Officials get ready to make hockey the centerpiece of Olympics

From Vancouver, Canada —  When most hockey fans watch the Vancouver Canucks play at GM Place, they focus on goaltender Roberto Luongo’s acrobatics or who’s skating alongside Daniel and Henrik Sedin.

When Denis Hainault is in the arena, he’s scouting places to put people and equipment during the Winter Olympics.

Hainault, a former Hockey Canada administrator and coach who guided a young Luc Robitaille, is the director of ice sports for the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee. He’s also general manager of GM Place, which will be called Canada Hockey Place during the Games.

The new name is among many changes that will take place before the Games begin Feb. 12.

“We’re going to take over the building on Jan. 28, at one minute after midnight. The Canucks are playing on the 27th and immediately after the game the transition will start,” Hainault said Monday.

“It’s just like for a big concert, but this is going to be major and for almost five weeks.”

The recently renovated Canucks’ locker room will house the Canadian men’s team. Another locker room will be built for Team USA, six temporary dressing rooms will be set up in trailers, and the media work room will be transformed into a game-day locker room.

The team benches will be extended by about six feet to accommodate 23-player rosters and between the penalty boxes a larger space will be built for statisticians and timekeepers. About 2,000 seats will be removed from the 18,810-seat arena to accommodate international broadcasters and writers.

Advertisements will be removed from the boards and the ice to comply with Olympic regulations. The ice, though staying at NHL dimensions, will be rebuilt with the help of NHL ice guru Dan Craig. The red and blue lines will stay the same as for NHL games but the trapezoid behind the net will vanish and the crease will be semi-circular to conform to international rules.

“There will be so much hockey played on that ice that we want to make sure that we start from scratch and make sure that it’s good level,” Hainault said.

But without any good luck charms beneath center ice.

Canadian ice-maker Trent Evans, working at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, planted a Canadian $1 coin -- known as a loonie -- at the center ice dot. It became a legend when the Canadian men’s and women’s teams won gold.

They’ll have to win without a lucky loonie this time. Hainault has forbidden his team from hiding a good luck charm at Canada Hockey Place.

“We want to play the games as fair as we can for all the teams and that’s what we’re going to do,” he said.

Hainault said he and his staff anticipate working 24/7 before the Games to get everything ready, but it’s a labor of love.

“I’m not taking anything away from any other Olympics or World Cup or world championship before,” he said, “but this will be something special, to have every single team with essentially the best players of every country -- unless injuries -- here in the country of the birth of hockey and in a city that is totally hockey crazy. It’s going to be the hockey Olympics, and to be part of that for me is absolutely unbelievable.”

Slap shots

The NHL board of governors will meet today and Wednesday in Pebble Beach. On the agenda are reports on player safety, head shots, the Olympics and business and legal matters.

The governors also will discuss the NHL’s agreement to sell the Phoenix Coyotes to Ice Edge Holdings. That group, made up of Canadian and American businessmen, plans to keep the team in Glendale, Ariz., but wants to play some games in Saskatoon, Canada. That would pave the way to move north if they can’t turn things around in Arizona -- and they probably can’t.

helene.elliott@latimes.com

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