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Former Oiler Mark Arcobello named to United States Olympic team

Mark Arcobello played for the Edmonton Oilers during some pretty dark times. Now he’ll play for the United States during some dark times for the Olympics. The Yale graduate, veteran of five different NHL clubs, and current forward in the Swiss League was announced as one of Team USA’s players who will represent the country at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang in February.

Arcobello will join Brian Gionta, James Wisniewski, and a bunch of random players you probably haven’t hard of unless you play a lot of Be a GM Mode on EA Sports NHL video games. As we know, NHL players won’t be participating in the Olympics for the first time since 1994, making it much less of a spectacle than it usually is.

Though this is obviously a great experience for a guy like Arcobello or one of the handful of NCAA players on the roster, it’s essentially the Spengler Cup on a larger stage. Canada has yet to name their roster for the Olympics, but based on their pre-tournament roster, we could see a handful of former Oilers like Gilbert Brule, Rob Klinkhammer, and Ben Scrivens dawn the Maple Leaf.

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  • corky

    Good for Arco. And all the others. Not the players we all wanted to see. But giving these guys a dream fullfilled by playing in the games. This years action will be for the love of the game, not an ego stroke for a majority of the elite.

  • Jordan88

    Can’t stand these negative comments.

    Good on Arcobello. Russia is favored in this tournament (don’t give me that crap that Russia can’t play they are just not under their flag.)

    I don’t know who to cheer for after Canada.

    We are sending our D team at best. There is no greater honor than representing your country at the Olympics.

    Won’t it be something for Russia to win Gold in a NHLless Olympics and NO ANTHEM to be played.

    What a weird Olympics.

  • OriginalPouzar

    I’m still looking forward to watching the games.

    How epic would it be if any team was able to knock out the “Russians” – in particular Canada or the US (the European teams have some decent talent in the KHL and the other European leagues, moreso than CAN/US)?

  • yahsper

    Was Arcabello an undersized winger? Pretty sure he was Trying to remember as I tried hard to forget those years. Olympics will be fun to watch with no pros. I don’t mind one bit. Most people would rather have the NHL there I’m sure