When Drew Doughty was officially added to Team Canada’s roster for the upcoming 4 Nations Faceoff, it certainly wasn’t a surprise. Unlike teammate Adrian Kempe, who was named to Sweeden’s roster back in December, the 35-year-old defenseman took a long and winding route to get there. Don’t worry, his GPS knew exactly how to arrive at the destination and never took his eye off prize — even while spending months rehabbing his ankle following surgery during training camp.
Like Doughty, Kempe has plenty of prior international experience already on his resume. He’s previously represented Sweden at both the World juniors and the World Championships, winning multiple medals along the way. Without even bringing that up, though, he was keenly aware of what this month’s opportunity brings for both of them.
“I’ve never really played against these best players, ever — like in a best-on-best tournament,” Kempe told Mayor’s Manor. “We’ve been talking about it a little bit since he came back from the injury. I’m looking forward to us facing each other for the first time in in our career, coming up in the first game of the tournament. It’ll be fun to see Dewey on that team. I think he deserves it.”
That was all nice and great, almost politically correct. Then, came the real stuff. Doughty is already chirping his longtime teammate.
“When we were talking, he said, ‘I’ll probably hit you, but I probably won’t run you over,’: shared Kempe. “I was like, ‘Yeah. Okay!'”
While it can’t be seen in written form alongside those words, Kempe had a bit of an eye roll as he described his reaction, before quickly shrugging the whole thing off. “Yeah, he’s funny,” said the Kings leading goal scorer. “So, it will be a lot of fun to play against him.”
Sweden and Canada will play each other this coming Wednesday, opening night of the 4 Nations event.
Doughty shared several thoughts on the whole things here:
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