Two Familiar Faces on Team USA by @disgruntledbill

What would it take to root for Chris Borque?

When the term “Penguin killer” is tossed around, Borque’s name has to be top of the list. Rooting for Chris Borque, the Hershey Bear makes a vein budge on my head.  Borque has spent eight of the past 10 seasons playing with the Bears.  My phone autocompletes “Chris Borque” with “sucks”.

Chris Borque happy makes me unhappy. 

Borque has been a member of Bears teams that have ruined my spring and eliminated Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins from the postseason in 2006, 2007, 2009, and 2016. To add insult to injury, Borque has won the Calder Cup with Hershey in 2006, 2009, and 2010 and seems to consistently be a point per game player in the AHL. He is elite in the American League, yet just not able to stick around in the NHL.  

Just a quick friendly reminder the WBS Penguins have still never won the Calder Cup.  Disgusting.

I couldn’t root for Chris Borque the Washington Capital either. I was indifferent to Borque the Bruin and Borque the Woflpack (Wolfpacker?)(solo wolf?). I pretended like the man didn’t exist during his brief stint with Pittsburgh where he played in 20 NHL games during the 2009-2010 seasons.  

He forever and always will be a Hershey Bear to me, burying shots from the point on the powerplay into the back of the WBS net.

Rooting against Chris Borque will be tough this February. The roster for Team USA’s Men’s hockey team has finally been announced and the absence of the NHL at this year’s Olympics has opened the door for Borque on the team. I’ll be rooting for Team USA as always….and begrudgingly Chris Borque.

Borque isn’t the only former Penguin to make the cut for Team USA. Defenseman Noah Welch has also made the team. Welch played for WBS from 2005 to 2007 and made it into 28 games with Pittsburgh. He has been playing in Europe since 2011. He was well liked during his two years in WBS and was essentially a pre-Ben Lovejoy, Ben Lovejoy. They are both Ivy League nice guy stay at home defenseman types. He also (like Lovejoy just did) notably donated his brain for concussion research way back in 2009.

WBS has made some really boring hockey cards over the years. 

Chad Kolarik has also made team USA. Kolarik only played 35 games with WBS in 2013 on a team that reached the Eastern Conference Final. After leaving WBS, Kolarik bounced around the AHL and has ben playing overseas in Germany for the past 5 seasons. Only the diehards will remember he was even on the team 5 years ago.

Welch is an easy guy to root for. It’s just too bad he’s on a team with Chris Borque.

The rest of Team USA can be viewed here.