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Sunday, March 03, 2002

By Dejan Kovacevic, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

Tommy Salo is one of the NHL's best goaltenders. A two-time All-Star for the Oilers. A three-time Olympian for Sweden, too, with a gold medal to show for beating Canada in a shootout in 1994.

But you don't want to be him.

Not now.

Not after that 90-foot shot from a Belarussian defenseman named Vladimir Kopat bounced off his mask, caromed high in the air and landed behind him to eliminate Sweden and record the signature moment in one of the greatest upsets in hockey history.

Just like that, he became Steve Smith, Marty McSorley, Don Cherry and every other goat in the game's lore wrapped into one.

The Penguins' Johan Hedberg, Salo's close friend and his backup with the Swedish team, spoke with him by phone earlier this week.

"He was devastated, really down."

Hedberg was disturbed to hear how many folks back home have disowned someone who had been considered a national treasure. Salo has been mocked in all the Swedish media, one suggesting he should turn in his passport, another printing his picture with his NHL salary of $3 million below it, another parodying a national postage stamp of Peter Forsberg's 1994 shootout goal by showing Salo ducking.

It has hit closer, too.

"It's been tough for him," Hedberg said. "People back home have been complaining to his parents, have been mean to them. Even his sister's kids in school, the other kids have been mean to them. It's just ridiculous."

Hedberg, who has a wife and two daughters, was particularly rankled that family had become involved.

"For his sister's kids back home to be getting ripped on, it's terrible. It's such a bad thing. It's sports, and it's big, but it's sports. To us, we can take it, as long as they leave the relatives alone."

Hedberg maintains a policy of not reading articles about himself, good or bad, but Salo is not that way.

"He said he read everything just to read it and that, to him, that makes him stronger. Me, I don't need to see it. But if you read it and you think it makes you stronger, it's good."

Hedberg staunchly defended Salo and flatly rejected the notion Sweden would have been better off with him in a high-pressure event. Hedberg is coming off a terrific run in the Stanley Cup playoffs, while Salo is 3-12 for his career in NHL postseason games.

"No, I don't think that would have made a difference at all," Hedberg said. "Tommy's been great for the national team all the time, but he played one not-so-good game against a team that's not really great. I don't think he's to blame. Of course, you see what happened at the end of the game and point the finger at him. I would say we lost to Belarus, and none of us played as well as we should. It was all of us."

Hedberg is not alone in working to protect Salo.

Thursday night, in the Oilers' first game after the Olympic break, the Predators' Vitali Yachmenev scored on a third-period slap shot from outside the blue line that keyed a Nashville rally and brought a 3-2 victory at Skyreach Centre.

Immediately, Oilers Coach Craig MacTavish went into spin control.

"We allowed Yachmenev to get his speed up in the neutral zone," MacTavish said to reporters. "That's a difficult shot to stop."

Salo, too, insisted the shot was not an echo of the one heard 'round the world from Salt Lake City.

"It's nothing I think about," he said. "Now it's the NHL. I don't have to think about the Olympics anymore. I have the gold from 1994, and I played a lot of good games before we lost to Belarus."

But at least one person in the building acknowledged having the Belarus blast in mind.

"We talked about it before that game," Yachmenev said. "I'm sure that goal was on his mind."

Salo can expect many more shots -- slap, wrist and verbal -- in the months and even years ahead. His gaffe is the kind that has ravaged the psyche of athletes in all sports, the kind that never forgives.

"He'll be fine," Hedberg said. "I'm not worried about him."

Dejan Kovacevic can be reached at dkovacevic@ post-gazette.com.