked the NHL with the Minnesota North Stars in 1985.

“I had to learn a part of the game to stay and that was defensive hockey,” he said. “It took me a long time to get an opportunity. I wondered for a long time whether I would get a chance to play in the NHL. Now to win an award, that’s special.”