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Ultimate hockey lifer Adam Cracknell on Canada's Olympic team

'A normal year? I don’t think I would be knocking Connor McDavid out of the lineup'

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If it’s true the clothes make the man, then winger Adam Cracknell, who has worn 21 different jerseys throughout his hockey playing odyssey, knows all about that.

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He’s been everywhere — six NHL stops, 11 in the American Hockey League, in Denmark, also China —but with apologies to the Mallards of Quad City and the Gulls of San Diego, this new sweater isn’t for the birds.

The 36-year-old Bakersfield Condors forward is a Canadian Olympic teamer.

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He’ll have the Maple Leaf on his chest in Beijing, which is somewhere, of course, he’s played before —for the Kontiental Hockey League’s Kunlun Red Star as a teammate of Griffin Reinhart, Gilbert Brule and Chris Chelios’s son, Jake. He’s also worn the Maple Leaf once before, but that was the Spengler Cup in  beautiful Davos, Switzerland.

Now, in a twist, he’s also going back there for a Canadian training camp under coach Claude Julien before they head to the Olympics, with the COVID-19 restrictions in China.

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So, it’s almost like it’s pre-ordained. It’s also manna from heaven for a guy who has moved around so much in his hockey career.

“Yeah (Philip) Broberg says he looked at hockeydb and saw where I had all played and said it was pretty wild,” said Cracknell, who was been through so many trades or waivers.

“I really hope this is the highlight of my career, for a lot of us going over there,” said the Bakersfield alternate captain, who certainly was following the NHL’s decision to not send their players to China because of the COVID concern and so many NHL games postponed. “We’re going there under different circumstances but we’re there to do a job and represent our country to our best ability. Our goal is to win gold.

“A normal year? I don’t think I would be knocking Connor McDavid out of the lineup,” wisecracked Cracknell, who unfortunately won’t have his family in China because of the COVID restrictions.

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When the NHL was going back and forth on whether to go or not, Cracknell knew they would be sending a different team if the NHLers pulled out.

“Seemed like a long-shot at the time but I used it as motivation. You never know who’s watching. I saw I was on the long list being considered. I was doing all the testing for COVID and I was driving with my three daughters to get tested, making sure I was filling out all the requirements and (Team Canada general manager Shane Doan) called me and congratulated me. What a thrill. I’ll cherish this the rest of my life.

“I played in Beijing the year COVID broke out, couple of years now but it’s a familiar country and place, also I’ll be playing against some friends,” said Cracknell, who played with Brandon Yip on the Kunlun Red Star team, and Yip, a former NHLer, will likely be captain of the Chinese Olympic team.

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“When I was with Kunlun, that’s when Wuhan pretty much got shut down with the COVID breaking out. We were going on a road trip (to Russia) and when we got to the airport, they said, ‘You guys aren’t coming back.’ We had no idea what it was like. My family went to Bali and Indonesia while we were in Russia,” he said.

This time around, it’ll be more of a lockdown for the athletes at the Olympics.

“We’re going to miss seeing the best athletes in the world in the other sports, bobsled or whatever, to see the emotion, what they bring,” he said.

“I did play once for Canada in that Spengler Cup when Kevin Dineen was coach, a really cool experience with all that history in Davos. We lost in a shootout. I saw my former St. Louis teammates Alex Pietrangelo and Jay Bouwmeester in the Olympics, I certainly watched the Vancouver and Sochi Olympics and talked to them about those experiences,” said Cracknell, the ultimate hockey lifer who started playing pro in Omaha, Neb., with later stops in Vegas, Quad City, Peoria, Chicago, Springfield, Hartford, Laval, Toronto, San Diego and Bakersfield in the AHL, along with NHL stints with the Oilers, Blues, Blue Jackets, Stars, Rangers and Anaheim.

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Also in Beijing and Denmark.

Cracknell will also have Sherwood Park’s Daniel Carr and ex-Oiler David Desharnais on the Canadian team.

Cracknell, who got a rousing go-for-it from the Oilers even though he’ll miss some farm team games, played two AHL Condors games this past weekend in San Jose. After Sunday’s game, he went to San Francisco, and started his journey Monday, flying to Washington, then Zurich and into Davos for camp.

They will play the Swiss Olympic team in one exhibition, then go to Beijing Feb. 2.

“I was on a bit of a tear but I didn’t score the last game in San Jose. I didn’t want to waste them all,” laughed Cracknell.

This ‘n’ that: Ex-Oilers player Anton Lander (Zug, Swiss League) is on the Swedish Olympic team … Former Oilers forward Nail Yakupov (26 points in 43 games in Omsk) is having a good KHL season playing for Bob Hartley, but didn’t make the Russian team … Former Oilers Iiro Pakarinen and Teemu Hartikainen are on the Finnish team and Dominik Kahun and Toby Reider on the German side … Patrick Russell will be playing for Denmark.

E-mail: jmatheson@postmedia.com

On Twitter: @jimmathesonnhl

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