Rod Brind'Amour stepped off the bullet train in Nagano and took a hard check to the ground. But the crush of Japanese fans was actually gunning for Wayne Gretzky, who, after fleeing to the Team Canada bus, said, "I've been in a lot of places, but I've never seen anything like this." It wasn't supposed to go this way for the Great One. The plan was to divert the hockey-deprived country with Paul Tetsuhiko Kariya, who, at least in Japan, is the most famous hockey player ever.
But Kariya, 23, a fourth-generation Canadian of half-Japanese heritage, isn't part of the first...
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