Thank you very much for those comments. That is certainly why we are here today. We respect this process and we certainly want to give all the information from Hockey Canada's point of view.
First of all, with regard to the funding that is given from the federal government to Hockey Canada, $3.2 million is correct. This is a large amount of money in a $53 million operation, and that's what our operation is now in Hockey Canada. We're proud that we've been able to grow that with help from the federal government, as well as having a strong business model.
When you look, first of all, at how we name the players to the team, it's a very lengthy process. The very first step in that process is to name the management of the team. When we name the management of this team, we have many great resources. It's a very difficult decision to name the general manager and his assistant general manager.
When you look at the National Hockey League and other areas of hockey, we have so many people to choose from. In this situation, we chose a person who we felt was an excellent role model and an excellent leader in the game of hockey, Steve Yzerman. It was a choice made by me, along with other senior staff people, to name Steve Yzerman.
Then, through discussions with Steve Yzerman, who was going to be his assistant? Steve had many conversations with a lot of people in the National Hockey League, and the decision was to name Jacques Martin as the assistant general manager of the team.
From there, the process is then to name the coaches. Again, we went through a lengthy process to find out which coaches were available. As we know, there are many great coaches who are still playing in the NHL playoffs, as well as players who can't be involved in Team Canada at this time. So Steve Yzerman worked through that process to name the three coaches.
We then start to name the team. Naming this world championship team is a very difficult process, in that we have so many players playing in the National Hockey League, and the ones who are available to us are players who have not made the playoffs. This is a disappointment to them. Many of them have gone through a long season. They have played 80 games. We've had a number of players who have said no to Team Canada for good reasons: personal reasons, family reasons, they're injured.
I can tell you that we had nine French-speaking players who said no.