Canada’s defeat at the Olympics leads to some uncomfortable questions and reignites debate about hockey’s ultimate prize, says columnist
Fresh off the finishing touches to a mirthful piece for this space — lacking only the numeric margin of Team Canada’s victory — I headed off to bed Saturday night eagerly anticipating Sunday morning’s gold medal hockey game.
I’d had a few beers while re-watching Team USA’s semi-final win versus Slovakia, envisioning the Milano ice surface strewn with American sentries in the aftermath of Tom Wilson’s bunker-buster hits. Belligerently, I shouted “Hey, Charlie McAvoy, how’s that for a scrum?!”
So stressed was I during Friday’s semis, I consciously came to terms with a Sweden-Finland final, quite content to have Canada bash the U.S. for bronze. After all, those Scandinavians (I’ve been married to a Finn 40 years ) are industrious, amicable, and, hard-working chaps.
To this, I chuckled audibly, recalling a Flintstones episode with a pair of Swedes introducing themselves to Fred, “I am Sven, he is Ollie,” as I added good-naturedly, “Yo, I am Mikko, so is he,” the Finlander’s response.
Clearly, I was wound tight, fretting through the Olympics’ two-week duration, though more accurately, since the fireworks of last February’s 4 Nations Face-Off. Team Canada versus Team U.S.A. was a hockey game that just had to be played.
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At noon on Sunday, I was mildly hungover and miserably depressed. While the echo of the exuberant “A-R-D! A-R-D!” chants for Canadian women’s netminder, Ann-Renee Desbiens, had faded, Canadian men’s coach Jon Cooper’s “discussion in the room that this not be Sid’s last game,” has not.
Two gold medal losses, both at hockey, each to the U.S.
No matter.
It’s our game! We’re the best at it!.
Right?
While I found that edit-oriented “DELETE” key to be bluntly efficient, how that auto-correct from “colour” and “favour,” to the Americans’ “color” and “favor,” did rankle.
For 35 years I had been clinging to the notion that the Stanley Cup — no international tourney of any ilk — was this sport’s penultimate prize. My grip firmed during our victory in the ’91 Canada Cup, when, moments after being named tournament MVP, with microphones thrust in his still sweat-streaming face, Canadian netminder, Bill Ranford, stated matter-of-factly, “It’s not the Stanley Cup, but, …” decisively ending any debate.
Now, that quandary — Is an Olympic championship now hockey’s gold standard? — has arisen once again, albeit from the perspective of another millennium,
The calibre of the Milano Olympics hockey was sensational, indeed. With pucks pinging and zing-singing off the goalposts, like cowboys’ bullets off rocks, in any good western, I wondered whether they were wider in International Ice Hockey Federation rules, and, was it just me, or were there no whistles? Such was the high-flying, amped-up pace of the play, with tension dialed doubly due to that excruciating, one-and-done format.
However great the games were, I do have a quarrel with the rampant claims of “the greatest ever played!”
Consider how awful was Team Canada’s opening shift. Had this bout been a boxing match, Canada’s top trio of Connor McDavid between Nathan Mackinnon and Macklin Celebrini, would’ve been mandated a standing-eight.
The 42-28 shots on goal, favoured Canada, but flattered us more. At five-on-five, the Americans were plainly better, exiting their zone effectively via short, crisp passes interchanged within tightly-triangled, forward-moving troikas.
Conversely, too many of Canada’s breakouts seemed predicated on flip passes high up the middle, alley-oops, and hail Marys to boot. Furthermore, what of the dozen bobbled pucks, flubbed passes, and mis-fired shots? Even stalwart Cale Makar seemed bewildered.
Peculiar was the frequency of Team U.S.A.’s icings, though firm was their faith in their defence, in their goalie, Connor Hellebuyck, and especially in their face-off proficiency. These icings were neither rooted in fatigue nor desperation, proving tactically sound, allowing the game clock to be run down.
True enough, Hellebuyck was stellar, but, Canada’s Devon Toews and MacKinnon both missed wide-yawning, open nets. Less consequential, yet somehow more outrageous, was that blatantly missed, too-many-men, penalty call. May the vetting of referees for France 2030, demand a demonstrable command of counting to six.
Beyond the prairie fire of despair, blazing across the land, there’s sure to be dozens of dissections and diatribes, amidst autopsies and analytics.
Alas, such critiques and questions may reveal stands of trees rooted in a worrisome angst that mask the forest of Canada’s waning hockey supremacy. It’s been hemorrhaging for years, with infrequent contests like these Olympics to confirm it. Keep in mind, false was the assurance garnered from Canada’s 4 Nations win. The prevailing sentiment there was not victory, but, flat-out relief.
Underpinning all of this is simply not just the vast disparity in our populations, but, in conjunction with Americans’ participation in the sport soaring, while in Canada sign-ups are sagging, it’s altogether telling. World Junior Hockey championships are leading indicators of Olympic success; the Americans have won gold in three of the past five tournaments.
Uncomfortable factors.
Were Sunday’s matchup just the first game of a best-of-seven series — the understood standard of measure for which team’s best — emotions aside, in a high-stakes bet, where lies your wager?
While one winces, one might wonder, is Jack Eichel — 10 years removed from being drafted a distant second to the more highly-skilled Connor McDavid — now, the better hockey player? No, but suddenly it’s not entirely an unreasonable supposition. And now wallowing, mightn’t Jordan Binnington have handled Jack Hughes’ overtime shot?
Global warming is not the culprit; Canada’s backyard rinks are not melting, it’s just that too many of them lie quiet and empty. No matter, do not some of today’s best players hail from America’s southwest desert, with fewer from Vermillion Bay and Val d’Or? Is any of Michigan, Massachusetts, or maybe Minnesota, the new Kirkland Lake?
Uncomfortable questions.
The painting pictured above — Hockey on the Exploits River, Newfoundland, circa 1945 — is nostalgic and quaint, but, unfortunately, applicable today, it ain’t.
A quotation attributed to Brooklyn-born, legendary Green Bay Packers coach, Vince Lombardi: “It is hard to shake off a suspicion that our national preoccupation with winning leads to many excesses.” Among many more, and, much greater concerns, images of U.S. women’s hockey player, Abbey ‘Drop-Quick’ Murphy’s antics, do come to mind.
Tariffs and tirades … economic upheaval; nations’ sovereignties threatened; Venezuela; Greenland; Iran; “I.C.E” breaching the St. Lawrence; and, that matter of the 51st state.
Anyone still comfortable with being uncomfortable?
Olympic hockey players have forever been draped in capes replicating their homeland’s colours, but, only now have they completely crystallized into nation states’ flags, just as the distinction between opponent and enemy has now blurred.
Just a hockey game?
In some manner … maybe, but, in all, no way.
John Epstein is a former, 25-year Orillia business owner who left southern Ontario for the north years ago, and has never been back. He is now a freelance writer, who can be reached at [email protected]