John Tortorella has two well-organized folders on his desk in Nationwide Arena, one labeled “Blue Jackets” and the other labeled “Team USA.” He has two training camps scheduled “down to the minute,” along with updated injury reports, tentative exhibition game lineups, fitness testing results, etc. 
 
 If only Tortorella could organize his thoughts and emotions so neatly. 
 
 When the Blue Jackets hired Tortorella last October after an 0-7 start under coach Todd Richards, he already had committed to coaching Team USA in this year’s World Cup. 
 
 The scheduling conflict he has long feared is now upon him, and it’s the professional equivalent of having one child getting married and the other having a baby. 
 
 The World Cup will take place in Toronto from Sept. 17 to Oct. 1, meaning Tortorella will miss the first 10 days of Blue Jackets training camp and four of the club’s eight exhibition games if the U.S. reaches the best-of-three final. 
 
 “I’m just confused,” Tortorella said. “All summer long, I’ve been spending a couple hours on our team, a couple hours on the USA team. 
 
 “But now I come to rink these days and we have more and more players coming back into town in advance of our training camp, and I see the guys, and start getting excited about our team and our camp. And then I realize … it’s killing me that I can’t be in two places at once.” 
 
 So far away 
 
 This would be difficult in a typical year, Tortorella said, but this training camp is so important to the Blue Jackets. After finishing with the fourth-worst record in the NHL last season, the Blue Jackets expect an influx of young players as Tortorella continue to overhaul the team's culture. 
 
 And it’s not just Tortorella who will be absent. General manager Jarmo Kekalainen, who is assistant GM for Finland, traveled from Columbus to Helsinki on Friday. Assistant coach Brad Shaw, who joined the Blue Jackets this summer, will be assistant coach for Team Europe. 
 
 That leaves Blue Jackets assistant coach Brad Larsen, minor-league Cleveland Monsters coach John Madden, development coach Chris Clark and goaltending coach Ian Clark to run training camp practices. 
 
 “I have to just give it to Lars and let him go so there’s no confusion,” Tortorella said. “I know there’s no issue with it being run the proper way.” 
 
 Tortorella said he and the coaches will talk daily with management to keep abreast of what’s going on in Columbus. 
 
 “If it wasn’t for my country, I wouldn’t be doing this,” Tortorella said. 
 
 For the USA 
 
 Tortorella was an assistant coach for Team USA at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver. But he has a more of an emotional attachment to the flag these days. 
 
 His 26-year-old son, Nick, has been an Army Ranger for four years, having recently re-enlisted. Tortorella knows only that Nick has been deployed to the Middle East; his whereabouts are secret. Tortorella said an Army Ranger will be “on the bench” with Team USA during an exhibition game Friday against Canada at Nationwide Arena. 
 
 “I know these are hockey games … but I do look at it like it’s for my country,” Tortorella said. “What Nick is doing by far dwarfs what we do. We’re entertainers; we’re playing a sport. 
 
 “But with my son over there — this might sound selfish — I want to team up with him and help my country. I get pretty caught up in representing my country. There’s nothing like it.” 
 
 aportzline@dispatch.com 
 
 @Aportzline ||||| The national conversation surrounding San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick's decision to sit or kneel during the playing of the national anthem as a form of silent protest is still rolling on. The latest place the much-debated issue cropped up was at Team USA's training camp for the 2016 World Cup of Hockey. 
 
 With the U.S. in Columbus, Ohio, ahead of the tournament this week, with NHL players representing their country, the Kaepernick question has been a common one. Many of the players who have gone on record have looked to avoid controversy. Some who addressed Kaepernick's decision talked their way around the issue while expressing their own respect for the flag and the anthem. 
 
 The U.S. squad is led by John Tortorella, a man who only bites his tongue when it comes to strategy on the ice. And the Columbus Blue Jackets coach, who also spent time with the Tampa Bay Lightning, New York Rangers and Vancouver Canucks, had some thoughts about what would happen if any of his players sat in a similar form of protest. 
 
 "If any of my players sit on the bench for the national anthem, they will sit there the rest of the game," Tortorella told Linda Cohn of ESPN. 
 
 John Tortorella has strong feelings about the national anthem. USATSI 
 
 Tortorella has talked a lot about the importance of his players representing their country well since camp opened. He also has felt his bond to the U.S. tighten through his son's military service. Tortorella's son, Nick, is an Army Ranger and is currently deployed. Tortorella will also have a Ranger on Team USA's bench during Friday's exhibition game against Canada in Columbus. 
 
 "I know these are hockey games ... but I do look at it like it's for my country," Tortorella told the Columbus Dispatch on the opening day of camp. "What Nick is doing by far dwarfs what we do. We're entertainers; we're playing a sport. 
 
 "But with my son over there -- this might sound selfish -- I want to team up with him and help my country. I get pretty caught up in representing my country. There's nothing like it." 
 
 While that may give a little more context as to Tortorella's stance on this particular issue, there's also a good chance the scenario Tortorella addressed won't happen anyway. 
 
 It won't be because players may or may not have desires to express certain feelings or concerns, but because of the lack of opportunity. The anthem protocol for this tournament is going to be different than that of an NHL game. 
 
 Typically, in most international events for hockey, neither country's anthem is played before the game as it would be in a traditional NHL setting. It has been customary for the national anthem of the winning team to be played after the game, regardless of if it is in the preliminary round or in the final. 
 
 However, according to NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly, at least back in March, the plan for the World Cup of Hockey was for an anthem only to be played when something has been won from a tournament perspective. In that scenario, there's a chance the Star-Spangled Banner never even plays during the tournament, and if it is, it will be after the tournament has been completed. 
 
 The U.S., however, does have three exhibition games leading up to the tournament. It is unclear which anthem protocol will be followed. If the situation never arises for the World Cup, now the Columbus Blue Jackets -- a team that, like a lot of NHL teams, features many non-American players -- know where their coach stands on this issue. 
 
 There's no doubt that when the anthem is played in any sporting event going forward for now, more eyes will be drawn to the players to see what they are doing.
– John Tortorella says he sees coaching Team USA hockey as helping his country—and he will not tolerate players failing to stand for the anthem. "If any of my players sit on the bench for the national anthem, they will sit there the rest of the game," he tells ESPN's Linda Cohn. Tortorella, who will return to coaching the Columbus Blue Jackets after this year's World Cup, has a son who's an Army Ranger serving in the Middle East, CBS Sports reports. Serving in the military "by far dwarfs what we do," but "with my son over there—this might sound selfish—I want to team up with him and help my country. I get pretty caught up in representing my country," Tortorella tells the Columbus Dispatch. "There's nothing like it." The World Cup takes place in Toronto from Sept. 17 to Oct. 1, and CBS notes that the anthem protocol leaves little room for Colin Kaepernick-style pre-game protests: National anthems will not be played before World Cup games, though it's not clear what the protocol will be for Team USA's three pre-tournament exhibition games. (A US soccer star has joined Kaepernick in refusing to stand for the anthem.)