Suter Honored To Represent Switzerland ... 'We've Got A Good Team'
Blues center said not to overlook Swiss at Milano-Cortina 2026 Olympics
Video Transcript
The men's portion of the Winter Olympics will get underway on Wednesday morning, but it will get underway on Thursday morning, early Thursday morning, Central Time anyway, for Switzerland and Pius Suter.
I had a chance to sit down and talk to him a little bit about making his second Winter Games.
He also played back in 2018 in South Korea, when it was, when the games were played in Pyeongchang, and the Swiss didn't do well then.
They're hoping to reverse those fortunes this time, and Suters tells me that we talked a lot of- obviously, about the United States, Canada, s- Sweden, Finland.
Obviously, you wanna call 'em the Big Four, and rightfully so.
But he threw in a caveat.
He's like, "Don't forget about us."
They've actually won silver at the last two World Championships, last two summers that it was played.
Swiss have gotten considerably better at the international level.
They have more NHL players.
They have ten of them currently playing in the NHL that are- that's on their Olympic roster this year, including Suter, and seven former NHL players.
So this is a, this is, this is a country you cannot overlook, no doubt about it, if you're any of the, quote-unquote, "Big Four."
And I'm not including Slovakia and, the Czech Republic, Czechia, in the Big Four, but I would say they would be classified probably right behind the Big Four.
and I would say you could throw Germany into that mix, too, with, the, the wealth of talent that they boast as well, including Leon Draisaitl and Moritz Seider.
some very good, powerful players representing their respective countries there, too.
But don't forget about Switzerland.
Don't sleep on these guys, because the Swiss, they've got a very good team.
their only question, I would say, is probably in goal, where it's looks like it's gonna be Vegas Golden Knights goalie Akira Schmid that's going to be carrying the load there.
but you got Roman Josi.
You've got three players from the Devils with Nico Hischier, Timo Meier, Jonas Siegenthaler on the blue line.
Kevin Fiala's gonna be there.
this is a team that you can't, really, you can't overlook, Suter included.
it's gonna look to be a thorn in the side for a lot of countries that are looking to medal, and that includes Suter says that includes Switzerland.
They're not, they're not going over there just for fun and games.
They're going over there to compete.
They know they're gonna be underdogs, and they know that, really, they have nothing to lose.
So when you have nothing to lose, you virtually have everything to gain, 'cause you're not ex- really expected to win, but when you do, it seems like it's a pretty big thing.
So keep an eye out on Switzerland.
I wouldn't sleep on these guys as a, as at least a tournament thorn, because they're gonna give some team- they're gonna give some other respective teams some trouble over there when they're playing at their best.
