NOTEBOOK

Before he quits international hockey, Sweden’s Mats Naslund has one goal left: winning an Olympic gold medal and becoming one of the few players ever to play on Stanley Cup and Olympic championship teams.

Naslund, 34, played eight seasons with the Montreal Canadiens, then returned to Sweden after the 1989-90 season. These Games are his third. He played on Sweden’s bronze-medal team at Lake Placid in 1980 and on the one that finished fifth at Albertville two years ago.

“It would be important to be one of the few guys in the world to do that, but the main thing is to be here and just play in another Olympics,” Naslund said. “It’s a great experience and you get a nice atmosphere. (Sweden) won a gold today from (skier) Pernilla Wiberg, and that was nice. But I’m too old to play on this level anymore. It takes too much.”

Over the years, Naslund has seen international hockey influenced by the NHL, and vice versa. Given the choice, he’d watch an NHL game.

“It’s faster in the NHL, but with my age, it’s easier to play here because there’s less hitting,” he said. “The NHL is probably more European than it was 10 years ago and over here, guys are hitting more, so it’s a little bit tougher.”

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Canadian goalie Corey Hirsch has been surprised by the U.S. team’s struggles here.

“I think they’re feeling the heat,” he said. “There’s a lot of pressure put on them to be the 1980 miracle team. That’s the thing about our team--nobody expected anything from us and didn’t respect us, and now they have to respect us for what we’ve done.”