The Last Cut Is the Deepest

They won’t be watching as much of the Winter Olympics on television at the Keczmer household in Utica, Mich., as they thought they would be.

The eight relatives who already spent close to $5,000 for lodging aren’t even inclined to fly to France to use their rooms.

Their hearts aren’t in it anymore.

By now, Dan Keczmer might even have taken down the American flag that the family fastened to the wall behind the living-room sofa.

Not that he or his son, Dan Jr., or any of the other Keczmers would side against their country. No way.

But now that young Dan is no longer part of the U.S. hockey squad, the thrill is more or less gone.

Particularly since Dan’s parting shot was to call his coach a “ruthless, lying . . . , “ the third word being thoroughly profane, in front of the entire team Sunday at the Paris airport.

“I still wish the players well,” Keczmer says. “But I don’t wish the coaches a hill of beans.”

When Olympic hockey action begins here Saturday, Keczmer, 23, either will be back on the family sofa in the Detroit suburb of Utica or back to work as a defenseman with the Hartford Whalers of the NHL.

He had taken a leave of absence from the Whalers to devote several months to representing the United States in the Olympics, a decision that Keczmer estimates might have cost him as much as $100,000.

He even cut short his honeymoon. After Keczmer got married last August, he was told to report to the Olympic team’s training camp in two days. Which he did.

There, the process began to find the 23 players who would go to Albertville for the Games.

Keczmer wasn’t a sure thing, but he certainly seemed qualified. He had brought home a silver medal from the 1990 Goodwill Games. He had also appeared in 10 games at that year’s world championships.

After having been voted the top defenseman in his conference at Lake Superior State University, Keczmer spent part of last season with the Stanley Cup finalist Minnesota North Stars. He was lost in the NHL expansion draft to the San Jose Sharks, who traded him to Hartford in September.

Dan put the Whalers on hold. He told them the Olympics had always been a dream of his.

His new team understood. So did his new bride.

But as opposed to sports such as skiing, for which the Olympic team is selected well in advance, the American hockey squad, mere days before the trip to France, was not yet confirmed.

The roster had been reduced to 24 players, one above the limit, when the team arrived in Washington for the overseas flight to a four-game exhibition tournament in France. From there, the Americans would travel directly to Albertville for the Olympics, so everybody packed bags for the long haul.

Among them was Dan Keczmer, who was called aside at the Washington airport by Coach Dave Peterson and told that he would not be making the trip.

Upset at being cut but more so at being informed at so late a date, Keczmer called home to tell the family to call off its trip. Dan Sr., an automobile assembly-line worker who had long since requested time off from work, took the news the way most fathers would, hard.

Half an hour later, Keczmer says, Peterson changed his mind and told him to accompany the team.

“I hope you’re not just taking me for some sort of insurance,” Keczmer says he told the coach. “Don’t do this to me. Don’t make me go all the way over there and get my hopes up, just to dump me once I’m there.”

Keczmer says the coach assured him that was not the case. And he played considerably in the four games in France.

By the end, Keczmer was the Americans’ leading scorer among defensemen. Furthermore, his “plus-minus” ratio--goals scored by a team while a player is on the ice, as opposed to goals scored against a team while that player is on the ice--was plus-nine, the highest on the squad.

Keczmer felt great.

Then he was told to go home.

Peterson pulled the rug out from under him, as before, at the airport, this time as the team was preparing to leave Paris for the Olympics. In front of teammates, bystanders and a television camera crew, Keczmer engaged in a shouting match with Peterson, calling the coach a “ruthless, lying . . . “ and accusing him of favoring players with greater NHL “reputations” at stake.

He made reference to Scott Lachance, in whom the New York Islanders had made an investment as the No. 4 pick in the NHL draft. Lachance’s plus-minus ratio in exhibition play had been minus 17.

Peterson dismissed the incident as nothing more than a reflex reaction from a player disappointed at being left off the squad.

Keczmer, though, feels humiliated at how it was handled. And he believes “team unity” is sorely lacking on any team that isn’t set until the last possible minute.

“I was talking to Mike Eruzione about the 1980 (gold medal) team he was on, and how it seemed like such a tight unit,” Keczmer said. “Eruzione told me: ‘We were like a closed fist. You guys are like five open fingers.’

“Man, he’s got that right.”