U.S. HOCKEY Americans stranded by storm

Only two players are in Italy as Wednesday's game approaches.
TURIN, Italy (AP) -- The U.S. Olympic hockey team arrived on Monday -- all two of them.
Because of a weekend snowstorm that socked the East Coast of North America, only John Grahame and Jordan Leopold settled into the Olympic village. Their remaining 21 teammates are expected to fly in today.
So Grahame and Leopold were becoming fast friends.
The Tampa Bay goalie and Leopold of the Calgary Flames are both first-time Olympians and had never met until they walked together to a news conference.
It was there the opponents in the 2004 Stanley Cup finals found about 40 reporters waiting to pepper them with questions that ranged from the weather to Wayne Gretzky and the NHL betting scandal.
Instead of sitting with three New York Islanders, three New Jersey Devils and two Philadelphia Flyers -- as expected -- they were all alone.
"I was actually kind of surprised, but it's OK," Leopold said. "We get all of the attention."
Reunion tonight
The team will practice together tonight for the first time and then have just one day before opening the tournament against Latvia on Wednesday.
"I haven't gotten a lot of sleep in the last 24 hours, but if we were ready to play -- I'd be ready," Grahame said. "It's a switch, it happens in the playoffs.
"When that puck drops there is something right there. You may not have as much juice as you normally would, but you'd definitely be focused and ready to go."
Grahame has no international experience to compare this to, but he is quite familiar with the 1980 U.S. team that won the gold medal in Lake Placid, N.Y.
"During the lockout, I must've watched 'Miracle' 80 to 100 times," Grahame said. "It just always seemed to be on, and every time it was on I watched it. You never get sick of seeing it."
Now he wants to repeat it.
Road warrior
His journey to the Olympics took him from Boston, where the Lightning beat the Bruins on Saturday night, back to Tampa, on to Chicago, then to Munich for a connecting flight to Turin.
It was well worth it for Grahame, who wasn't even invited to the U.S. orientation hockey camp in September. Back then, Buffalo's Ryan Miller seemed likely to be picked along with Robert Esche of the Flyers and Islanders goalie Rick DiPietro.
That was before Miller went down with a broken thumb. He didn't recover enough by the time the team was picked in December. Grahame got the spot and Miller is at home, waiting in the wings to be added to the roster should any of the three guys in front of him get hurt.
The kicker is that Miller has played the best of all the American goalies, but was sidelined at a most inopportune time.
"The three guys that are here are very competitive, and we're going to put our best foot forward," Grahame said.
He might get a leg up on Esche and DiPietro.
While he is relaxing and getting to know the lay of the land, his goaltending partners will be struggling just to get to Italy.
There weren't enough players for a pickup game Monday. The best Leopold and Grahame could even think of doing in a hockey sense was practice shootouts.
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