MONTREAL — There has been one team and one team only representing the United States that has ever won a best-on-best hockey tournament, and that was the World Cup team of 1996 that took Games 2 and 3 of the best-of-three final over Canada right here in this city.
Billy Guerin, then a 25-year-old right wing for the Devils, was on that squad. He was part of the “orchestra,” in the verbiage of Team USA and New Jersey general manager Lou Lamoriello, who assembled the group.
Nearly three full decades later, Guerin is the general manager of the Wild and of a Team USA that opened its 4 Nations experience Thursday night against Team Finland in the very same Bell Centre rink where he and his teammates had celebrated their championship.
I texted Guerin the night before the 2025 roster was released, asking if he had picked an orchestra. You know, strings, bass, woodwinds and percussion
