Hiller and Gerber: Canadian Goalie Guru Key to Both Swiss Olympic scares

Kevin Woodley is a rec-league target and former contributing editor of the Goalie News. He has written about the Vancouver Canucks and NHL for The Associated Press, USA Today, Sports Illustrated and The Hockey News for the last decade, and is currently at the Olympics for AP.

Asked to put his jaw- (and stick-) dropping performance into perspective after forcing an entire country to hold its breath for three hours on Thursday night, Swiss goalie Jonas Hiller needed a little time to catch his first.

A couple of reflective – and deep – breaths later, the sweat-soaked Hiller still wasn’t entirely sure about the scope of his incredible 45-save effort, struggling between patting himself on the back for sending Canada into a panic and the disappointment of coming up short in a dramatic 3-2 shootout loss.

“It probably takes until tomorrow to realize what we did today,” Hiller said. “It was one of the best games I’ve ever seen from the Swiss National team.”

No one was going to argue after Hiller’s remarkable performance, including a spectacular stick-less sequence of saves with the game tied in the third period, and stopping Sidney Crosby once in the shootout before the young Canadian icon clinched the win on his second shootout attempt. But as Martin Brodeur remembered after stopping all four Swiss shooters in the decisive one-on-one, this was hardly a first. For Brodeur, it felt a lot like four years ago, when another Swiss stopper – Martin Gerber – stunned Canada on the Olympic stage.

“We had our opportunities, a lot like ’06, to put this game way and we didn’t score,” Brodeur said, recalling Gerber’s 49-save performance in a 2-0 win over Canada in Turin. “Psyche was tough for me the whole game, knowing that it’s a pressure game, that people expect us to walk right through that team.”

At times they did, but just like 2006 getting through the last line of Swiss defense proved problematic. And while every player still around from the Turin Games disaster quickly recalled the eerie similarities between the two games, few probably realized there was also a Canadian puck-stopping connection.

His name is Francois Allaire, and while even goaltending neophytes recognize the name, not all realize the role he played in both Swiss “victories.” But it is true that Allaire, the godfather of the Quebec butterfly revolution, is also now the chief architect of two of Canada’s biggest hiccups in the Olympic spotlight.

Gerber and Hiller were both long-time students in Allaire’s long-running summer camps in their native Switzerland before starting their NHL careers – belatedly by most standards – under the tutelage of Allaire and the Anaheim Ducks. In both cases it was that history that played a role in the Ducks’ interest and ability to land the players, drafting a 26-year-old Gerber in the eighth-round in 2001, and signing Hiller as a free agent on the eve of their Stanley Cup title in 2007.

In Hiller’s case, it was his comfort with Allaire that led him to choose the Ducks despite having 16 other one-way contract offers in the NHL, and despite the fact Anaheim was about to win a Cup with Jean-Sebastien Giguere and also had current Russian Olympian Ilya Bryzgalov under contract for another season.

Hiller had been working with Allaire for six summers before making his choice.

“It’s an advantage for both of us,” Allaire, now coaching in Toronto, said during the 2007 Finals. “He trusts me and he trusts the way I coach and trusts my knowledge of his talent. At the same time, there will be a part of teaching that won’t be necessary. He knows already what I’m asking and the way I am asking. We’re going to go quicker and faster than a guy coming from another organization who has never been involved with me. I really trust his talent.”

That talent has since become evident to everyone, as Hiller supplanted Giguere as the No.1 last season and authored a stunning upset of top-seeded San Jose in the first round of the playoffs. But the path from Switzerland to the NHL to Olympic star was never as straight as it seems now, and Hiller himself says it didn’t start trending upwards until he began working with Allaire in 2000.

“It was a dream to play in the best league in the world – you always got to have that dream – but for me it was pretty far away because I never played junior national team or anything,” said Hiller, who wasn’t even starting for his hometown junior team and only got one emergency game in the top Swiss pro league (Nationalliga) between 2000 and 2003. In 2003-04, he had a 3.55 goals-against average behind a Laussane team relegated to the Swiss B League.

Things turned around next season with HC Davos. Starting in a Swiss League that was attracting top locked-out NHL players (and current Canadian Olympians) like Rick Nash and Joe Thornton, Hiller was named goalie of the year – an award Cristobal Huet, who also attended Allaire’s summer camps, captured three times before coming to the NHL at age 28 – while winning the first of two Nationalliga Championships with HC Davos. From there came appearances – and success – in higher-profile events like the Spengler Cup and European Champions Cup, a starting role on the Swiss squads at the World Championships, the NHL, and now a starring role at the 2010 Olympics.

“It was step by step,” Hiller said of the slow rise. “As a kid I always had that NHL dream but it was so far away and I came closer and closer every year.”

Hiller doesn’t think it’s a coincidence he started taking those steps after attending Allaire’s camps. While he still likes to think of himself as more than just a blocker, Hiller has come a long way technically since that first session at age 19.

“The basics are those side to side movements, always be in the right spot in front of the shooter and taking up the area,” said Hiller, who did have other goalie coaches – and one-on-one sessions with ex-NHL goaltender David Aebischer stressing things like proper leg recovery – before hooking up with Allaire.

If he had to choose another Allaire disciple for comparison, Hiller has always said he think of himself as being closer to the reactive game of Team Canada goalie Roberto Luongo than a pure blocker like Giguere. He has fast feet, makes strong, quick lateral pushes from his knees, and reads the play well, a combination that allows Hiller to arrive early and square to save positions, look bigger than his 6-foot-1 frame, and maintain superb rebound control on body saves.

“But I’m also still working a lot of my reflexes,” Hiller stressed. “It’s not just positioning, I can also go for the puck and I can make saves with the arms.”

Canada – the country and the team – found that out first hand on Thursday. What they may not have realized was the role one of their own played in the scare.