Still recovering from the hand injury suffered when he destroyed a golf club, Claude Giroux will skip Canada’s Olympic camp in Calgary to focus on his recovery, ESPN reports.
Claude Giroux won’t attend Cdn Oly camp, going to focus on his rehab. Hockey Canada at this point doesn’t plan to invite another player
— Pierre LeBrun (@Real_ESPNLeBrun) August 23, 2013
It’s actually a little surprising that Claude won’t make the trip to Calgary for the camp, which begins over the weekend.
There won’t be on-ice workouts at the camp due to high insurance costs — the Americans aren’t skating at their two-day-long camp in D.C. next week either — so it’s really just a meet-and-greet type of situation where the players will go over different things with coaches, get to know one another if they aren’t already friendly, etc. Claude could have participated despite his injury.
Either way, it’s nice to see that he’s taking the time to focus on rehab. He’s a lock for the Olympic team anyway, so it’s not as if he’s missing much.