Should he decide to play, Shane Doan will likely relish a smaller off-ice role with Team Canada at next month's IIHF World Hockey Championship than the one foisted upon him last year.

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"Knowing his character, if he wants to play, he's not going to let that stand in his way," Team Canada general manager Steve Yzerman told reporters during a conference call on Tuesday. "I think it was proven last year that the attention brought on the situation was far greater than it deserved."

The "situation" drew headlines ahead of last year's tournament in Moscow and cast Doan as the central character in one of the stranger chapters in Canada's history of linguistic tension, when allegations that he hurled an ethnic slur at an NHL linesman during a 2005 game prompted two lawsuits and became a political hot potato in the House of Commons.

"I support him fully, Hockey Canada supports him fully, (Hockey Canada president) Bob Nicholson supports him fully and I think the majority of Canadians supported him," said Yzerman, who added that he hadn't spoken to Doan about playing for Team Canada, but intended to.

With election fever running high last spring, all political parties tried to make hay out of the Doan case which reached its peak on May 3, when Hockey Canada officials were summoned to Ottawa to defend their choice of Doan as team Canada's captain. A day later, Doan scored a hat trick in leading Canada to a win over Belarus. He was one of the top performers on a team that went undefeated en route to the championship, scoring five goals and five assists in nine games.

The allegations that Doan - captain of the Phoenix Coyotes and widely regarded as one of the NHL's most-respected players - insulted a francophone linesman at the end of a game in Montreal were later proven groundless.

Although the Coyotes made progress this season under head coach Wayne Gretzky, they sat 12th in the NHL's Western Conference entering play Tuesday and will miss the playoffs for a fifth straight season.

Doan, 30, has played in 77 of the Coyotes' 79 games this season, totalling 28 goals and 49 assists for a team-high 77 points.

The world championship is being staged in Canada for the first time, running May 2-18 in Halifax and Quebec City.