Anaheim Ducks defender Ryan Whitney (Scituate, Mass.) was named to the 2010 U.S. Men’s Ice Hockey Team along with Carolina’s Tim Gleason after injuries forced out Mike Komisarek and Paul Martin USA Hockey announced today.

Whitney, the fifth overall selection in the 2002 NHL Draft, was traded from Pittsburgh to Anaheim in last season. The former Thayer Academy and Boston University standout played on the U.S. World Junior (Under-20) Teams in 2002 and 2003.

He joins forward Chris Drury (Trumbull, Conn.) and goaltender Jonathan Quick (Hamden , Conn.) as the only New England natives on the Olympic player roster.

Three of New England’s greatest NHL players and a gold medal-winning Olympic team full of players from the region (or with ties to it) were inducted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame tonight.

Tony Amonte (Hingham, Mass.), Tom Barrasso (Burlington, Mass.) and John LeClair (St. Albans, Vt.) were three of the NHL’s most recognizable talents over the past two decades, and took their place with the country’s greatest players already enshrined there.

All gave eloquent and moving acceptance speeches, and seeing the three of them together reminded everyone of the 1990s, when New England had a significant share of the star talent playing in the NHL.

Barrasso’s tremendous success as an NHL goalie with Buffalo, who won the Vezina and Calder Trophies after jumping straight from Acton-Boxboro High School, is an amazing feat- and one not duplicated in the almost three decades since he did it in 1983-84.

The American women, who captured a nation’s heart during the Winter Games in Nagano in 1998 by upsetting heavily-favored Canada, have a strong area thread that weaves them together, from New Hampshire and Rhode Island natives Katie King, Tara Mounsey and Sarah DeCosta, to those born outside of New England, but who played their college hockey there like Cammi Granato, Karyn Bye, Angela Ruggiero and Shelley Looney.

The late Frank Zamboni, whose ice resurfacing machine helped revolutionize the sport, was also inducted. His son, who looked remarkably like former college football head coach Lou Holtz, made the acceptance speech on behalf of his father. He reminded everyone that the Zamboni was invented and built in Southern California, not in hockey’s traditional hotbeds.

The ceremony is worth watching if the NHL Network rebroadcasts it as part of the Hockey Weekend in America celebration.

The USA Hockey media teleconference this afternoon was informative, and you’ll see a feature story on it here at HockeyJournal.com soon, but I did want to take the time to share a few of the anecdotes from the call to get the juices flowing as the 2010 Winter Olympic Games rapidly approach.

Craig Patrick emphasized that the 1980 Olympic Team was much better than people give them credit for even 30 years after the fact that they took home gold. “Nobody understands the amount of talent that team had,” he told participating media.

Captain Mike Eruzione (Winthrop, Mass.) followed up eloquently, providing an exclamation point on Patrick’s understated praise. “People say that Herb Brooks didn’t take the best players, he took the right players,” Eruzione said. “I think the right players were the best players as well.” He went on to cite his former teammates like defenseman Ken Morrow (who won four Stanley Cups with the New York Islanders), Dave Christian, Mark Johnson, Neal Broten and Mike Ramsey, all of whom went on to have long and productive NHL careers as proof of how skilled the team really was.

Eruzione, who wasn’t the most skilled or talented player on the squad, demonstrated why he was its leader during the call when he was fielding a question about how he feels when he hears some of the inaccurate stories or legends that have grown out of the “Miracle on Ice” repeated around him. He said that he always replies: “That’s great, yeah. Let them enjoy what they think.”

Normal human response, no matter how well inentioned, is to correct someone in error. That Eruzione does not do so speaks to the kind of character you look for in any situation or vocation. It’s a small thing, but does provide a window into one’s soul, and affirms what Brooks recognized when he chose Eruzione as the team’s on-ice leader.

Also from Eruzione: I asked about the feeling the team had in the Russia game when backup goalie Sergei Myshkin went into the nets to replace Hall of Famer Vladislav Tretiak. “It would be liking taking out Patrick Roy and putting in Martin Brodeur,” he said. He added that Brooks always told them to focus their own game and not to worry about what the Soviets were doing. So, while they respected Tretiak’s ability, there was no feeling of relief when they saw him on the bench to start the second frame.

Jim Craig and Jack O’Callahan shared some nice memories and moments as well, and the one thing everyone present took away from the event is that winning any event or championship of this magnitude brings people together and forges a bond that will stay with them the rest of their days.

USA Hockey, in conjunction with the Hockey Weekend Across America celebration, will host a media teleconference today with members of the 1980 U.S. Olympic Men’s Ice Hockey Team, several of whom  are from New England.

The Boston University Terrier contingent of captain Mike Eruzione (Winthrop, Mass.), goalie Jim Craig (North Easton, Mass.) and defenseman Jack O’Callahan (Charlestown, Mass.) will participate. Also on the call will be defenseman Bob Suter, whose son, Ryan Suter, is with the Nashville Predators and a member of the 2010 U.S. Men’s Olympic Team.  Miracle on Ice team assistant coach and former two-time Stanley Cup-winning GM of the Pittsburgh Penguins, Craig Patrick and Al Michaels, who along with Ken Dryden, called the game versus the U.S.S.R. and immortalized it when he exulted “Do you believe in miracles? Yes!” in the closing seconds will be there as well.

I was seven years old when the U.S. team beat the Russian bear, and it has been one of the defining moments of my life, as it was for many to include Bruins goaltender Tim Thomas, who called his being named to the 2010 U.S. Olympic squad the realization of his first hockey dream (Thomas was 5 when the Miracle on Ice at Lake Placid occurred).

It’s hard to believe that it has been three decades since that young, plucky team of upstarts captured a nation’s imagination with their improably victory against a team superior in every aspect save for the final score. They went on to come from behind again in the gold medal game against Finland, an oft-forgotten, but no less critical moment in that team’s achievement.

I’ll be on the line and will have more on this call and what the players have to say on it later.