Michael Annett

LAS VEGAS -- You can't fault Michael Annett for watching the events of the last few weeks at the Vancouver Winter Olympics with more than a passing interest. He certainly knows first-hand what it's like to lace up the skates and drop the puck.

Annett is 12th in the current Nationwide Series points heading into Saturday's Sam's Town 300 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, but before his racing career took off, he won a minor-league hockey championship as a defenseman with the Waterloo Black Hawks of the United States Hockey League.

"I really didn't get into [the Olympic hockey tournament] until this past weekend, when it gets closer to the medal round," Annett said Friday. "The games early on, when they're beating teams 14-1 and stuff like that, aren't too exciting. But the women's game, I've hardly ever watched a whole women's hockey game and that was pretty amazing. It's only going to get better -- and hopefully we'll have a rematch game on the men's side. And that'll be a storybook game, I'm guessing."

Not surprisingly, Annett watches each game from a player's perspective.

"What's so cool about watching those guys -- and it's something I wasn't always the best at -- is reading the play and knowing where to be and how they set everything up," Annett said. "In the Olympics, it's pretty much an all-star game where they're playing harder than they would in an all-star game. They're taking no prisoners and you're seeing that with [Alexander] Ovechkin and [Jaromir] Jagr. Hits like that, you wouldn't see in an all-star game."

Annett is impressed with the intensity of the play, particularly with national pride on the line.

"They're playing for so much pride in these games," Annett said. "It just makes it really exciting. That gold medal game is going to be like a Game 7 for the Stanley Cup. And yet, you're going to have all the best players from the NHL on the ice at the same time, which makes it even cooler."

In 110 career pro games, Annett had eight assists and 89 penalty minutes. But in 2005, he switched gears and decided to concentrate full-time on racing. Still, Annett believes some of what he learned from hockey remains valuable.

"I think the biggest thing I've carried over is handling the pressure," Annett said. "The league I played in, I was 17, 18 at the time and playing in front of thousands of fans each weekend. When you play in a small town like that, that's what the town's all about -- whether you're winning or losing on the weekends. And you've got to hear about it all week from them.

"At a young age, having that pressure on me and then coming here, you feel that same pressure, times about a thousand. I already have that a little bit instilled in me, and the work ethic it took to play hockey all those years. Plus, it gave me a good foundation physically as well."

Annett was a definite surprise in his first full-time season in the Nationwide Series last year, scoring four top-10 finishes and winding up 10th in the points. What he hopes to do in 2010 is continue to gain experience, and therefore confidence, in his abilities as a driver.

Already, the differences are noticeable. Even though he finished 12th at Daytona and 17th last weekend at Fontana, Annett said he's much more comfortable knowing what he can -- and cannot -- get out of the car on race day.

"It's been huge and definitely I'm taking more risks now," Annett said. "We did want two top-10 finishes, but from where we started last year to where we are right now, we're leaps and bounds ahead of that now. I already know what kind of cars we're bringing to the track, so once we go out and practice, you can go out and get after it, and be more aggressive with some changes. It just helps the crew chief, being more vocal rather than just relying on them based on me telling them what I'm feeling."

Hockey is a team sport, and so is racing. With one full season under their belts, Annett and his crew know more about each other, and with that, have grown in confidence.

"It's not just even the confidence I have," Annett said. "It's the confidence the other seven guys have in me, which has been a year in the making. So when we started this year, we could set our goals a little bit higher than we did last year."

So what kind of goals does Annett have for this season?

"We haven't really sat down and said, 'We're going to have this many top-10s' or anything like that," Annett said. "We just want to run in the top 10 the entire race, put ourselves in a position for one of those final double-file restarts. The first three or four rows has a chance to win the race in one of those.

"Our goal is to run up front the whole race and be there at the end and put ourselves in a place to get that top-10 finish. And if we do that, you don't need to set a goal of where you want to be in the points, because it's all going to take care of itself."

One key element is Annett's focus on restarts.

"I think about halfway through the year, I got a lot more confidence in myself on those restarts, to stay in the gas longer," Annett said. "As soon as I figured out how much easier it was to gain positions in two corners rather than spending a 30-lap run, trying to run down a guy. When these cars get spread out, the aero is so important, it's hard to run somebody down. So if you can get those spots early, it definitely makes for an easier green-flag run."

So if the gold medal game comes down to a U.S.-Canada rematch, who wins?

"One team has a ton to prove," Annett said. "The U.S. team has already proved something. Then you look at all the pressure Canada will have on them, playing in front of their crowd. As we saw with the women, they can use that to their advantage. But sometimes all that pressure can make you grip the stick a little too tight and you're too tense, and you don't play the way you're supposed to.

"There are so many different factors. I still don't know why they said it was such an upset [last week]. They're all NHL players playing against each other, week-in and week-out. So to me, it's an all-star game. Depending on the crowd, and how they use it for or against, that'll be the 'X factor.' "

In any case, Michael Annett will find somewhere to watch that game. He may be a racer but hockey is still close to his heart.