When the Canadian and United States Olympic teams got together for their, ahem, orientation camps in early September, the expectation was that the NHL Players Association's guidelines could prevent much from being accomplished.

The guidelines were treated as a joke. No, it was worse than that. At least you pay attention to jokes. Of course, anyone on the bubble with the hope of making the roster knew being a stickler for the NHLPA’s limitations on the workouts wouldn't help his chances, but there seemed to be more to it.

	Robert Reichel's and Dominik Hasek's gold medal in 1998 was good for all of hockey.

These men wanted to be out on the ice together in Calgary and Colorado Springs. They hoped to get a jump on regular NHL training camps, but more significant, they wanted to start re-forming the national team bonds that have been intermittent parts of their hockey pasts.

So Chris Chelios already was acting as a captain in Colorado Springs, making it clear he didn’t plan on writing a check for damages done by others this time and that he was relishing one more crack at an Olympic medal before he retires.

And in Calgary, Mario Lemieux and Steve Yzerman and Rob Blake and Martin Brodeur -- and all the others -- skated, knowing that Wayne Gretzky won't be in the shootout rotation this time, either; but Gretzky will have a hand in deciding the weighty matters invoving the national team.

This quadrennium, it's all about Salt Lake City, where the teams won’t even have time for significant practice between the NHL's final pre-shutdown games on Feb. 13 and the opening of Olympic competition for The Big Six hockey-playing nations on Feb. 15.

So that Olympic shutdown again will be hanging over the NHL's regular season, affecting it even in subtle ways. The compressed schedule could lead to more tired legs and backup goalies perhaps logging more starts than usual. The Dec. 22 final Olympic selection deadline could cause some fringe candidates to play as if this is a contract year. As teams pass through the schedule, pending Olympic teammates on opposing NHL teams will be discussing Salt Lake issues in the hallways of arenas -- and maybe even before faceoffs. And once again, NHL locker rooms will have that pending roster fragmentation as an issue for teasing, whether Swedes will tease Finns about past wars or Czechs will say the Russians still bear the blame for the Soviet Union's yoke. Or forget politics; it could become the stuff of the usual locker room teasing -- until the puck is dropped in Salt Lake.

Perhaps even while the competition is taking place, and most certainly in the aftermath, the NHL will be fielding questions about whether it will be a part of the 2006 Games in Turin, Italy.

The answer should be yes, and the NHL should declare at least its hopes -- if not its commitment -- beforehand. It doesn’t matter that the Games will be back in Europe in 2006, making it less of a studio show for the North American television audience. The bigger reason is that the participation in the Winter Games underscores the NHL's strength -- its internationalized talent pool -- and enables the professional league to be part of a potentially terrific show.

Participation in the Winter Games underscores the NHL's strength -- its internationalized talent pool -- and enables the professional league to be part of a potentially terrific show.

The problem with making the decision tied solely to the NHL's perceived "bang for the buck" from Salt Lake -- what was in it for us? -- is that it will involve excessively narrow standards. And you get the feeling that if neither of the North American teams wins the gold medal in Salt Lake, the chances of the NHL Olympic experiment continuing will be greatly diminished.

The feeling here is that Canada is a virtual lock this time around, but the lesson of Nagano is that in a sport accustomed to seven-game series, a tournament bracket is far more likely to turn on a single shot off the post.

U.S. television will be looking at this as if someone wearing a cordoroy sport coat over a silk T-shirt, and wearing Filas below jeans with slightly rolled-up cuffs, came into the office pitching an idea for a mini-series.

Salt Lake Games. USA, USA, USA, the home team. Herb Brooks on the bench. Gold. Do you believe in a kind-of, sort-of miracle -- again? Showcase the boys in prime time and hope the Nielsen numbers look like "Friends" -- or figure skating.

If it doesn’t become another gold-medal celebration that catches the fancy of the home nation, and perhaps involving times even more trying than the winter of 1980, then it will be perceived as a failure, both in network offices and Madison Avenue.

The judgment needs to involve factors stretching far beyond xenophobia, so the standards of "success" for the NHL in Salt Lake should be roughly drawn in advance wth that in mind.

Or open minds.

If the NHL does go to Turin in 2006, it will be the first time in the three-Olympiad experiment that the Games will be in Europe. There’s nothing wrong -- and, indeed, plenty right -- with letting the Games be prime time in Sweden, in Finland, in Russia and in the Czech Republic. It is a further affirmation of the NHL's worldwide appeal.

But that's down the road, isn't it? Salt Lake should be allowed to stand on its own as a refreshing international tournament, and a showcase for the sport appealing to both the already fanatical and the uninitiated, in the warmth of the Olympic torch. If the NHL standards of success have nothing to do with TV ratings and North American medals, Utah should be an intermediate stop on the way to Italy. All the little hassles, ranging from the compressed schedule to a Stanley Cup Finals that could come within 100 hours of summer, will be more than worth it.

Terry Frei of The Denver Post is a regular contributor to ESPN.com. His feedback e-mail address is ChipHilton23@hotmail.com.