MIGHTY DUCKS NOTEBOOK / ROBYN NORWOOD : World Championships to Have Local Faces

The World Championships in Italy beginning late this month could be a convention of Mighty Ducks.

As long as the Ducks don’t pull off a miracle and make the playoffs, Ron Wilson is expected to coach the U.S. team, assistant coach Tim Army will aid him, and a few Duck players will probably be on the roster.

“It’s exciting,” Army said.

Besides that, center Patrik Carnback will play for Sweden, goalie Mikhail Shtalenkov will play for Russia, and unsigned draft pick Paul Kariya will play for Canada.

“Kariya will be over there and it will be a chance for the coaches to get to know him more,” Army said. “He’ll also get to see the kind of things Ron is trying to do.”

General Manager Jack Ferreira will also be there, scouting players and hoping to break the stalemate in contract talks with Kariya’s agent, Don Baizley.

Wilson, who has U.S. and Canadian citizenship, is honored to have the opportunity to coach the U.S. team--a rare one for an NHL coach, because the World Championships coincide with the Stanley Cup playoffs and there are few U.S. citizens in the head coaching ranks, anyway.

Lou Nanne, the former Minnesota North Star general manager, is the general manager of the U.S. team, and he and Art Berglund, international program director for the U.S., will be at today’s game against Toronto to look at players. Among the Ducks who are candidates for the U.S. team are forwards Joe Sacco, Tim Sweeney and John Lilley, defensemen Don McSween, Sean Hill and David Williams and goalie Guy Hebert. Bob Corkum would have been considered too, except his season was ended by an severed tendon in his right foot.

Wilson wanted assistant coach Al Sims on his staff too, but Sims is a Canadian citizen and isn’t eligible.

“That would have been really nice--kind of special,” Army said.

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Stu Grimson held out his battered right hand, the knuckles covered by helter-skelter stitches, the wound just now healing above a finger that was broken earlier in the season.

“Did you hear about my modeling contract with Birk’s jewelry?” he said. “They wanted me bad.”

Grimson split open the knuckles in a fight during a game, then kept re-opening the wound almost every time he fought again until a doctor finally told him, “Enough.” But even though he has sat out the last four games, Grimson keeps taking the warm-up skate, leaving the other team wondering if it needs to dress its tough guys. Then Grimson goes in and puts on a suit and heads up to watch the game from the press box, his duties as a decoy complete.

Did you say Decoy? As in the sequined skate dancers who entertain before the game and between periods? “I’ve got the legs for it,” Grimson said.

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Maxim Bets, the newest Duck, grew up around the game.

His father, Nikolai, was a player for Traktor Chelyabinsk and now is an age-group hockey coach.

“I consider him my first coach,” said Bets, 20, the prospect acquired from St. Louis in the Alexei Kasatonov trade who has joined the Ducks now to get acclimated to the NHL. “He always urged me to shoot the puck more and not be afraid to hold onto the puck.”

Bets found it difficult to compare his style to anyone else’s, but counts Sergei Makarov--a standout on the old Soviet Central Red Army teams of the 1980s and now playing for the rival San Jose Sharks--as one of his heroes.

“You’ll see a lot of him,” Ferreira said.

Bets didn’t seem to get Ferreira’s joke, but has a good sense of humor, according to his Calgary-based agent, Vlad Shushkovsky.

Bets, who is a bit shy, had a little fun with an NHL scout during an interview before last year’s draft.

The scout said, “Max, you have to talk more. Let’s say you have a hat trick one game. All the media will be trying to talk to you about what happened if you score three goals.”

Said Bets: “Then I’ll either score two or four goals.”

Times staff writer Elliott Teaford contributed to this story.