thestar.com

For most of his hockey life, [Eric Lindros] has been at the centre, though more often the storm than the eye. With the determined backing of his parents, Carl and Bonnie, he fought the rules of junior hockey and won, refusing to move far away to the team that had drafted him, the Sault Ste Marie Greyhounds, and forcing the Greyhounds to send his rights closer to home, to Oshawa. He refused to have anything to do with the NHL team that drafted him, the Quebec Nordiques, and l'Affaire Lindros still angers hockey fans throughout the province of Quebec. For every great hockey achievement, there has always been a threatening cloud overhead. He had to fight, and win, a court case against him for allegedly spitting beer over a woman in a Whitby, Ont., bar. The Flyers have had to sue the radio station that carries Flyers games because of a series of wild on-air allegations.

This time there is no place to hide. Win or lose, Eric Lindros will remain at the centre of it. If Canada fails to do what many feel it must -- gold medal or nothing -- much of the blame will fall on Lindros, who has been expected to take up the mythical hockey "torch" from [Wayne Gretzky] and [Mark Messier] ever since he arrived in the NHL. Failure would lead to mass second-guessing: Messier should have gone, Lindros should never have led.

Photo: Eric Lindros meets the famous glare of Mark Messier during the 1995 NHL playoffs. With Messier out of the picture, the spotlight is on 'The Big E' at the Olympics. Photo: Eric Lindros Photo: Friends and teammates say Lindros is totally focussed on hockey matters this season. "We have a chip on our shoulders," Lindros says of Canada's international hockey disposition.