Nowhere else on earth would a country collectively mourn two silver medals at the Olympics. But this is Canada, and this is hockey. Add in current geopolitical realities and you can understand why Canada vs. USA had deep implications to the national psyche beyond just one game.
First, the Canadian women’s hockey team came up short against the United States. Beat by one player. Although the US hockey program seems to be growing faster than the Canadian one judging by the product on ice, the Canadians took the game to OT where they quickly lost.
Same story for the men.
The Canadian men had a few close calls leading up to the Gold medal game, indicative of other countries closing the gap on player development. The arch rivalry between Canada and the USA continued with the US coming on top.
Quick OT loss thanks to individual play from Connor McDavid who looked to be taking a page from the Oilers system of losing.
You can’t win clutch games when you miss not one, but TWO wide open nets during regular play. When margins are razor thin, and a hot goalie can steal a victory, it’s really anybody’s game to win or lose. The USA, badly outplayed for most of the game, just needed to hang around and capitalize on the few mistakes when they came. And they did. And they won.
It’s a bitter pill made worse by the rapist pedophile felon in the White House who used the victory to gloat like a petulant child in junior high who won his first Div 4 league medal.
But there was a deeper story apart from the losses. The reckoning the men’s team catalyzed by throwing the women under the bus and accepting the White House invite to begin with.
Hockey players are dumb as rocks. Professional players largely have their high school diplomas and that’s it. You can’t expect players to understand geopolitical realities. But you can expect them to be somewhat aware of the cultural moment. Typical to American hockey players–they didn’t. And now the league in general, and hockey culture at large, is being put through the ringer, as it should.
Let’s be real here. Hockey culture is dominated by rapey men and the Canadians are not really any different than the buffoonery exhibited by the American men’s team. The backlash connected to aligning with Republicans not only alienates Canadians, but it’s also pushing women out of the game. Which honestly I think is great. The NHL is one of the least innovative professional sports leagues around. It doesn’t like change because the old white men running the programs prefer to preserve old ways than make choices to progress.
Put it this way. Hockey has always been for rich white boys. That’s now aligning to the values Republican/Conservative political ideology represents. Now, a lot of fans are pulling the plug.
So we’ll see what viewership looks like in the NHL for this year and next. I don’t foresee a notable increase. Follow the money as they say. But I wonder of the PWHL has a nice uptick in visibility after this whole debacle?