I think I'm a little different. Obviously, being an NHL player, I come from a different angle. Wayne Gretzky, a teammate of mine in Nagano, said that hockey had given him everything, and it's very true.
When I think about it in my own way, I went to Guelph and played junior hockey for the Guelph Platers. I met my wife there, and had three kids. I've travelled the world. I've met some amazing people. I've had the great honour of representing Canada and having that maple leaf on my jersey. It's very difficult to articulate. Katie's had that opportunity. I played in 1997 and won the world championship in Helsinki. In 1998 I was in Switzerland and then in Nagano—probably the greatest professional moment of my life and also the biggest disappointment in the sense that with Canada if you don't win gold in hockey, it's a disappointment.
Something that I take more from being on that hockey team was being a Canadian, and part of that experience in Nagano was absolutely amazing. Two moments stick out for me.
If you recall, Roots had outfitted us all in these red and white uniforms with the poor boy hats. We were quite distinguishable. Obviously, we're big guys and we had these uniforms on, but I'll never forget. Keith Primeau, who's about six feet five inches tall, and I wanted to go down to the city of Nagano, just to see the local sites. You can imagine the two of us in the train. Just like in the movies, you think there's no room for one or two more people and 30 or 40 more local Japanese jump on this train and we're all tight in and you've got Keith and me looking over everybody, and no exaggeration, people were literally poking us and saying, “Canada, Canada,” and smiling at us. I get emotional about it because I'd never felt so patriotic. Walking through the village at Nagano people were stopping us and taking pictures of us. They didn't know I was Rob Zamuner, the NHL hockey player; they thought of me as a Canadian. That's what I found was amazing.
The second moment from that Olympics that I recall and which sticks with me is the closing ceremonies. As I said, we didn't win gold—the Czechs had this guy named Dominik Hašek who was insanely good. We had a team meeting after we lost that semi-final game against the Czechs. It was quite remarkable. Wayne Gretzky said, “Listen. We're Canadians. Let's go to the closing ceremonies and represent our country.” We had the choice of going back and joining our NHL teams and getting the NHL season back under way, but we all decided to stay and attend the closing ceremonies. It was an amazing night. I still remember us all walking into the stadium with our uniforms, fireworks, the long two- or three-hour ceremony. At the end, one of the Canadian athletes had snuck in a big flag. I don't know how he snuck in this flag because it was the size of a football field; it was massive.